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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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The Terrible Cold of Mars Frozen a Sensor of Ingenuity Helicopter

The Ingenuity helicopter, which has become the first craft to conduct a powered flight to another planet (Mars), is shivering in the harsh Martian winter.

With changing conditions, the spacecraft, which was only designed for a handful of flights during the spring, is facing a new challenge.

As the temperature drops, the quadcopter is being turned off at night to rest. However, it has faced new disadvantages.

As the team was working to recommend the spacecraft, they recognized that one of the helicopter's navigation sensors, called the inclinometer, had suddenly stopped working.

While that sounds like a big deal, engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which has flown it on Mars, have assured it isn't.

"This does not necessarily mean the end of our flight to Mars," the team said in a blog update. 

According to NASA, the weather is changing in the Jezero crater, where the Perseverance rover is working.

This has changed in winter and the increased amount of dust in the atmosphere, along with lower daytime temperatures and shorter days, is affecting the energy budget for planetary probes.

"In its new winter operating paradigm, Ingenuity is effectively shutting down during the night, letting its internal temperature drop, and letting the onboard electronics reset.

This new mode of operation poses risks to Ingenuity's electronic components, many of which are not designed to survive the temperatures they are exposed to at night," the helicopter team said.

The damaged sensor, the inclinometer, provides data that is processed by a set of algorithms implemented on Ingenuity's navigation computer that supports the quadcopter in its roll and pitch attitude.

The inclinometer consists of two accelerometers, whose sole purpose is to measure gravity before spin-up and takeoff. 

The direction of convective gravity is used to determine how the straightedge is oriented relative to the downward direction.

With the sensor damaged, Ingenuity's team plans to measure the data using an inertial measurement unit (IMU), which can be used to estimate the initial approach.

"We believe the IMU-based initial attitude estimate will allow us to fly safely and thus provide an acceptable fallback that will allow Ingenuity to resume flight" the JPL said in an official statement.

The team will send a patch command to Ingenuity's flight software.

That will insert a short code snippet intercepting the incoming garbage packets from the inclinometer and inject replacement packets constructed from the IMU data.

If all goes well, in the next few steps, the team hopes to finalize the uplinking and implement the software patch. 

After which activities will be rolled out to ensure that the new software is working as planned.
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