Features

Do you say website address or URL? Do you speak of graphic card or GPU? Of new hard disks or SSD? Do you say software programme or app? Do you have trouble dealing with your Apple ID? Are you familiar with OLED screens technology? Do you know what the word platform refers to in the world of technology? Do you know if you have a hardware or software firewall? Is your video Chromecast in line with the 3rd generation? How much do you know about digital biometric personal identification? Does your home network switch provide POE?

As we know, spoken languages evolve, but their speed of change is nothing compared to that of information technology (IT) lingo. Understandably, IT jargon keeps being updated as fast as technology itself, which says a lot about the subject. God only knows how fast it all goes.

The difficulty lies in the fact that to communicate with others, be it your friends, parents, children, colleagues or the IT tech support people, or simply to go shopping online, you have to be up to date. Otherwise you are at the risk of not being understood, in the best case, or to be the laughing stock of your peers, in the worst.

There was a time, in the 1980s and the 1990s, when learning the newly introduced computer terminology just once and forever was enough. Megabytes, floppy disks and baud rates were fashion terms back then. Once we entered the 21 first century, however, we discovered that all this had to be constantly updated, changed and replaced with newer terms. In other words your knowledge of whatever technical terminology was never static. There is a constant effort to make to know what terms are used in the IT world today, not yesterday – literally in some cases.

The first, major, and obvious change is that you hardly just say “computer” these days. Though the machines are still here, you would rather speak of IT. Indeed, computer is not only old but too vague. Besides, if we stick to the prime definition of computer, which is “an electronic digital device that has a processor, a few input-output ports, memory and some storage capacity”, then most electronics today are computers in their own right, or at least they feature a computer inside them, from home appliances to elevators and cars!

A few years ago people would say “I work in the computer field”. Today they have to specify if they are coders (programmers), if they provide technical support, deal with networks or with servers, do website design, do website development (definitely different from website design…), if they write apps for iOS or Android mobile devices, if they are Oracle database specialists, if they work in the augmented reality field... the list goes on and on.

Following the trend is not a choice, it is a must. If only to know what exactly is going on. Even – well, especially – Google search obeys IT fashion. I was looking for some information about dear old William Shakespeare last week. I started typing, letter after letter, as usual, “S”, “h”, “a”, “k”... and I immediately got “Shakira” as a first search result. Perhaps it just means that Shakira is a word that is now more searched than Shakespeare on the web, or perhaps it means something else… It is IT fashion again.

The good news is that to keep up with the fast pace is not so difficult. Thanks to IT itself, of course, and on the web you just have to be curious, to listen carefully, and then to search the web for an explanation of any new term you may have recently heard or seen. Reading is still the prime source for learning, and it applies rather well in this very case. Wikipedia is an excellent source to find updated technical terminology. Sometimes advertisers and manufacturers use newly-coined terms. Unless you happen to already know them, just google them and see what they mean. It is the little price to pay not to be left behind.

PARIS — Nearly half of all insect species worldwide are in rapid decline and a third could disappear altogether, according to a study warning of dire consequences for crop pollination and natural food chains.

“Unless we change our way of producing food, insects as a whole will go down the path of extinction in a few decades,” concluded the peer-reviewed study, which is set for publication in April.

The recent decline in bugs that fly, crawl, burrow and skitter across still water is part of a gathering “mass extinction”, only the sixth in the last half-billion years.

“We are witnessing the largest extinction event on Earth since the late Permian and Cretaceous periods,” the authors noted.

The Permian end-game 252 million years ago snuffed out more than 90 per cent of the planet’s life forms, while the abrupt finale of the Cretaceous 66 million years ago saw the demise of land dinosaurs.

“We estimate the current proportion of insect species in decline — 41 per cent — to be twice as high as that of vertebrates,” or animals with a backbone, Francisco Sanchez-Bayo of the University of Sydney and Kris Wyckhuys of the University of Queensland in Australia reported. 

“At present, a third of all insect species are threatened with extinction.”

