Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Skill of Many Bilingual Children


If Your Child is Bilingual, Learning Additional Languages Later Might be Easier

WASHINGTON (Oct. 2, 2017) — It is often claimed that bilinguals are better than monolinguals at learning languages. Now, the first study to examine bilingual and monolingual brains as they learn an additional language offers new evidence that supports this hypothesis, researchers say.

The study, conducted at Georgetown University Medical Center and published in the journal Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, suggests that early bilingualism helps with learning languages later in life.

“The difference is readily seen in language learners’ brain patterns. When learning a new language, bilinguals rely more than monolinguals on the brain processes that people naturally use for their native language,” says the study’s senior researcher, Michael T. Ullman, PhD, professor of neuroscience at Georgetown.

“We also find that bilinguals appear to learn the new language more quickly than monolinguals,” says lead author Sarah Grey, PhD, an assistant professor in the department of modern languages and literatures at Fordham University. Grey worked with Ullman and co-author Cristina Sanz, PhD, on this study for her PhD research at Georgetown. Sanz is a professor of applied linguistics at Georgetown.

The 13 bilingual college students enrolled in this study grew up in the U.S. with Mandarin-speaking parents, and learned both English and Mandarin at an early age. The matched comparison group consisted of 16 monolingual college students, who spoke only English fluently.

The researchers studied Mandarin-English bilinguals because both of these languages differ structurally from the new language being learned. The new language was a well-studied artificial version of a Romance language, Brocanto2, that participants learned to both speak and understand. Using an artificial language allowed the researchers to completely control the learners’ exposure to the language.

The two groups were trained on Brocanto2 over the course of about a week. At both earlier and later points of training, learners’ brain patterns were examined with electroencephalogram (EEG) electrodes on their scalps, while they listened to Brocanto2 sentences. This captures the natural brain-wave activity as the brain processes language.  

They found clear bilingual/monolingual differences. By the end of the first day of training, the bilingual brains, but not the monolingual brains, showed a specific brain-wave pattern, termed the P600. P600s are commonly found when native speakers process their language. In contrast, the monolinguals only began to exhibit P600 effects much later during learning — by the last day of training. Moreover, on the last day, the monolinguals showed an additional brain-wave pattern not usually found in native speakers of languages.  

“There has been a lot of debate about the value of early bilingual language education,” says Grey. “Now, with this small study, we have novel brain-based data that points towards a distinct language-learning benefit for people who grow up bilingual.”

The other study co-author is psycholinguist Kara Morgan-Short, PhD, from the University of Illinois at Chicago, who also conducted her graduate work with Sanz and Ullman.

Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Plant-based Milk and Nutrition

Nutritionally, Soy Milk Is Best Plant-based Milk
Closest to cow’s milk in range of nutrients it offers

January 29, 2018 -- How healthy is your almond milk, really? It may taste good and may not cause you any of the unpleasant reactions caused by cow’s milk. But though plant-based milk beverages of this kind have been on the market for a couple of decades and are advertised as being healthy and wholesome for those who are lactose-intolerant, little research has been done to compare the benefits and drawbacks of the various kinds of plant-based milk. A new study from McGill University looks at the four most-commonly consumed types of milk beverages from plant sources around the world – almond milk, soy milk, rice milk and coconut milk - and compares their nutritional values with those of cow’s milk. After cow’s milk, which is still the most nutritious, soy milk comes out a clear winner.
The researchers compared the unsweetened versions of the various plant-based milks in all cases and the figures below are based on a 240 ml serving.

Soy milk – the most balanced nutritional profile
·        Soy milk is widely consumed for its health benefits linked to the anti-carcinogenic properties of phytonutrients present in the milk known as isoflavones.

·        Has been a substitute for cow’s milk for 4 decades.
·        Concerns, however, are the ‘beany flavor’ and the presence of anti-nutrients (substances that reduce nutrient intake and digestion).

Rice milk – sweet taste and little nutrition
·        Lactose free and can act as an alternative for patients with allergy issues caused by soybeans and almonds.
·        Concerns, apart from the high carbohydrate count, is that consumption of rice milk without proper care can result in malnutrition, especially in infants.

Coconut milk – no protein and few calories, but most of them from fat

·        Widely consumed in Asia and South America
·        Consumption can help reduce levels of harmful low-density lipoproteins (bad cholesterol) that are associated with cardiovascular diseases.
·        Nutritional values are reduced if stored for over 2 months.

Almond milk – need for complementary sources of food to provide essential nutrients
·        Almonds have a high content of monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) that are considered helpful in weight loss and weight management. MUFA also helps in reduction of low-density lipoprotein (bad cholesterol).

Cow’s milk benefits & drawbacks
·        A wholesome, complete food, providing all major nutrients like fat, carbohydrates and proteins.
·        Can help humans by providing a wide range of host-defence proteins because various beneficial anti-microbial effects are found in both human and bovine milks. (E.g., a study shows that in the case of infants, consumption of cow’s milk has considerably reduced risk of fever and respiratory infections.)
·        But the presence of various pathogens like Salmonella spp and Escherichia coli O157:H7 in milk have been associated with disease outbreaks around the world.

Cow’s milk allergy & lactose intolerance
·        One of the most common allergies among infants and children affecting 2.2-3.5% of children (a greater percentage than those who are affected by peanuts and tree nut allergies). As many as 35 % of these infants outgrow being allergic to milk by the age of 5-6, and this may increase to 80% by age 16.
·        Lactose intolerance, due to the absence or deficiency of the enzyme lactase in the digestive tract, affects somewhere between 15-75 % of all adults depending on race, food habits and gut health.
·        Some studies have suggested that 80 % of people of African origin and 100 % of those of Asian and Indigenous American origin are lactose intolerant.

