can medical Cannabis help autistic kids

Cannabis treatment for teenage patients with autism is well-tolerated, safe and effective option to relieve symptoms including seizures, tics, depression, restlessness, researchers say. The study found that after six months of treatment, 30 per cent of patients reported significant improvement, 53.7 per cent reported moderate improvement and only 15 per cent had slight or no change.

"Overall, more than 80 per cent of the parents reported significant or moderate improvement in their child," said co-author Lihi Bar-Lev Schleider from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel.

Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is an extensive developmental disorder that is expressed in almost all dimensions of the child's development. It is now common to refer to this disorder as a wide range of Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD) in which there are various manifestations and symptoms.

For the study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, the team analysed the data prospectively collected as part of the treatment programme of 188 ASD patients treated with medical cannabis between 2015 and 2017.

The treatment in the majority of the patients was based on cannabis oil containing 30 per cent cannabidiol oil (CBD) and 1.5 per cent tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). Good quality of life was reported by 31.3 per cent of patients prior to treatment initiation. At six months, good quality of life more than doubled for 66.8 per cent.

Positive mood was reported by 42 per cent before treatment and 63.5 after six months.

"While this study suggests that cannabis treatment is safe and can improve ASD symptoms and improve ASD patients' quality of life, we believe that double-blind placebo-controlled trials are crucial for a better understanding..." said co-author Victor Novack from the varsity.

The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is doing research on the medicinal use of cannabis for treating diseases like cancer, epilepsy and sickle cell anaemia.

In the US, medical marijuana is legal in 30 states, though the laws governing what is permitted vary from state to state, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures

are you at the risk of prediabetes what it is who does it effects and symptoms

Everyone is definitely aware of diabetes – the disease that occurs when insulin – the hormone responsible for breaking down sugar is not secreted by the pancreas and can cause a rise in the blood sugar levels. However, few people know about prediabetes.

Though the term 'prediabetes' gives it away, here is everything you need to know about it – what it is, how common it is, what are the symptoms, risk factors and other complications associated with prediabetes.

What is prediabetes?
Prediabetes is like a warning sign that you are on the verge of getting diabetes. It means that your blood sugar is above normal but still not in the category of diabetes. Also called borderline diabetes, prediabetes can be treated as an alarm bell to ensure that you start controlling your blood sugar before it is too late.


How common is prediabetes?
According to The Week, in 2016, the number of Indians with prediabetes were calculated to be 80 million. Similarly, 86 million Americans are also prediabetic. Therefore, if you go by that number, prediabetes is pretty common. Another thing to note with that number is that prediabetes is only diagnosed when people are tested for it – so there may be more people who have the condition but are still ignorant about it and not a part of this count.

What are the symptoms of prediabetes?
Prediabetes has no signs and symptoms which may be the reason many people do not find out about having the condition. However, when prediabetes starts to convert into type 2 diabetes, your body can show symptoms like darkened skin, increased thirst, frequent urination and fatigue among other Type 2 diabetes symptoms.

What could lead to prediabetes?
While there are no set of symptoms that you may see if you are prediabetic, some lifestyle activities and diet practices can lead to prediabetes and increase the risk you are at. These include obesity, lack of activity and exercise, age, heredity of diabetes, etc. Make sure you get yourself tested if you feel you are at risk so that early diagnosis can help you prevent type 2 diabetes.

fruits vegetables intake may lower Death risk in dialysis patients

A higher consumption of fruits and vegetables may be associated with a lower risk of premature death in patients undergoing hemodialysis, finds a new study. Kidney failure patients on hemodialysis are often discouraged from this type of diet due to its potential to cause a build-up of potassium.

The study showed that although a higher fruit and vegetable intake is linked with lower cardiovascular population, its higher consumption is associated with lower all-cause and non-cardiovascular death in the hemodialysis population as well.

For the study, the researchers recruited 8,078 hemodialysis patients.

The findings, published in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN), showed that patients who had less than 10 servings of combined fruits and vegetables per week, had 10 per cent lower risks of death from any cause and 12 per cent lower risks of deaths from non-cardiovascular causes.