An additional 1 per cent join their ranks every year, they estimated. Insect biomass — sheer collective weight — is declining annually by about 2.5 per cent worldwide. 

“Only decisive action can avert a catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems,” the authors cautioned. 

Restoring wilderness areas and a drastic reduction in the use of pesticides and chemical fertiliser are likely the best ways to slow the insect loss, they said.

‘Hardly any insects left’

The study, to be published in the journal “Biological Conservation”, pulled together data from more than 70 datasets from across the globe, some dating back more than a century.

By a large margin, habitat change — deforestation, urbanisation, conversion to farmland — emerged as the biggest cause of insect decline and extinction threat. 

Next was pollution and the widespread of use of pesticides in commercial agriculture.

The recent collapse, for example, of many bird species in France was traced to the use of insecticides on industrial crops such as wheat, barley, corn and wine grapes.

“There are hardly any insects left — that’s the number one problem,” said Vincent Bretagnolle, an ecologist at the Centre for Biological Studies.

Experts estimate that flying insects across Europe have declined 80 per cent on average, causing bird populations to drop by more than 400 million in three decades. 

Only a few species of insects — mainly in the tropics — are thought to have suffered due to climate change, while some in northern climes have expanded their range as temperatures warm. 

In the long run, however, scientists fear that global warming could become another major driver of insect demise. 

Up to now, rising concern about biodiversity loss has mostly focused on big mammals, birds and amphibians.

Dung beetles in deep

Insects comprise about two-thirds of all terrestrial species, and have been the foundation of key ecosystems since emerging almost 400 million years ago.

“The essential role that insects play as food items of many vertebrates is often forgotten,” the researchers said. 

Moles, hedgehogs, anteaters, lizards, amphibians, most bats, many birds and fish all feed on insects or depend on them for rearing their offspring.

Other insects filling the void left by declining species probably cannot compensate for the sharp drop in biomass, the study said.

Insects are also the world’s top pollinators — 75 per cent of 115 top global food crops depend on animal pollination, including cocoa, coffee, almonds and cherries.

One-in-six species of bees have gone regionally extinct somewhere in the world.

Dung beetles in the Mediterranean basin have also been hit particularly hard, with more than 60 per cent of species fading in numbers. 

The pace of insect decline appears to be the same in tropical and temperate climates, though there is far more data from North America and Europe than the rest of the world.

Britain has seen a measurable decline across 60 per cent of its large insect groups, or taxa, followed by North America (51 per cent) and Europe as a whole (44 per cent).

PARIS — An artificial intelligence (AI) programme developed in China that combs through test results, health records and even handwritten notes diagnosed childhood diseases as accurately as doctors, researchers said on Monday.

From the flu and asthma to life-threatening pneumonia and meningitis, the system consistently matched or out-performed primary care paediatricians, they reported in Nature Medicine.

Dozens of studies in recent months have detailed how AI is revolutionising the detection of diseases including cancers, genetic disorders and Alzheimer’s.

AI-based technology learns and improves in a way similar to humans, but has virtually unlimited capacity for data processing and storage. 

“I believe that it will be able to perform most of the jobs a doctor does,” senior author Kang Zhang, a researcher at the University of California, San Diego, told AFP.

“But AI will never replace a doctor,” he added, comparing the relationship to an autonomous car that remains under the supervision of a human driver. 

“It will simply allow doctors to do a better job in less time and at lower costs.”

The new technology, said Zhang, is the first in which AI absorbs unstructured data and “natural language” to imitate the process by which a physician figures out what is wrong with a patient.

“It can mimic a human paediatrician to interpret and integrate all types of medical data — patient complaints, medical history, blood and imaging tests — to make a diagnosis,” he said.

The system can be easily transferred to other languages and settings, he added.

By comparing hundreds of bits of information about a single patient with a vast store of acquired knowledge, the technology unearths links that previous statistical methods — and sometimes flesh-and-blood doctors — overlook.

In the nick of time

To train the proof-of-concept system, Zhang and a team of 70 scientists injected more than 100 million data points from 1.3 million pediatrics patient visits at a major referral centre in Guangzhou, China.