The researchers add that more work will need to be done to understand the effects of various conventional and novel processing methods on the nutritional profile, flavour and texture of these alternative milks.
The review was written by PhD Candidate Sai Kranthi Vanga and his supervisor Vijaya Raghavan of the Department of Bioresource Engineering at McGill and was recently published in Journal of Food Science Technology.

Funding was provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).
http://mcgill.ca/newsroom/channels/news/nutritionally-speaking-soy-milk-best-plant-based-milk-284229

Monday, January 29, 2018

Antibody Blocks Allergic Reactions

New Research Can Put an
End to Allergic Reactions
Researchers have found a new mechanism in which an antibody can prevent allergic reactions in a broad range of patients. It is a scientific breakthrough, which could pave the way for a far more effective allergy medicine.
By Kim Harel

Aarhus, Denmark -- January 22, 2018 -- There was great excitement in the laboratory when researchers from Aarhus University recently discovered the unique mechanisms of an antibody that blocks the immune effect behind allergic reactions.

The team of researchers from the Departments of Engineering and Molecular Biology and Genetics together with German researchers from Marburg/Giessen has now described the molecular structure and mechanisms of action of the antibody, and the results are surprising.

They were hoping to find new methods to improve existing treatment, but instead they identified how a specific antibody is apparently able to completely inactivate the allergic processes.

The antibody interacts in a complex biochemical process in the human body by which it prevents the human allergy antibody (IgE) from attaching to cells, thus keeping all allergic symptoms from occurring.

“We can now describe the interaction of this antibody with its target and the conformational changes very accurately. This allows us to understand, how it interferes with the IgE and its specific receptors on the immune cells of the body, which are responsible for releasing histamine in an allergic reaction," says Edzard Spillner, associate professor at the Department of Engineering, Aarhus University.

The research results have now been published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature Communications.

Allergic effects of birch pollen and insect venom eliminated
Generally, an allergic person produces high levels of IgE molecules against external allergens when exposed to them. These molecules circulate in the blood and are loaded onto the effector cells of the immune system which triggers the production of histamine and thereby an immediate allergic reaction in the body.

The function of the antibody is that it interferes with binding of IgE to the two specific effector (CD23 and FceRI) on the immune cells, thereby making it impossible for the allergy molecule to bind.

Furthermore, the researchers have observed that the antibody also removes the IgE molecules even after binding to its receptors.

"Once the IgE on immune cells can be eliminated, it doesn’t matter that the body produces millions of allergen-specific IgE molecules. When we can remove the trigger, the allergic reaction and symptoms will not occur," says Edzard Spillner.

In the laboratory, it took only 15 minutes to disrupt the interaction between the allergy molecules and the immune cells.

The researchers have conducted ex vivo experiments with blood cells from patients allergic to birch pollen and insect venom. However, the method can be transferred to virtually all other allergies and asthma.

Hope for better medicine
Today, one in three Europeans suffer from allergic diseases, and the prevalence is steadily increasing. The treatment options are limited, but the researchers now expect that their scientific results will pave the way to developing completely new types of allergy medicine.


 “We can now precisely map how the antibody prevents binding of IgE to its receptors. This allows us to envision completely new strategies for engineering medicine of the future, "says Nick Laursen, assistant professor at the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics.

The antibody is particularly interesting because it is effective, and at the same time considerably smaller than therapeutic antibodies currently used to produce allergy medicine.

"It is a so called single domain antibody which easily produced in processes using only microorganisms. It is also extremely stable, and this provides new opportunities for how the antibody can be administered to patients,” says Edzard Spillner.

Unlike most therapeutic antibodies already available on the market, the new antibody does not necessarily have to be injected into the body. Because of its chemical structure it might be inhaled or swallowed, and these new consumption methods will make easy, cheap and much and more comfortable for the patients to handle.

However, before new allergy medicine can be produced the researchers will have to conduct a wide range of clinical trials to document the effect and safety of the antibody.

Sunday, January 28, 2018

Group in Shanghai Clones Primates

Identical Macaques Cloned in China

Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua, born 5 December 2017, are identical crab-eating macaques that were created through somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), the same cloning technique that produced Dolly the sheep in 1996. They are the first cloned primates produced by this technique. Unlike previous attempts to clone monkeys, the donated nuclei came from fetal cells, not embryonic cells. The primates were both born at the Institute of Neuroscience of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai.

Background

Since scientists produced the first cloned mammal Dolly the sheep in 1996 using the somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) technique, 23 mammalian species have been successfully cloned, including cattle, cats, dogs, horses and rats. However, using this technique for primates had never been successful and no pregnancy had lasted more than 80 days. The main difficulty was likely the proper programming of the transferred nuclei to support the growth of the embryo. Tetra (born October 1999), a female rhesus macaque, was created by a team led by Gerald Schatten of the Oregon National Primate Research Center using a different technique, called "embryo splitting". She is the first "cloned" primate by artificial twinning, which is a much less complex procedure than the DNA transfer used for the creation of Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua.