In addition, those who had more than 10 servings had a 20 per cent lower risks of death from any cause and 23 per cent lower risks of deaths from non-cardiovascular causes.

"These findings suggest that well-meaning guidance to limit fruit and vegetable intake to prevent higher dietary potassium load may deprive hemodialysis patients of the potential benefits of these foods. However, intervention trials of fruit and vegetable intake are needed to support dietary recommendations for hemodialysis patients," said Associate Professor Germaine Wong from the University of Sydney.

However, "future studies exploring the potential benefits of a whole dietary approach in the hemodialysis setting are also warranted and we aim to pursue them", noted lead researcher Giovanni Strippoli, Professor from the varsity

premature to say social media use leads to depression

Use of social media does not necessarily cause depressive symptoms later in adolescents and young adults, according to recent research. The study, however, showed that relatively higher depressive symptoms resulted due to more social media use later only among adolescent girls.

The latest study stands in contrast to recent claims that suggests teenagers' use of social media could lead to depression.

"You have to follow the same people over time in order to draw the conclusion that social media use predicts greater depressive symptoms. By using two large longitudinal samples, we were able to empirically test that assumption," said lead author Taylor Heffer from the Brock University in Canada.

For the study, the team surveyed 594 adolescents and 1,132 college undergraduates.

The results, published in Clinical Psychological Science, showed that social media use did not predict depressive symptoms later among adolescents or college undergraduates; rather, greater depressive symptoms predicted more social media use over time, but only among adolescent girls.

"This finding contrasts with the idea that people who use a lot of social media become more depressed over time. Instead, adolescent girls who are feeling down may turn to social media to try and make themselves feel better," said Heffer.

Overall, the research suggests that the fear surrounding social media use and its impact on mental health may be premature."When parents read media headlines such as 'Facebook Depression', there is an inherent assumption that social media use leads to depression," added Heffer.

In addition, different groups of people use social media for different reasons including making social comparisons or while feeling down. While another group of people may use it for more positive reasons, such as keeping in contact with friends, according to the study.

Examining the role that these differences play will help clarify the ways in which social media interacts with mental health, with implications for parents, policymakers, and healthcare professionals alike, the study noted

surgery kills 2.1 million in low, middle income Nation :lancet

Every year 2.1 million people in the low and middle income countries die within 30 days post surgery, reveals a new study published in The Lancet. Researchers at the University of Birmingham say that globally the number of post-operative deaths is 4.2 million -- at least 7.7 per cent of these deaths occur within 30 days of surgery while 2.97 million die each year as a result of HIV, TB or malaria. 

Providing operations for all patients who need them would increase the number of global post-operative deaths to 6.1 million.

"Surgery has been the 'neglected stepchild' of global health and has received a fraction of the investment put into treating infectious diseases such as malaria," said Dmitri Nepogodiev, Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham.

"To avoid millions more dying after surgery, a planned expansion of access to surgery must be complemented by investment into improving the quality of surgery around the world," he added. Post surgery deaths are greater in number than what is attributed to any other cause of death globally, except ischaemic heart disease and stroke.

At present, around 4.8 billion people worldwide lack timely access to safe and affordable surgery and it is estimated that there is an annual unmet need for 143 million procedures in low- and middle-income countries, the report revealed.

"Surgery saves lives and can transform patients' quality of life, but this study shows that a large number of patients die in the immediate post-operative period," said Professor Dion Morton, Barling Chair of Surgery at the varsity. "As efforts continue to increase access to surgery around the world, there is also an urgent need for research to improve the quality and safety post-surgery." 

new e commerce rules force Amazon to remove several products

E-commerce rules that went into effect in India on Friday caused widespread disruption for Amazon.com, forcing it to take down an array of items from its India website including Echo speakers, batteries and floor cleaners.

Two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said the products began to disappear from the Amazon India site late on Thursday as it began complying with the revised norms before a midnight deadline.

"The company has no choice, they are fulfilling a compliance requirement ... customers will suffer," said one of the sources.