The AI programme diagnosed respiratory infections and sinusitis — a common sinus infection — with 95 per cent accuracy.

More surprising, Kang said, it did as well with less common diseases: acute asthma (97 per cent), bacterial meningitis and varicella (93 per cent) and mononucleosis (90 per cent).

Such technologies may be coming in just the nick of time.

“The range of diseases, diagnostic testing and options for treatment has increased exponentially in recent years, rendering the decision-making process for physicians more complicated,” Nature noted in a press release.

Experts not involved in the research said the study is further proof of AI’s expanding role in medicine. 

“The work has the potential to improve healthcare by assisting the clinician in making rapid and accurate diagnoses,” said Duc Pham, a professor of engineering at the University of Birmingham. 

“The results show that, on average, the system performed better than junior doctors.”

“But it will not replace clinicians,” he added. 

Machine learning — which forms general rules from specific training examples — “cannot guarantee 100 per cent correct results, no matter how many training examples they use”.

AI-based tools for diagnosis abound, especially for interpreting machine-generated images such as MRI and CAT scans.

A method unveiled last month in the United States to detect lesions that can lead to cervical cancer found pre-cancerous cells with 91 per cent accuracy, compared to 69 per cent for physical exams performed by doctors and 71 per cent for conventional lab tests.

Likewise, a cellphone app based on AI technology out-performed experienced dermatologists in distinguishing potentially cancerous skin lesions from benign ones, according to a study in the Annals of Oncology.

Positioned between the A6 executive and A8 luxury saloons in Audi’s model hierarchy, the A7 is, however, a more leftfield design-focused four-door car with a sleek and low coupe-like roofline.

Launched for 2018, the second generation A7 is a more accomplished compromise between traditional saloon and sporty grand tourer with a more cohesive design than its predecessor.

Packed with much high tech infotainment, driver assistance and mechanical systems debuting with the A8 in 2017, the new A7 is also sportier and better handling car, and more comfortably forgiving than before.

Sharks and yachts

Sacrificing some of its saloon sister models’ rear headroom and cabin accessibility for taller drivers, the A7 is perceived by some as the Ingolstadt manufacturer jumping on the Mercedes CLS-Class’ so-called four-door-coupe bandwagon. In fact, the Audi A7’s roots go further back than Mercedes’ low slung saloon.

With a more practical rear hatch and fastback style design, the A7 is instead more of a modern take on its 5-door 1977 Audi 100 Avant predecessor, and offers better boot space and access than similarly sized coupe-saloon hybrids like the CLS-Class and BMW 6-Series Gran Coupe.

Long, wide and low slung, the A7’s elegantly sporty grand tourer design lines and rakish, tapered and yacht-like rear hatch, however, owe more to the classic 1970 Audi 100 Coupe.

Similarly shark-like and predatory in posture, the new A7 trades its distant predecessor’s deep set quad lights for slim, heavily browed and moody headlights.

Meanwhile, its new signature single frame grille design is bolder and more charismatic than its immediate predecessor and wider and lower set than its A8 sister. Featuring sharper and more ridged side character lines, the A7 also adopts new full width rear lights. 

Swift and efficient

Positioned longitudinally just ahead of the front wheels for excellent traction and driving all four wheels to counter its somewhat nose-heavy layout, the driven Audi A7 55 TFSI Quattro is powered by a turbocharged direct injection 3-litre V6 engine. 

Producing 335BHP at 5,000-6,400rpm and 368lb/ft torque throughout a broad 1,370-4,500rpm band, it is smooth, with good low-end response, flexible and accessible mid-range-grunt and willing high-end delivery. Combining four-wheel-drive traction and lighter construction with more aluminium content, the A7 can sprint through 0-100km/h in just 5.3-seconds and on to an electronically-governed 250km/h top speed.