Details of the Process Used

Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua were produced by scientists from the Institute of Neuroscience of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai, led by Qiang Sun and Muming Poo. They extracted nuclei from the fibroblasts of an aborted fetal monkey (a crab-eating macaque or Macaca fascicularis) and inserted them into egg cells (ova) that had had their own nuclei removed. The team used two enzymes to erase the epigenetic memory of the transferred nuclei of being somatic cells. This crucial step allowed the researchers to overcome the main obstacle that had prevented the successful cloning of primates until now. They then placed 21 of these ova into surrogate mother monkeys, resulting in six pregnancies, two of which produced living animals. The monkeys were named Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua, a reference to Zhonghua (a Chinese name for China). Although the success rate was still low, the methods could be improved to increase survival rate in the future. By comparison, the Scotland-based team that created Dolly the sheep in 1996 required 277 attempts and produced only one lamb.

The scientists also attempted to clone macaques using nuclei from adult donors, which is much more difficult. They implanted 42 surrogates, resulting in 22 pregnancies, but there were still only two infant macaques, and they died soon after birth.

Significance and Human Implications

According to Muming Poo, the principal significance of this event is that it could be used to create genetically identical monkeys for use in animal experiments. Crab-eating macaques are already an established model organism for studies of atherosclerosis, though Poo chose to emphasize neuroscience, naming Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease when he appeared on the radio news program All Things Considered in January 2018.

The birth of the two cloned primates also raised concerns from bioethicists. Insoo Hyun of Case Western Reserve University questioned whether this meant that human cloning would be next. However, Poo told All Things Considered that "Technically speaking one can clone human[s] ... But we're not going to do it. There's absolutely no plan to do anything on humans.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhong_Zhong_and_Hua_Hua

Saturday, January 27, 2018

Sugar and Alzheimer's


Olga Khazan of The Atlantic has a current article on Alzheimer’s published yesterday (January 26, 2018) that is available on line.

She writes that it is such a horrible disease it is difficult to think about except as something that perhaps becomes inevitable.  But carbohydrates and sugar in the diet don’t help.  Link:

Friday, January 26, 2018

Octapeptins Fight Tough Superbugs

“Forgotten” Antibiotic Offers Hope Against Worst Superbugs

University of Queensland, January 26, 2018 -- An antibiotic overlooked since its discovery 40 years ago could help develop new drugs against life-threatening infections caused by some of the world’s most dangerous superbugs.

University of Queensland Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) researchers synthesised the antibiotic, and increased its effectiveness against extensively drug-resistant bacteria, then collaborated with Monash University to evaluate the drug using animal models of infection.

Professor Matt Cooper, Director of IMB’s Centre for Superbug Solutions, said the study was prompted by the urgent need for new drugs to counter widespread resistance to last-resort treatments.

“Octapeptins were discovered in the late 1970s but were not selected for development at the time, as there was an abundance of new antibiotics with thousands of people working in antibiotic research and development,” Professor Cooper said.

“Given the very few researchers left in this field now, and the sparse pipeline for new antibiotics, we’ve used modern drug discovery procedures to re-evaluate its effectiveness against superbugs.”

Professor Cooper said there were no new classes of antibiotics available for Gram-negative bacteria, with increasing incidence of extensive drug resistance around the world.

“Gram-negative bacteria are harder to kill as disease organisms, because they have an extra membrane to penetrate that is often hidden by a capsule or slime layer which acts to camouflage them from drugs and our immune system,” he said.

 “The emergence of resistance to meropenem, and now colistin, the antibiotic of last resort, means multi-drug and extensively drug-resistant bacteria are now a reality confronting clinicians.

“Octapeptin showed superior antimicrobial activity to colistin against extensively resistant Gram-negative bacteria in early pre-clinical testing.

“In addition, octapeptin was shown to be potentially less toxic to the kidneys than colistin.”

Professor Cooper said the study laid the foundation for the development of a new generation of antibiotics to treat life-threatening infections.

Researchers from Wayne State University in Detroit, the University of Melbourne, Germany’s EMBL, and Victoria University in New Zealand collaborated on the project.

IMB research was supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council, and the US National Institute of Allergy and Infection Disease, part of the US National Institutes of Health.

The study is published in Cell Chemical Biology.

Thursday, January 25, 2018

New and Common Ocean Virus

New Type of Virus Found in the Ocean
The unusual characteristics of these abundant, bacteria-killing viruses could lead to evolutionary insights.
By David L. Chandler, MIT News Office

January 24, 2018 -- A type of virus that dominates water samples taken from the world’s oceans has long escaped analysis because it has characteristics that standard tests can’t detect. However, researchers at MIT and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine have now managed to isolate and study representatives of these elusive viruses, which provide a key missing link in virus evolution and play an important role in regulating bacterial populations, as a new study reports.

Viruses are the main predators of bacteria, and the findings suggest that the current view of bacterial virus diversity has a major blind spot. These conclusions have emerged through detailed analysis of marine samples led by MIT postdoc Kathryn Kauffman, professor of civil and environmental engineering Martin Polz, professor Libusha Kelly of Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and nine others. The results are being reported this week in the journal Nature.

The newly identified viruses lack the “tail” found on most catalogued and sequenced bacterial viruses, and have several other unusual properties that have led to their being missed by previous studies. To honor that fact, the researchers named this new group the Autolykiviridae — after a character from Greek mythology who was storied for being difficult to catch. And, unlike typical viruses that prey on just one or two types of bacteria, these tailless varieties can infect dozens of different types, often of different species, underscoring their ecological relevance.

This research “opens new avenues for furthering our understanding of the roles of viruses in the ocean,” says Jed Fuhrman, the McCulloch-Crosby Chair of Marine Biology at the University of Southern California, who was not involved in this work. “In a practical sense, it also shows how we need to alter some commonly used methods in order to capture these kinds of viruses for various studies,” he says. “I’d say it is an important advance in the field.”

