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Researchers Identify New Genes Linked With Schizophrenia Risk in First-of-Its-Kind Study

Researchers have made an important discovery about the causes of schizophrenia, a disease related to dementia or fragmented mentality.   Researchers have identified two genes associated with the disease as well as a third gene that carries the risk of schizophrenia and autism. Scientists involved in this research believes, this discovery can go a long way in finding a cure for these kind of diseases. Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine found that these harmful genes are almost the same in every ethnic or racial group. The findings of this research were published in Nature Genetics . According to an estimate, about one percent of people worldwide suffering from schizophrenia. The scientists identified two risky genes, SRRM2 and AKAP11, based on a comparative analysis of gene sequencing from individuals with schizophrenia and healthy individuals. It compared a dataset of 35,828 patients with schizophrenia to 107,877 healthy or control groups and included a v...
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Space Probe Reveals Recrets of ‘Restless’ Milky Way


A few days ago, the European Space Agency (ESA) released important data obtained from the Gaia spacecraft, which can enhance the most accurate map of our galaxy.

In these data from Gaia, important information about 2 billion stars of our galaxy is hidden.

Gaia is located at the second Lagrange point, about 15,00,000 kilometers from Earth. This spacecraft is studying the vast corners of the Milky Way.

The new data mainly includes information about stellar positions, distances, motion in the sky, colors of celestial bodies, etc.

In addition, the new data may provide insight into strange starquakes, stellar DNA and asymmetric motions. The mission of the spacecraft is to produce an accurate and multidimensional map of our galaxy.

Accurate maps of the Milky Way allow astronomers to better understand the structure and evolution of our galaxy over billions of years, the life cycle of stars and our place in the universe.

The data sent by Gaia contains better details about about 2 billion stars. This includes information such as the chemical composition of stars, temperature, color, mass, age, speed (at which stars are moving away from us).

'Most of this information was revealed by newly released spectroscopy data, a technique in which starlight is broken down into its constituent colors (like a rainbow). 

The data also includes specific subsets of stars, such as changes in brightness over time' ESA said in a statement.

The data includes the largest catalog yet of binary stars, thousands of Solar System objects such as asteroids and planetary moons, and millions of galaxies and quasars outside the Milky Way.

The Gaia spacecraft observed the starquake. Small movements on the surface of a star that cause a change in the size of the stars are known as starquakes.

'Starquakes tell us a lot about stars, especially about their inner workings. 

Gaia is opening a gold mine for 'asteroids' of massive stars," Connie Aerts of KU Leuven in Belgium, who is a member of the Gaia Collaboration, said in a statement.

The Gaia probe, launched in 2014, also examined the DNA of stars to track their journey through space. 

'What the stars are made of can tell us something about their birthplace and their later journey, and therefore about the history of the Milky Way.

With the recent data release, Gaia is revealing the largest ever chemical map of the Milky Way with 3D motion from our solar neighborhood to smaller galaxies around us, ESA said in a statement.

Gaia has previously released two sets of data in 2016 and 2018 and a subset of the third data set in 2020. 

These data releases include stellar positions, distances, motion across the sky, and color information, and others. The mission was first launched in the year 2013.

The spacecraft maps not only the stars in our galaxy, but also what lies between the stars, the interstellar medium, which consists mostly of dust and gas.

The spacecraft is providing us with the details to create a 3D map of dust in the Milky Way, identify how much of a star is blocked by dust, and detect mysterious macromolecules in the gas.
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