Calm, capable and effortlessly smooth in delivery in town and on the highway, the A7 also features mild hybrid electric technology in the form of a 48v battery system that recuperates kinetic braking energy and powers ancillary systems to reduce fuel consumption. Allowing the A7 to coast briefly at speeds between 55-160km/h and to switch off the engine from 22km/h when coming to a stop, the A7’s 48v system reduces fuel consumption by 0.7/l/100km to 7.1l/100km on the combined cycle, which is rather frugal for a luxurious, quick and highly equipped car weighing in at 1,815kg.

Stable and manoeuvrable

Driving all wheels for all-weather confidence and varying power front-to-rear through corners for road-holding, the A7’s renowned Quattro four-wheel-drive now features ‘ultra’ technology. This effectively means that in normal conditions only the front wheels are driven to reduce friction and save fuel. With the rear wheels only becoming active when necessary, the change is so quick and smooth that it is all but imperceptible in most driving conditions. Additionally, the A7 can be optioned with a sport rear differential to distribute power along the rear axle to prevent wheelspin and ensure traction and cornering agility.

A more agile car than expected given its front weight bias, the A7 benefits from Audi’s new all-round five-link suspension design, and as driven, features all-wheel-steering, which goes a long way to making its more nimble, responsive and stable. Turning in the opposite direction to the front wheels at under 60km/h to making it more manoeuvrable through corners and when parking, the A7’s wheelbase is effectively reduced with four-wheel-steering, while turning circle becomes 1.1-metres shorter. At over 60km/h, the A7’s rear wheels turn in the same direction as the front for enhanced stability at speed.

Smooth and supple

Reassuringly stable yet responsive through fast sweeping corners and in changing direction at speed thanks to its four-wheel-steering, the A7 is meanwhile quiet and refined owing to low 0.27 aerodynamic drag co-efficiency. 

Offered with four suspension options and driven with the top specification adaptive air suspension the A7 rides with a lofty and supple smoothness that belies its aggressive design and its firm low profile 255/40R20 tyres on all but the most jagged bumps.

Smooth and comfortable over road imperfections, the A7’s suspension offers good lateral control, with little body lean through corners.

A larger and more spacious car than the one it replaces, the A7’s practical rear hatch and boot accommodate a generous 535-litre of cargo, which expands to 1,390-litre. 

Supportive and comfortable, the A7’s driving position is complemented by user-friendly controls and layouts, including a configurable cockpit-like instrument cluster and twin infotainment screens with haptic feedback. 

Its design has a classy and contemporary minimalist appeal despite a huge array of standard and optional infotainment, convenience, safety and high tech driver assistance and artificial intelligence systems. Materials are meanwhile of good quality and feature plenty of soft touch textures.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

• Engine: 3-litre, turbocharged, in-line V6-cylinders
• Bore x stroke: 84.5 x 89mm
• Compression ratio: 11.2:1
• Valve-train: 32-valve, DOHC, direct injection
• Gearbox: 7-speed dual clutch automated, four-wheel-drive
• Ratios: 1st 3.188; 2nd 2.19; 3rd 1.517; 4th 1.057; 5th 0.738; 6th 0.508; 7th 0.386
• Reverse/final drive (1st & 2nd): 2.75/4.41
• Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 335 (340) [250] @5,000-6,400rpm
• Specific power: 111.8BHP/litre
• Power-to-weight: 184.5BHP/tonne (unladen)
• Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 368.8 (500) @1,370-4,500rpm
• Specific torque: 166.9Nm/litre
• Torque-to-weight: 275.5Nm/tonne (unladen)
• 0-100km/h: 5.3-seconds
• Top speed: 250km/h (electronically governed)
• Fuel consumption, urban/extra-urban/combined: 9.3-/
• 5.8-/7.1-litres/100km CO2 emissions, combined: 161g/km
• Fuel capacity: 63-litres
• Length: 4,969mm
• Width: 1,908mm
• Height: 1,422mm
• Wheelbase: 2,926mm
• Track, F/R: 1,651/1,637mm
• Loading height: 669mm
• Aerodynamic drag co-efficient: 0.27
• Luggage volume, min/max: 535-/1,390-litres
• Unladen/kerb weight: 1,815/1,890kg
• Steering: Electric-assisted rack & pinion, four-wheel-steering
• Turning circle: 12.2-metres
• Suspension: Five-link, adaptive air dampers
• Brakes: Ventilated discs
• Tyres: 255/40R20 /

By Ghadeer Habash

Internationally Certified Career Trainer 

Everyone has dreams; big or small, new dreams or old dreams, possible and seemingly impossible ones. But what makes some people live their dreams and achieve everything they have ever dreamed of? 