Current environmental models of virus-bacteria interactions are based on the well-studied tailed viruses, Kauffman explains, so they may be missing important aspects of the interactions taking place in nature.

“We already knew that viruses are very important there,” Kauffman says, referring to the surface ocean, where the researchers’ samples were drawn, and where about 10 million viruses are found in every milliliter of water. Polz says that while “most of the viruses studied in labs have tails, most of those in the ocean don’t.” So the team decided to study one subset of tailless viruses, which infects a group of bacteria called Vibrio. After extensive tests, they found “that some of these were infecting unusually large numbers of hosts,” he says.

After sequencing representatives of the Autolykiviridae, the researchers found “their genomes were quite different from other viruses,” Polz says. For one thing, their genomes are very short: about 10,000 bases, compared to the typical 40,000-50,000 for tailed viruses. “When we found that, we were surprised,” he says.

With the new sequence information, the researchers were able to comb through databases and found that such viruses exist in many places. The research also showed that these viruses tend to be underrepresented in databases because of the ways samples are typically handled in labs. The methods the team developed to obtain these viruses from environmental samples could help researchers avoid such losses of information in the future. In addition, Kauffman says, typically the way researchers test for viral activity is by infecting bacteria with the viral sample and then checking the samples a day later to look for signs that patches of the bacteria have been killed off. But these particular nontailed viruses often act more slowly, and the killed-off regions don’t show up until several days have passed — so their presence was never noticed in most studies.

The new group of viruses may especially be widespread. “We don’t think it’s ocean-specific at all,” Polz says. For example, the viruses may even be prevalent in the human biome, and they may play roles in major biogeochemical cycles, he says, such as the cycling of carbon.

Another important aspect of theses findings is that the Autolykiviridae were shown to be  members of an ancient viral lineage that is defined by specific types of capsids, the protein shell encasing the viral DNA. Though this lineage is known to be very diverse in animals and protists — and includes viruses such as the adenoviruses that infect humans, and the giant viruses that infect algae — very few viruses of this kind have been found to infect bacteria.

“This work substantially changes the existing ideas on the composition of the ocean virome by showing that the content of small, tailless viruses … is comparable to that of the tailed viruses … that are currently thought to dominate the virosphere,” says Eugene V. Koonin, a senior investigator at the National Institutes of Health, who was not involved in this research. “This work is important also for understanding the evolution of the virus world because it shows that viruses related to the most common viruses of eukaryotes (such as adenoviruses, poxviruses, and others), at least in terms of the capsid structure, are much wider-spread in prokaryotes than previously suspected.”

Koonin adds, “I further wonder whether the viruses reported here might only represent the tip of the proverbial iceberg, because capsid proteins can be highly diverged in sequence so that many are missed even in sensitive database searches. The findings are also of practical importance because the tailless viruses appear to play a major ecological role in the ocean, being responsible for a substantial fraction of bacteria-killing.”

                    http://news.mit.edu/2018/new-type-virus-found-ocean-0124

Wednesday, January 24, 2018

When the Eyes Move, the Eardrums Move, Too

The eyes and ears team up to interpret sights and sounds around us
By Karen Manke, Duke Today

DURHAM, N.C. – January 23, 2018 -- Simply moving the eyes triggers the eardrums to move too, says a new study by Duke University neuroscientists.

The researchers found that keeping the head still but shifting the eyes to one side or the other sparks vibrations in the eardrums, even in the absence of any sounds.

Surprisingly, these eardrum vibrations start slightly before the eyes move, indicating that motion in the ears and the eyes are controlled by the same motor commands deep within the brain.

“It’s like the brain is saying, ‘I’m going to move the eyes, I better tell the eardrums, too,’” said Jennifer Groh, a professor in the departments of neurobiology and psychology and neuroscience at Duke.

The findings, which were replicated in both humans and rhesus monkeys, provide new insight into how the brain coordinates what we see and what we hear. It may also lead to new understanding of hearing disorders, such as difficulty following a conversation in a crowded room.

The paper appeared Jan. 23 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

It’s no secret that the eyes and ears work together to make sense of the sights and sounds around us. Most people find it easier to understand somebody if they are looking at them and watching their lips move. And in a famous illusion called the McGurk Effect, videos of lip cues dubbed with mismatched audio cause people to hear the wrong sound.

But researchers are still puzzling over where and how the brain combines these two very different types of sensory information.

“Our brains would like to match up what we see and what we hear according to where these stimuli are coming from, but the visual system and the auditory system figure out where stimuli are located in two completely different ways,” Groh said. “The eyes are giving you a camera-like snapshot of the visual scene, whereas for sounds, you have to calculate where they are coming from based on differences in timing and loudness across the two ears.”

Because the eyes are usually darting about within the head, the visual and auditory worlds are constantly in flux with respect to one another, Groh added.

In an experiment designed by Kurtis Gruters, a formal doctoral student in Groh’s lab and co-first author on the paper, 16 participants were asked to sit in a dark room and follow shifting LED lights with their eyes. Each participant also wore small microphones in their ear canals that were sensitive enough to pick up the slight vibrations created when the eardrum sways back and forth.

Though eardrums vibrate primarily in response to outside sounds, the brain can also control their movements using small bones in the middle ear and hair cells in the cochlea. These mechanisms help modulate the volume of sounds that ultimately reach the inner ear and brain, and produce small sounds known as otoacoustic emissions.