In December, India modified foreign direct investment (FDI) rules for its burgeoning e-commerce sector, which has drawn major bets from not only Amazon.com but also the likes of Walmart Inc, which last year bought a majority stake in homegrown e-commerce player Flipkart.

India's new e-commerce investment rules bar online retailers from selling products via vendors in which they have an equity interest, and also from making deals with sellers to sell exclusively on their platforms.

By Thursday, numerous items sold by vendors such as Cloudtail, in which Amazon holds an indirect equity stake, were no longer available on the Amazon India site.

Clothing from Indian department store chain Shopper's Stop was also no longer available, as Amazon owns 5 per cent of the company.

Amazon's own range of Echo speakers, its Presto-branded home cleaning goods and other Amazon Basics products such as chargers and batteries had also vanished from the website.

Both Amazon and Walmart had lobbied against the latest rules and pushed for a delay in their implementation, but India late on Thursday said the deadline stood.

The situation in India is "a bit fluid right now," but the country remains a good long-term opportunity, Amazon Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky said on a conference call with reporters following its fourth-quarter earnings announcement.

The company's main goal is to minimize the impact of the new e-commerce rules on customers and sellers, he added.

Growth Driver

The US government has also urged India to protect the investments of the two American retailers, Reuters reported last week.

Both companies have bet heavily on India being a big growth driver: Amazon has committed to investing $5.5 billion there, while Walmart last year spent $16 billion on Flipkart.

But Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration is seen as keen to appease small traders in the run-up to a general election due by May.

Many small traders say the e-commerce giants use their buying power and control over inventory from affiliated vendors to create an unfair marketplace where they can offer deep discounts on some products. Such arrangements will be barred under the new policy.

Industry sources have said the new rules will force the big e-sellers to change their business structures and will raise compliance costs.

Amazon India told Reuters it was "committed to remaining compliant to all the laws of the land", adding that all sellers make their own independent decisions of what to list and when.

Exclusive deals with sellers will be discontinued, the two sources said.

It is unclear how long the disruption will last. Would-be buyers of Echo speakers on Amazon India saw a message reading: "We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock."

The impact of the changes on Flipkart was not clear. It did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a letter to India's industries department in January, Chief Executive Kalyan Krishnamurthy said the rules required Flipkart to assess "all elements" of its business operations and risked causing "significant customer disruption

top update which is why you are still addicted to pubg mobile Battle Royale game

PUBG Mobile has unleashed a wave of online gaming craziness like never before, ever since it was launched some 10 odd months back and the online game shows no signs of slowing down. The Battle Royale game has been adopted by millions of players already - both by the hardcore gaming community and the non-hardcore community alike. If you are one of those players, then you know the importance of Winner Winner Chicken Dinner.

For those who still do not know what PUBG Mobile is, the game is played by players in groups of four (squad), two (duo), and single player (solo) who are air-dropped on an island where they are able to collect a host of equipment like guns, backpacks, med-kits, and grenades which players can loot or find by going to houses and various other places, or killing rival players and taking their loot.

The end result of the game is to survive. You survive by running, hiding, jumping, crawling, shooting, fragging, and most of all, playing smartly so that you don't get killed by the blue zone closing in, or some other player.

Sensor Tower in its October 2018 report stated that PUBG Mobile was one of the highest downloaded game on Apple's App Store. The game is also one of the top 5 most downloaded apps in the Google Play Store in India right now.

Now PUBG Mobile has already released the latest beta version of the 0.11.0 update where players will face zombies and various monster bosses from the Capcom game Resident Evil 2. Tencent and Capcom have come together to give users experience of playing the Battle Royale game when there are zombies coming at you from all directions, in the dark, and the fog.

The latest beta update is available online and is readily playable but you have to make two separate accounts, one will be your standard account, while the beta account will be a different account. Making two separate accounts is easy if you have two PUBG Mobile smartphones. There are a number of videos published online explaining that.