We have goals for our kids. What about goals for ourselves? Goals give us hope and build our character if we do not just sit around but act!

Transforming each dream into a goal

A dream is what we wish to have but we usually do not do anything about. Therefore, we most probably will not achieve it. On the contrary, a goal is specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time bound (has an identified timeframe to be achieved). 

First, ask yourself: What do I really want? Write the answer down (a job, health issue, relationship, success in studying or even at work). The more specific you are, the better.

Second, ask yourself: What should I do on a daily basis that can bring me closer to my goal? Write down the answer on a piece of paper and hang it somewhere visible where you can read it every day and do what it says. For example, if my goal is to lose weight, I should be specific and realistic, such as “I want to lose three kilogrammes in one month” and my daily list could look something like this: 

• I will walk or jog for 30 minutes in the mornings on weekdays and after my kids go to school 

• I will replace my chocolate pancake breakfast with a bowl of oatmeal 

• I will replace my fizzy sugary drink or juice with cucumber or lemon infused water

Persistence and self-monitoring are important. Be persistent, avoid skipping the activity you have written down and set priorities for yourself. It is easy for many of us to put others first, sacrificing our dreams in the process. Consider your activity, your daily steps to achieving your long-term dream, an essential part of your life now.

So many people fail to realise their dream? 

• They are not clear enough on what they really want

• They do not show the needed commitment

• They are not persistent enough; they give up easily

Tips in goal setting

• Start with small goals: Once you achieve your first goal, your confidence will increase and you will be motivated to achieve bigger goals

• Get used to goal setting; make it your strategy or your way of life. In other words, be deliberate, do not expect good things to transpire on their own

• Design your future, imagining every single detail of what you want. Believe in yourself and do not stop until you get wherever you want to go in life

• Have faith!

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine

Most children are using too much toothpaste, do not brush often enough and do not start brushing their teeth at a young enough age, according to a US survey. 

Parents should brush infants’ teeth when the first tooth appears, which can be as early as age six months. And they should help their kids brush until the kids are independent enough to thoroughly and correctly brush do it themselves, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and paediatrician groups advise. 

“Cavities are one of the most common chronic diseases in children, and untreated cavities can cause pain, infections, and problems eating, speaking, and learning,” said the study’s lead author, Dr Gina Thornton-Evans of the CDC Division of Oral Health in Atlanta, Georgia. 

“Children with poor oral health often miss more school and receive lower grades than children with better oral health,” she said in an e-mail. 

While starting to brush as soon as teeth begin appearing is recommended, ingesting too much fluoride can harm still-forming teeth, the study team notes in CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. So the CDC recommends that children do not use fluoride toothpaste until they are two years old. 

Children under age three should use a smear of toothpaste the size of a rice grain, and children ages three to six should use a pea-sized amount, they add. 

To see whether US parents follow these guidelines, Thornton-Evans and colleagues analysed responses from parents and caregivers of more than 5,100 children and teens to a nationally-representative survey. 

The research team found that about half of children between ages three and six used the recommended pea-sized amount of toothpaste when they brushed, but 38 per cent used a half- or full-load of toothpaste, which is too much. 

Nearly 80 per cent of kids ages three to 15 began brushing their teeth at a later age than recommended. About 61 per cent brushed their teeth twice a day, while 34 per cent brushed only once daily. 

Researchers also found differences in brushing habits based on race and ethnicity, as well as the education and income levels of the parents. For instance, children who lived with a parent or caregiver with less than a high school education and Mexican-American children were most likely to have started brushing and using toothpaste after age three. 