Gruters found that when the eyes moved, both eardrums moved in sync with one another, one side bulging inward at the same time the other side bulged outward. They continued to vibrate back and forth together until shortly after the eyes stopped moving. Eye movements in opposite directions produced opposite patterns of vibrations.

Larger eye movements also triggered bigger vibrations than smaller eye movements, the team found.

“The fact that these eardrum movements are encoding spatial information about eye movements means that they may be useful for helping our brains merge visual and auditory space,” said David Murphy, a doctoral student in Groh’s lab and co-first author on the paper. “It could also signify a marker of a healthy interaction between the auditory and visual systems.”

The team, which included Christopher Shera at the University of Southern California and David W. Smith of the University of Florida, is still investigating how these eardrum vibrations impact what we hear, and what role they may play in hearing disorders. In future experiments, they will look at whether up and down eye movements also cause unique signatures in eardrum vibrations.

“The eardrum movements literally contain information about what the eyes are doing,” Groh said. “This demonstrates that these two sensory pathways are coupled, and they are coupled at the earliest points.”

Cole Jenson, an undergraduate neuroscience major at Duke, also coauthored the new study.

CITATION:  "The Eardrums Move When the Eyes Move: A Multisensory Effect on the Mechanics of Hearing," K. G. Gruters, D. L. K. Murphy, Cole D. Jensen, D. W. Smith, C. A. Shera and J. M. Groh. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Jan. 23, 2018. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1717948115

Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Much Cheaper Fuel Cells

Making Fuel Cells for a Fraction of the Cost
Material developed at UC Riverside creates
fuel cell catalysts at a hundredth of the cost
By Sarah Nightingale on January 22, 2018

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (www.ucr.edu) —  Fuel cells have the potential to be a clean and efficient way to run cars, computers, and power stations, but the cost of producing them is limiting their use. That’s because a key component of the most common fuel cells is a catalyst made from the precious metal platinum.

In a paper published today in Small, researchers at the University of California, Riverside, describe the development of an inexpensive, efficient catalyst material for a type of fuel cell called a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), which turns the chemical energy of hydrogen into electricity and is among the most promising fuel cell types to power cars and electronics.

The catalyst developed at UCR is made of porous carbon nanofibers embedded with a compound made from a relatively abundant metal such as cobalt, which is more than 100 times less expensive than platinum. The research was led by David Kisailus, the Winston Chung Endowed Professor in Energy Innovation in UCR’s Marlan and Rosemary Bourns College of Engineering.

Fuel cells, which are already being used by some carmakers, offer advantages over conventional combustion technologies, including higher efficiency, quieter operation and lower emissions. Hydrogen fuel cells emit only water.

Like batteries, fuel cells are electrochemical devices that comprise a positive and negative electrode sandwiching an electrolyte. When a hydrogen fuel is injected onto the anode, a catalyst separates the hydrogen molecules into positively charged particles called protons and negatively charged particles called electrons. The electrons are directed through an external circuit, where they do useful work, such as powering an electric motor, before rejoining the positively charged hydrogen ions and oxygen to form water.

A critical barrier to fuel cell adoption is the cost of platinum, making the development of alternative catalyst materials a key driver for their mass implementation.

Using a technique called electrospinning, the UCR researchers made paper-thin sheets of carbon nanofibers that contained metal ions — either cobalt, iron or nickel. Upon heating, the ions formed ultrafine metal nanoparticles that catalyzed the transformation of carbon into a high-performance graphitic carbon. Subsequently, the metal nanoparticles and residual nongraphitic carbon were oxidized, leading to a highly porous and useful network of metal oxide nanoparticles dispersed in a porous network of graphite.

Kisailus and his team, collaborating with scientists at Stanford University, determined that the new materials performed as good as the industry standard platinum-carbon systems, but at a fraction of the cost.

“The key to the high performance of the materials we created is the combination of the chemistry and fiber processing conditions,” Kisailus said. “The remarkable electrochemical properties were primarily attributed to the synergistic effects obtained from the engineering of the metal oxide with exposed active sites and the 3D hierarchical porous graphitic structure.”

Kisailus said an added benefit of the catalytic nanocomposite was that its graphitic fiber nature provided additional strength and durability, which would enable it to serve as both a fuel cell catalyst and potentially as a structural component.

“An important challenge in making high-performance vehicles is reducing weight, both from the body of the vehicle as well as extra weight from the battery or fuel cell, without affecting safety or performance,” he said. “The material we created may enable automakers to turn structural components, such as the hood or the chassis, into functional elements that help power cars.”

The title of the paper is “Electrocatalytic N-Doped Graphitic Nanofiber – Metal/Metal Oxide Nanoparticle Composites.” The lead authors are Hongjie Tang, a post-doctoral student in Kisailus’ lab at UCR, and Wei Chen from Stanford University. Other contributors include Jiangyan Wang from Stanford University, as well as Thomas Dugger and Luz Cruz from UCR.


Monday, January 22, 2018

Electron (Rocket) Launch Vehicle

Electron is a two-stage orbital launch vehicle developed by New Zealand aerospace company Rocket Lab to cover the commercial small satellite launch segment (CubeSats). Its Rutherford engines [more details shown below] are the first electric pump-fed engine to power an orbital rocket.

In December 2016, Rocket Lab announced that Electron had completed flight qualification. The first rocket was launched on 25 May 2017, reaching space but not achieving orbit. During its second flight on 21 January 2018, Electron reached orbit and deployed three CubeSats.

Overview of the Electron

Electron uses two stages with the same diameter (1.2 m, 3 ft 11 in) filled with RP-1/LOX propellant. The main body of the rocket is constructed using a lightweight carbon composite material.