The upcoming update will be bringing the Resident Evil 2 mode, Sanhok available in Arcade - Quick Match. The damage stacking feature outside of the safe zone has been brought from PC to PUBG Mobile. Players will incur more damage depending on how far away they are from the safe zone.

There have been made various air raid adjustments - in Sanhok and Vikendi maps, the size of the air raid area will be reduced alongside the safe zone. There will be Resident Evil 2 main menu theme and music added to the platform. Additionally, there will also be Moonlight weather added to Vikendi Map on PUBG Mobile. Personal Spaces will also display player information and Connections in PUBG Mobile. You can Select a friend as ‘Partner’ with Synergy 400 or above in order to stand by your side in your Space. The upcoming 0.11.0 update also brings the Push-to-talk chat in PUBG Mobile matches.

Facebook at 15 :a titan with grown up woes

Fifteen years after its founding, Facebook has made strides toward Mark Zuckerberg's goal of connecting the world. But it has also made some huge missteps that have turned some of its cheerleaders into vocal detractors.

The online social network founded on February 4, 2004, in Zuckerberg's Harvard University dorm heads into adolescence with the grown-up burdens of being held accountable for its behaviour and playing in a world where people may not always have the purest intentions.

Facebook has seen unprecedented success by amassing more than 2.3 billion people worldwide who actively use the platform to share updates, obtain information and connect with new people.

But it has also been battered by criticism that it was more focused on growth than protecting users or thwarting deception, bullying and harassment. "This is a very powerful company that has created an addictive product that many people are dependent on," said author and analyst Josh Bernoff.

"Because of that, there is tremendous responsibility." Facebook was hammered last year by a series of scandals over data protection and privacy and concerns that the leading social network had been manipulated by foreign interests for political purposes.

It has faced increasing scrutiny on how it collects vast amounts of personal data from users, and how it shares that information with partners to deliver targeted advertising.

 'Confronting maturity'

"After the challenges of 2018, it is no longer lauded for its innovation. It is scrutinized and criticized for its every move," eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson said.

"Facebook at age 15 is confronting maturity. It's no longer just an upstart company." Facebook is second only to colossus Google in worldwide digital ad revenue and is the owner of some of the most widely used smartphone apps.

The platform is behind free, stand-alone smartphone apps Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp, each of which has more than a billion users.

Zuckerberg, 34, recently renewed his defence of the social network's business model, adamant that Facebook did not sell user data. He maintained that the social network makes money from targeting ads based on what it learns about users, keeping the service free.

Bernoff saw Zuckerberg's latest defence as contending that Facebook is here to help people, and thus can be trusted. "We have learned in capitalism that when companies get a lot of power and say they are doing what is best for you, we need to scrutinize them more," Bernoff said.

If history is an indicator, then Facebook's true threat could be a lifestyle shift to a different way of interacting with computers. Bernoff questioned whether Facebook was positioning itself for the rise of smart speakers using the likes of Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa.

"The future is going to be increasingly related to voice, and to companies and individuals interacting through artificially intelligent agents," Bernoff said. "As people change the way they interact with the world, there is no guarantee Facebook will have a place there."

He doubted whether people would turn away from Facebook due to trust issues, arguing that consumers are willing to trade a huge amount of data for a modicum of convenience. Despite the wave of scandals, Facebook took in a record $22 billion profit for 2018 as revenues surged to $55 billion.

Motivated trolls

Facebook has acknowledged it needs to do more to restore trust and ferret out misinformation and abuse. It now has more than 30,000 people "working on safety" and invests billions of dollars in security, according to Zuckerberg.

"The trolls have a financial incentive to pervert the way Facebook works, and it is costly for Facebook to prevent that," Bernoff said. And while Zuckerberg has connected the developed world, there is a lot of the planet he has yet to get onto the social network.

According to eMarketer, 46.7 per cent of internet users, or slightly more than 23 per cent of the world's total population, use the core Facebook app any given month. "Facebook will need to make international growth a bigger priority this year and in the coming years," Williamson said.