The CDC and the American Academy of Paediatrics have begun to develop messages for pregnant women and new mothers about toothbrushing practices, the study team notes. 

“There is a huge opportunity for parents and caregivers to help prevent their children from developing early childhood cavities,” Thornton-Evans said. “As children get older, parents should supervise their children brushing and spitting out toothpaste until good brushing habits are formed.” 

Education programs should also help parents use behavioural shaping strategies to reinforce toothbrushing habits, said Brent Collett of the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, who was not involved in the study. 

“With toothbrushing, the main thing that parents may find difficult is the child refusal behaviour,” Collett said in a phone interview. “It’s hard when kids are throwing a tantrum.” 

Parents can start by asking their children to wet their toothbrush at the sink, he said, and then work up to squeezing out the right amount of toothpaste and then brushing teeth thoroughly. For the first few years, parents may need to brush their kids’ teeth for them and with them to ensure it’s done adequately. 

“Sometimes parents think their kids are brushing their teeth, but they’re just chewing on the toothbrush,” Collet said. “Parents may not realise they’re the ones who need to do this to get the teeth clean.” 

Kids with obstructive sleep apnoea may be at lower risk of accidents with oncoming vehicles during the day if they use positive airway pressure, or PAP, therapy at night, a new study suggests. 

Importantly, children must consistently stick to the PAP treatment plan for it to make a difference, the study authors report in the journal Sleep Health. 

“Sleep disorders have real-world consequences, even life-and-death consequences. Someone who is tired, whether a child or an adult, simply does not function the same way they do when they are rested,” said senior study author David Schwebel of the University of Alabama at Birmingham. 

Annually, more than 6,000 pedestrians in the US are killed and 190,000 are injured. A large number of those are children. Preventing paediatric pedestrian injury should be a priority, the study authors write. 

Obstructive sleep apnoea usually occurs when an individual’s airway collapses multiple times during sleep, interrupting breathing again and again during the night. It is estimated that between 1 per cent and 5 per cent of non-obese children and 25 per cent to 40 per cent of obese children have the condition, the authors note. 

PAP therapy requires patients to wear a mask that covers the nose and mouth during sleep. The mask is connected to a machine that continually blows air to keep the airway open. 

“When someone struggles with a sleep disorder, they can be chronically tired, and that can influence all sorts of real-world outcomes, including their risk for unintentional injury, or accidents,” Schwebel told Reuters Health by e-mail. 

The researchers studied 42 kids at Children’s of Alabama Paediatric Sleep Disorders Centre between ages eight and 16 who were diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome, or OSAS, through a sleep test. 

Before receiving PAP treatment, the kids played a virtual reality programme with a simulated street crossing. As the child’s avatar crossed the street, they’d hear messages such as, “Yes! Great job!” or “Whoa! That was close!” If struck by a car in the simulation, they’d hear, “Uh oh, you should try that again.” 

During the simulation, researchers measured how many collisions occurred, how many times the kids looked left and right at the traffic before crossing, and the time it took to make contact with a car, with a shorter time indicating a risky choice to step into the road. 

The children played the simulation again after three months of PAP therapy with machines that measured the hours of use each night. Kids were considered to be adhering to therapy if they used the device for four or more hours each night. 

The research team found that about half of the children adhered to the PAP therapy during the three months, and these kids had a significant reduction in hits by a virtual vehicle. When untreated, children were 12 times more likely than adherent kids to have a simulated hit, the study authors calculated. 

“PAP therapy is sometimes difficult. It can be uncomfortable and hard to follow,” Schwebel said. “But it will help with sleepiness, and it also will help with many other aspects of life, such as school, their social life and their mood.” 

Many sleep specialists first recommend surgery to most kids who are diagnosed with sleep apnoea, so PAP is discussed less frequently. However, for older children or overweight children, surgery may not be as effective, said Dean Beebe of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital in Ohio, who was not involved with the study. 

“PAP treatment is more often used for adults, where surgery is not successful at all,” he said in a phone interview. “It’s hard to get PAP accepted by families and kids, but it could be useful.” 