Both stages use the innovative Rutherford rocket engine, the first electric pump-fed engine to power an orbital rocket. There are nine Rutherford engines on the first stage and one vacuum-optimized version on the second stage. Almost all of the engines' parts are 3D-printed to save time and money in the manufacturing process.

The rocket is launched from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 on Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand. The launch pad's remote and sparsely-populated location is intended to enable a high frequency of launches. The rocket and launch pad were both privately funded, the first time all parts of a orbital launch operation were entirely run by the private sector (other private spaceflight companies lease launch facilities from government agencies or only launch suborbital rockets).

Intended Usage

Electron is designed to launch a 150 to 225 kg (331 to 496 lb) payload to a 500 km (310 mi) Sun-synchronous orbit, suitable for CubeSats, and other small payloads. The cost is less than US$6 million, a price point that the company hopes will allow it to attract one hundred launches per year. Moon Express has signed a contract to launch a lunar lander on an Electron during 2018 as part of the Google Lunar X Prize.

                                     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_(rocket)

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Rutherford Rocket Engine

Rutherford is a liquid-propellant rocket engine designed in New Zealand by Rocket Lab and manufactured in the United States. It uses LOX and RP-1 as its propellants and is the first flight-ready engine to use the electric-pump feed cycle. It is used on the company's own rocket, Electron. The rocket uses a similar arrangement to the Falcon 9, a two-stage rocket using a cluster of nine identical engines on the first stage and one, optimized for vacuum operation with a longer nozzle, on the second stage. The sea-level version produces 18 kN (4,000 lbf) of thrust and has a specific impulse of 303 s (2.97 km/s), while the vacuum optimized-version produces 22 kN (4,900 lbf) of thrust and has a specific impulse of 333 s (3.27 km/s).

It was qualified for flight in March 2016 and had its first flight on 25 May 2017.

Description of the Engine

Rutherford, named after New Zealand scientist Lord Rutherford, is a small liquid-propellant rocket engine designed to be simple and cheap to produce. It is used as both a first-stage and as a second-stage engine, which simplifies logistics and improves economies of scale. To reduce its cost, it uses the electric-pump feed cycle, being the first flight-ready engine of such type. It is fabricated largely by 3D printing, using a method called electron-beam melting. Its combustion chamber, injectors, pumps, and main propellant valves are all 3D-printed.

As with all pump-fed engines, the Rutherford uses a rotodynamic pump to increase the pressure from the tanks to that needed by the combustion chamber. The use of a pump avoids the need for heavy tanks capable of holding high pressures and the high amount of gas needed to pressurize them and replaces them with a pump.

The pumps (one for the fuel and one for the oxidizer) in electric-pump feed engines are driven by an electric motor. The Rutherford engine uses dual brushless DC electric motors and a lithium polymer battery. This improves efficiency from the 50% of a typical gas-generator cycle to 95%. However, the battery pack increases the weight of the complete engine.

Each engine has two small motors that generate 50 hp (37 kW) while spinning at 40 000 rpm. The first-stage battery, which has to power the pumps of nine engines simultaneously, can provide over 1 MW of electric power.

The engine is regeneratively cooled, which means that it first passes the fuel through channels that cool the combustion chamber and nozzle before injecting them for combustion.

                        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutherford_(rocket_engine)

Sunday, January 21, 2018

The Uniform Code of Military Justice

The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ, 64 Stat. 109, 10 U.S.C. §§ 801–946) is the foundation of military law in the United States. It was established by the United States Congress in accordance with the authority given by the United States Constitution in Article I, Section 8, which provides that "The Congress shall have Power....To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval forces".

On 30 June 1775, the Second Continental Congress established 69 Articles of War to govern the conduct of the Continental Army.

Effective upon its ratification in 1788, Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution provided that Congress has the power to regulate the land and naval forces. On 10 April 1806, the United States Congress enacted 101 Articles of War, which were not significantly revised until over a century later. Discipline in the sea services was provided under the Articles for the Government of the United States Navy (commonly referred to as Rocks and Shoals). While the Articles of War evolved during the first half of the twentieth century, being amended in 1916, 1920, and culminating with the substantial reforms in the 1948 version pursuant to the Selective Service Act of 1948 (a/k/a the Elston Act) (Pub.L. 80-759, 62 Stat. 604), its naval counterpart remained little changed by comparison. The military justice system continued to operate under the Articles of War and Articles for the Government of the Navy until 31 May 1951, when the Uniform Code of Military Justice went into effect.

The UCMJ was passed by Congress on 5 May 1950, and signed into law by President Harry S. Truman the next day. It took effect on 31 May 1951. The word uniform in the Code's title refers to its consistent application to all the armed services in place of the earlier Articles of War, Articles of Government, and Disciplinary Laws of the individual services.

The UCMJ, the Rules for Courts-Martial (the military analogue to the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure), and the Military Rules of Evidence (the analogue to the Federal Rules of Evidence) have evolved since their implementation, often paralleling the development of the federal civilian criminal justice system. In some ways, the UCMJ has been ahead of changes in the civilian criminal justice system. For example, a rights-warning statement similar to the Miranda warnings (and required in more contexts than in the civilian world where it is applicable only to custodial interrogation) was required by Art. 31 (10 U.S.C. § 831) a decade and a half before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Miranda v. Arizona; Article 38(b) (10 U.S.C. § 838(b)) continued the 1948 Articles of War guarantee that qualified defense counsel be provided to all accused without regard to indigence (and at earlier stages than required in civilian jurisdictions), whereas the U.S. Supreme Court only guaranteed the provision of counsel to indigents in Gideon v. Wainwright. Additionally, the role of what was originally a court-martial's non-voting "law member" developed into the present office of military judge whose capacity is little different from that of an Article III judge in a U.S. district court. At the same time, the "court-martial" itself (the panel of officers hearing the case and weighing the evidence) has converted from being essentially a board of inquiry/review presiding over the trial, into a jury of military service-members. The current version of the UCMJ is printed in latest edition of the Manual for Courts-Martial (2012), incorporating changes made by the President (executive orders) and National Defense Authorization Acts of 2006 and 2007.