Facebook also needs to be a leader in undermining manipulation and fake news, protecting user data and keeping up with consumers' changing communications preferences, according to the analyst. Zuckerberg's personal goal for 2019 is to convene a series of public forums on how technology can better serve society.

"I'm going to put myself out there more than I've been comfortable with and engage more in some of these debates about the future, the tradeoffs we face, and where we want to go," Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post outlining his goals

Facebook Twitter remove hundreds of malicious accounts

Facebook and Twitter have taken down multiple Pages, groups and accounts from Iran, Russia, Bangladesh and Venezuela that engaged in coordinated inauthentic behaviour on their platforms. Facebook removed 783 pages, groups and accounts that it said was directed from Iran, in some cases repurposing Iranian state media content, and engaged in coordinated inauthentic behaviour targeting people across the world, more heavily in the Middle East and South Asia.

"About 2 million accounts followed at least one of these Pages on Facebook, about 1,600 accounts joined at least one of these groups, and more than 254,000 accounts followed at least one of these Instagram accounts," Nathaniel Gleicher, Head of Cybersecurity Policy said in a blog post late Thursday.

Some of the activities on these accounts date back to 2010.

"Less than $30,000 in spending for ads on Facebook and Instagram paid for primarily in US dollars, UK pounds, Canadian dollars, and euros. We have not completed our review of the organic content coming from these accounts," said Facebook.

The suspected Pages hosted eight events. "Up to 210 people expressed interest in at least one of these events. We cannot confirm whether any of these events actually occurred," said Gleicher.

According to Yoel Roth, Head of Site Integrity at Twitter, they identified and suspended a very small number of accounts originating from Bangladesh for engaging in coordinated platform manipulation."The Tweets were entirely in Bengali and focused on regional political themes," he wrote in a separate blog post.

Twitter also identified and suspended 2,617 additional malicious originated in Iran.Twitter has suspended a total of 3,843 accounts from Russia.

"Our ongoing efforts have uncovered an additional 418 accounts. We cannot render definitive attribution to the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) for these accounts, although most appear to originate in Russia," said Twitter. It also said it removed 764 accounts located in Venezuela, where there was major political upheaval.

"Additionally, we have removed 1,196 accounts located in Venezuela which appear to be engaged in a state-backed influence campaign targeting domestic audiences," said the micro-blogging platform

Facebook memes in 2016 America presidential polls had no gender stereotypes

Facebook political memes of US President Donald Trump in the 2016 election focussed more on his hairstyle and facial expressions, while those of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was more centred on the email scandal and her relationships -- a contrast to historical gender stereotypes in politics, a study has found.

Typically, the coverage of male political candidates focuses on their policy and history in office, while coverage of females focuses more on their personality and appearance as a frame for their ability to hold political office in terms of their roles of mothers and wives.

The study, published in the journal Social Media + Society, found that Trump Facebook page profile photos questioned his physical features -- such as hairstyle and skin tone -- as well as political and leadership skills. On the other hand, Clinton-themed pages often included the idea that she is crooked and out-of-touch with average citizens.

Profile photos for Clinton meme pages also were more likely to emphasise the email scandal, Clinton's wealth and her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

"This study is one of the first to offer a glimpse at the type of Facebook pages that emerged during the political race, profile photos use, the popularity of the pages and an examination of how citizens used humour during the 2016 election," said lead researcher Mia Moody-Ramirez, Professor at Baylor University.

"With the 2020 presidential election on the horizon, it is important to understand the impact of memes, which are easy to create and share on social media platforms."The study examined an equal number of Clinton and Trump-themed pages for a sample of 106 pages -- 53 for each politician.

In the Facebook pages that were positive, Trump was depicted as patriotic; Clinton was depicted as a leader. But more commonly, pages for both were negative. When it came to tone in the 106 presidential election Facebook-meme pages, 44 were negative, 37 were positive and the remaining 25 were neutral

NASA curiosity finds mars rocks more porous than expected

Researchers have used non-science engineering data from NASA's Curiosity rover to find Mars rocks less compacted and more porous than expected, according to researchers. A team of researchers from the Arizona State University (ASU), including a graduate student, measured the density of rock layers in the 154-km-wide Gale Crater on Mars, Xinhua news agency reported.