Future studies should look at sleep apnoea and safety among teens who drive, he added, as well as kids who ride bikes to school. PAP therapy may help them to better concentrate on the road. 

“If your kid snores loudly most nights, it’s time to bring that up with your doctor,” he said. “Snoring every so often isn’t a big deal, but if it’s most nights, that’s not healthy or cute and is our most visible marker for whether there might be breathing problems during sleep.” 

WASHINGTON — Women tend to outlive men and stay mentally sharp longer, and a new study out Monday could explain why: female brains appear on average about three years younger.

The study enrolled 121 women and 84 men, who underwent PET scans to measure brain metabolism, or the flow of oxygen and glucose in their brains.

Like other organs in the body, the brain uses sugar as fuel. But just how it metabolises glucose can reveal a lot about the brain’s metabolic age.

Subjects ranged from their 20s to 80s, and across those age spans, women’s brains appeared metabolically younger than men’s, said the findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a peer-reviewed US journal.

A machine-learned algorithm showed that women’s brains were on average about 3.8 years younger than their chronological ages.

And when compared to men, male brains were about were 2.4 years older than their true ages.

“It’s not that men’s brains age faster,” said senior author Manu Goyal, assistant professor of radiology at Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis.

“They start adulthood about three years older than women, and that persists throughout life,” said Goyal.

But why?

One theory is that hormones might begin shaping brain metabolism at a young age, setting females on a pattern that is more youthful throughout their lives, compared to men.

Scientists hope to find out if metabolic differences in the brain may play a protective role for women, who tend to score better than men on cognitive tests of reason, memory and problem solving in old age.

It “could mean that the reason women don’t experience as much cognitive decline in later years is because their brains are effectively younger,” said Goyal.

More work is underway to confirm and better understand the implications of the research. 

Of all the communication channels available and based on the Internet, WhatsApp remains a unique case. It is not about figures; this part is clear and easy. It started in 2009 and was then sold to Facebook in 2014. Statistics dating to January 2018 put the users’ base at 1.5 billion and the average number of messages exchanged daily at 60 billion.

The mystery is not in the above numbers but in the fact that at this date nobody knows how WhatsApp makes money. Surely, there must be an explanation. After all Facebook did pay 19 billion US dollars to get it.

Of course, there were a few unfounded theories about it, and the famous application had its share of fake news and false rumours. It was said at some point that using WhatsApp would be free for the first year or so, and then users would be asked to pay one dollar of subscription fees per year.

Some also assumed that users would only believe that they were using the app free of charge, but that in fact their mobile phone service operator would be charging them a fixed fee for that, indirectly, in the monthly invoice or charge, and that the name “WhatsApp” was never to be mentioned next to that charge! The plot thickens…

Nothing of that was true or happened.

Apart from WhatsApp there is not a single application on mobile phones or on the Internet that is totally free. They all come with some kind of string attached, least of which is advertising. Even Facebook, the owner of WhatsApp relies on advertising to get money. Online newspapers (well, cross out the word “papers” in it), games, crosswords, YouTube videos, and the countless sites out there, they all make money either through advertising or by charging you directly, frankly. All, except for WhatsApp.

Those who, like myself, have installed an ad blocker on their web browser, often see this pop-up screen when they visit some web sites: “We use advertising to generate income, by blocking advertising you deprive us from this revenue. Thank you for disabling your ad blocker and unblocking advertising” (the exact wording may be slightly different from site to site).

There are a few theories behind WhatsApp makers “hidden intentions”. One of them, perhaps the main one, believes that the app owners are interested in your messages (and photos, videos, voice messages) contents and reprocess them for data mining or for intelligence of some sort. This could be done anonymously, without attaching your name and identity to the contents, or namely.

If true, this would be in blatant contradiction with WhatsApp declaration that your messages are encrypted from end to end, that they are not stored on any server as such, and that only you and your intended correspondent at the other end can actually read or see the decrypted contents. 