Jurisdiction

Courts-martial


Courts-martial are conducted under the UCMJ and the Manual for Courts-Martial United States. If the trial results in a conviction, the case is reviewed by the convening authority – the commanding officer who referred the case for trial by court-martial. The convening authority has discretion to mitigate the findings and sentence, set aside convictions, and/or to remand convictions and/or sentences back to a court-martial for re-hearing.

If the sentence, as approved by the convening authority, includes death, a bad conduct discharge, a dishonorable discharge, dismissal of an officer, or confinement for one year or more, the case is reviewed by an intermediate court. There are four such courts – the Army Court of Criminal Appeals, the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals, the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals, and the Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals.

After review by any of these intermediate courts, the next level of appeal is the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (CAAF). The Supreme Court of the United States has discretion under 28 U.S.C. § 1259 to review cases under the UCMJ on direct appeal where the CAAF has conducted a mandatory review (death penalty and certified cases), granted discretionary review of a petition, or otherwise granted relief. If the CAAF denies a petition for review or a writ appeal, consideration by the Supreme Court may be obtained only through collateral review (e.g., a writ of habeas corpus). Since 2007, several bills have been introduced into Congress to expand the accessibility of service members to the Supreme Court. See also Equal Justice for United States Military Personnel legislation.

Personal jurisdiction


Within the exceptions below, as codified in Article 2 of the UCMJ, personal jurisdiction attaches, regardless of the physical global location of the servicemember, over all members of the uniformed services of the United States: the Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, Navy, NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps, and Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. While the Coast Guard is administered under Title 14 of the United States Code when not operating as part of the U.S. Navy, individuals commissioned or enlisted in the Coast Guard are subject to the UCMJ as an Armed Force. However, commissioned members of the NOAA and PHS, as Uniformed Services, are only subject to the UCMJ when attached or detailed to a military unit or militarized by Presidential executive order during a national emergency or declaration of war.

Members of the military Reserve Components under Title 10 of the United States Code (Army Reserve, Navy Reserve, Marine Forces Reserve, and Air Force Reserve), or Title 14 of the United States Code, Coast Guard Reserve when not operating as part of the U.S. Navy, are subject to the UCMJ if they are:

  1. Full-Time Support (FTS) personnel on active duty orders serving pursuant to the authority of 10 USC 10211 or 10 USC 12310, including:
    1. Army/Air Force "Active Guard and Reserve (AGR),"
    2. Navy "Full-time Support (FTS),"
    3. Marine Corps "Active Reserve (AR)," or
    4. Coast Guard "Reserve Program Administrators (RPA)."
  2. "Traditional" reservists performing either:
    1. Full-time active duty service under orders for a specific period, i.e., Annual Training, Active Duty for Training, Active Duty for Operational Support, Active Duty Special Work, Mobilization or Recall to Active Duty, Canvasser Recruiter, etc., or
    2. Performing part-time Inactive Duty, i.e., Inactive Duty Training, Inactive Duty Travel and Training, Unit Training Assembly, Additional Training Periods, Additional Flying Training Periods, Reserve Management Periods, etc., all of which are colloquially known as "drills."
    3. Retired Reservists who are either recalled to active duty pursuant to Secretarial authority, or who are receiving medical treatment in an Armed Forces hospital (see below).

Soldiers and airmen in the National Guard of the United States are subject to the UCMJ only if activated (mobilized or recalled to active duty) in a Federal capacity under Title 10 by an executive order issued by the President, or during their Annual Training periods, which are orders issued under Title 10, during which periods of duty they are federalized into the National Guard of the United States. Otherwise, members of the National Guard are usually exempt from the UCMJ. However, under Title 32 orders, individual members of the Army National Guard and Air Force National Guard are still subject to their respective State codes of Military Justice, which often resemble the UCMJ very closely, and/or their State civil and criminal laws.

Several States also authorize either naval or military organized militia forces. These are collectively known as the State Guard. State Guard organizations are organized, trained, equipped, armed, disciplined, and administered under each State's own sovereign authority, and are not subject to a Federal recall to active duty, nor are the individual members subject to the UCMJ in their capacities as members of the State Guard. State Guard organizations typically are organized similarly to a military force, and usually report to the senior National Guard officer in each State, known as the Adjutant General. In this sense, the State Guard are auxiliaries to each State's Constitutionally authorized organized militia forces, the Army and Air Force National Guard. The State Guard is often specialized, based on each State's requirements, for missions such as wilderness search and rescue, light aviation, forest firefighting, law enforcement, or general emergency management roles. Under each State's own authorities, State Guard members may be ordered to State Active Duty (SAD), in a status similar to National Guard members in a Title 32 status but solely under State authority and discipline, and also may be provided with the training, equipment, and authority to act as law enforcement officers with powers of arrest. Each State sets the requirements to join, remain, be promoted or rewarded, and conditions of employment such as a minimum amount of duty performed in a year, and whether any duty is paid or nonpaid, and whether the individuals are covered by various civil service or retirement pension plans. Most State Guard duty is performed without pay, in a volunteer status. While the State Guard organizations are subject to recall to SAD, or other workforce requirements as imposed by their State, they are not subject to either partial or full mobilization authorities under Title 10. However, the individual State Guard members often have dual-status as both State Guard and a Federally recognized uniformed services member, such as a Texas State Guard officer who is also a retired US military officer. Such an individual could be recalled to active duty under both SAD as a State Guard member, or under one of the various authorities to recall retired or reserve military members to active duty (10 USC 688, various 10 USC 123XX authorities, and others)...but not both because a Federal status trumps a State status. State Guard members could thus be subject to the UCMJ at all times under their Federal status, and under specific State military and civil/criminal codes under their State status.