The discovery gives scientists a novel technique to use in the future as the rover continues its trek across the crater and up Mount Sharp, a 4.8-km-high mountain in its centre, according to the researchers.

"What we were able to do is measure the bulk density of the material in Gale Crater," said Travis Gabriel, the graduate student at the ASU. He worked on computing what the grain density should be for the rocks and ancient lake bed sediments the rover has been driving over.

"Working from the rocks' mineral abundances as determined by the Chemistry and Mineralogy instrument, we estimated a grain density of 2,810 kg per cubic metre," he said."However, the bulk density that came out of our study is a lot less, 1,680 kg per cubic metre."

The much lower figure shows that the rocks have a reduced density most likely resulting from the rocks being more porous, according to the research published in the journal Science.

Planetary scientists have long debated the origin of Mount Sharp. The new findings suggest Mount Sharp's lower layers have been compacted by only one to two km of material, much less than if the crater had been completely filled. Curiosity landed near Mount Sharp in the Gale Crater on Mars in August 2012 and reached the base of the mountain in 2014

10 facts about first woman astronaut in India

10 facts about Kalpana Chawla's life

Kalpana Chawla was born in Haryana's Karnal on March 17, 1962.

She was nicknamed as Manto by her parents.

As a child, Chawla liked writing fiction and drawing pictures of aeroplanes.

She flew to the US to obtain Master’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas in Arlington. Later, she settled in the US and became a citizen.

After finishing her PhD in 1991, she applied for NASA Astronaut Corps where she kick-started her space journey.

She conducted her first flight in 1997 as a primary robotic arm operator and mission specialist.

On her second space mission in 2003, Kalpana Chawla along with other six crew members died when the Space Shuttle disintegrated over Texas and Louisiana.

 To honour her bravery and achievements, the first satellite of Met-Sat series, "MetSat-1" launched by India was renamed "Kalpana-1.

Scholarships, Universities and Institutions in India and the United States have also been named in her honour.

Kalpana Chawla was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.

this malware can steal passwords ,credit card info in chrome safari

Global cybersecurity company Palo Alto Networks has discovered a malware that is capable of stealing saved usernames and passwords in Google Chrome, saved credit card credentials in Chrome and iPhones text messages if backed up to a Mac.

The malware named CookieMiner is capable of stealing browser cookies associated with mainstream cryptocurrency exchanges and wallet service websites visited by the victims, said Unit 42, an arm of Palo Alto Networks. It steals saved passwords in Chrome and iPhone text messages from iTunes backups on the tethered Mac.

"By leveraging the combination of stolen login credentials, web cookies and SMS data, based on past attacks like this, we believe the bad actors could bypass multi-factor authentication for these sites," the researchers noted. If successful, the attackers would have full access to the victim's exchange account and/or wallet and be able to use those funds as if they were the user themselves.

The malware also configures the system to load coin-mining software on the system.

Web cookies are widely used for authentication. Once a user logs into a website, its cookies are stored for the web server to know the login status. If the cookies are stolen, the attacker could potentially sign into the website to use the victim's account.

"Stealing cookies is an important step to bypass login anomaly detection. If only the username and password are stolen and used by a bad actor, the website may issue an alert or request additional authentication for a new login," said Unit 42 in a blog post on Thursday.

However, if an authentication cookie is also provided along with the user name and password, the website might believe the session is associated with a previously authenticated system host and not issue an alert or request additional authentication methods.

Most modern cryptocurrency exchanges and online wallet services have multi-factor authentication.CookieMiner tries to navigate past the authentication process by stealing a combination of the login credentials, text messages and web cookies.

"If the bad actors successfully enter the websites using the victim's identity, they could perform fund withdrawals," said the researchers.

Apple's Safari is not the only web browser targeted. Google Chrome also attracts the threat actors' attention due to its popularity."Cryptocurrency owners should keep an eye on their security settings and digital assets to prevent compromise and leakage," the report suggested