A recent discussion took recently place in Amman between renowned IT experts. The meeting was not about WhatsApp in particular, but the subject happened to be mentioned and discussed over that meeting. All agreed that nobody knew for sure how the owners of the application made money. Some suggested that since WhatsApp and Facebook were owned by the same company, perhaps Facebook was benefitting indirectly from information extracted anonymously from WhatsApp messages contents, leaving the application perfectly transparent, and apparently free.

Whatever the mystery, whatever the explanation, WhatsApp remains a near-perfect messaging application used by virtually all active persons on this planet. It has even stolen a significant part from the traditional email system, and has become the prime way of quickly, efficiently and pleasantly communicating over the global network.

SAN FRANCISCO — The smartphone market is down but not out, with high prices and other factors combining to chill what had previously been a red-hot sector.

Fresh surveys show global sales had their worst contraction ever in 2018, and the outlook for 2019 is not much better.

Still, analysts do not see the sun setting any time soon on the smartphone era, seen as a must-have device for many people around the world.

“They don’t have a viable replacement yet,” independent Silicon Valley analyst Rob Enderle said of the smartphone.

“There is always the possibility to go to wearables or head-mounted displays, but none of those have emerged as a real threat.”

Worldwide handset volumes declined 4.1 per cent in 2018 to a total of 1.4 billion units shipped for the full year, according to research firm IDC, which sees a potential for further declines this year

Another market tracker, Gartner, said its research suggested some stabilisation in the smartphone market at the end of last year, said analyst Werner Goertz.

“Mobile phones are here to stay,” Goertz said, while suggesting that consumers may be waiting for some devices with new features.

“Foldable phones would represent a really nice disruptive feature,” he said.

Analysts pointed out that other tech products such as personal computers have seen similar ebbs and flows.

“Markets will always have slow moments when companies have to spend more on marketing money to get people to go out and buy stuff,” Enderle said.

He added that some consumers are holding off on replacing their devices amid price hikes for premium devices like Apple’s iPhone.

Food or phone?

During a recent earnings call, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook agreed that people were holding onto their iPhones longer.

Cook contended that another reason for slower iPhone sales was that telecom carriers were cutting subsidies of handsets tied to service contracts, meaning customers were faced with paying full price of $1,000 or more for high-end models.

“People don’t want to spend another thousand bucks to replace something that isn’t broken,” analyst Enderle maintained.

“In emerging markets you can’t get people to pay a quarter of their monthly income for a phone; they are not giving up food for texting.”

In an unusual move, Apple lowered prices in some emerging markets to offset the effects of a strong US dollar on local pocketbooks.

Cook said that in January, in some locations and for some products, Apple “absorbed part of the foreign currency move” to “get close or perhaps right on” prices in those respective markets a year ago.

“So yes, I do think that price is a factor,” Cook said.

Market mess

Nonetheless, the latest data suggests the days of red-hot smartphone growth are over and that sluggish growth or contraction is likely in many saturated markets.

Apple recently reported a rare drop in revenue in the fourth quarter. South Korea’s Samsung, the largest smartphone maker, reported a slump in fourth-quarter net profits, blaming a drop in demand for its key products.

“Globally the smartphone market is a mess right now,” said IDC analyst Ryan Reith.

“Outside of a handful of high-growth markets like India, Indonesia, [South] Korea and Vietnam, we did not see a lot of positive activity in 2018.”

Reith noted that along with consumers waiting longer to replace their phones and frustration around the high cost of premium devices, there was political and economic uncertainty.

The Chinese market, which accounts for roughly 30 per cent of smartphone sales, was especially hard hit with a 10 per cent drop, according to IDC’s survey.

However, Chinese smartphone makers such as Huawei, Oppo and Xiaomi defied the trend and ended the year with gains, according to Counterpoint Research.

This year, smartphone makers will likely entice customers to upgrade devices with innovations such as superfast 5G network connectivity and foldable screens, according to Counterpoint associate director Tarun Pathak.

Leading smartphone maker Samsung is expected to show off a smartphone with a foldable screen at an event in February.