Cadets and midshipmen at the United States Military Academy, United States Naval Academy, United States Air Force Academy, United States Merchant Marine Academy, and United States Coast Guard Academy are subject to the UCMJ at all times because they are in an active duty status while at a Military Service Academy. Also, Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) cadets and midshipmen, as members of the reserve components, are subject to the UCMJ while on inactive or active duty training.

Members of military auxiliaries such as the Civil Air Patrol and the Coast Guard Auxiliary are not subject to the UCMJ, even when participating in missions assigned by the military or other branches of government. However, members of the Coast Guard Auxiliary can be called by the Commandant of the Coast Guard into the Temporary Reserve, in which case they become subject to the UCMJ.

Additionally, the following categories of service members are subject to the UCMJ as indicated:

  1. Retired members of the Regular Component who are entitled to retirement pay, per Article 2(a)(4), regardless of the authority under which retired from active service and transferred to the Retired List of their respective Service's Regular Component,
  2. Retired members of the Reserve Component, whether entitled to retired pay or awaiting retired pay at age 60 as a Grey Area reserve retiree, who are receiving hospital care from an Armed Force, UCMJ, Article 2(a)(5)],
  3. Members of the Fleet Reserve/Fleet Marine Corps Reserve (FR/FMCR), as enlisted retired Navy or Marine Corps personnel who have not served a total of 30 years of combined active, reserve, and retired service. Both Regular Component and Reserve Component enlisted retirees are transferred to the FR/FMCR upon retirement if they have less than 30 total years, and remain subject to the UCMJ in that status until they complete 30 total years and are transferred to their respective original Service Retired List (Regular Component or Retired Component). The FR/FMCR is not applicable to officers, any service member retired for disability and transferred to the Temporary or Permanent Disability Retired Lists, nor any enlisted retirees except those of the Navy and Marine Corps as noted above.
  4. Prisoners of War (POW)/Enemy Prisoners of War (EPW) in the custody of the U.S. Armed Forces,
  5. Detained medical personnel and military chaplains in the custody of the U.S. Armed Forces, and
  6. Persons in custody of the U.S. Armed Forces serving a sentence imposed by a court-martial.

Non-judicial punishment


Under Article 15 of the Code (Subchapter III), military commanders have the authority to exercise non-judicial punishment (NJP) over their subordinates for minor breaches of discipline. These punishments are carried out after a hearing before the commander, but without a judge or jury. Punishments are limited to reduction in rank, loss of pay, restrictions of privileges, extra-duty, reprimands, and, aboard ships, confinement. Guidelines for the imposition of NJP are contained in Part V of the Manual for Courts-Martial United States and the various service regulations.

                     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Code_of_Military_Justice

Saturday, January 20, 2018

2018: Turkish military in Syria

The Turkish military intervention in Syria (January 2018–present), code-named by Turkey as Operation Olive Branch (Turkish: Zeytin Dalı Harekâtı), is an offensive against Syrian Democratic Forces positions surrounding the Syrian city of Afrin. Afrin and the surrounding area is claimed by the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria as the Afrin Region.

Background

The offensive came amid growing tensions between the Turkish and American governments over the latter's support of the Syrian Democratic Forces, which are made up primarily of Kurdish fighters of the YPG, which Turkey considers to be a branch of the PKK. In particular, Turkey objected to announced plans by the US to train and equipe a 30,000 strong SDF border force, which Turkey claimed posed a direct threat to their security. “A country we call an ally is insisting on forming a terror army on our borders,” Turkish Prime minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan said in a speech in Ankara. “What can that terror army target but Turkey? Our mission is to strangle it before it’s even born.”

In days prior to the offensive, Turkish forces had exchanged artillery fire with YPG militiamen along the Turkish-Syrian border near Afrin. The Turkish state-runned Anadolu Agency reported that Russian military observers in the Afrin area began withdrawing on 19 January 2018 in anticipation of a Turkish offensive on YPG positions in Afrin.

2018 Offensive

The Turkish government announced the start of the offensive on 19 January 2018 with Turkish Defence Minister Nurettin Canikli stating, "The operation has actually de facto started with cross-border shelling." He added no troops had crossed into Afrin. Turkey intensified its shelling later, while People's Protection Units (YPG) claimed that 70 shells had been fired overnight.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights stated that 14 people in a psychiatric hospital had been wounded due to shelling by Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Turkish media reported that 20 buses carrying Turkish-backed Syrian opposition rebels had crossed into Syria through the Öncüpınar border crossing. An AFP [French Press Agency] photographer stated that 30 buses carrying Syrian fighters had also crossed through the Cilvegozu border crossing.

In al-Shahba canton, according to pro-SDF sources, the fighters of the Jaysh al-Thuwar in al-Shahba canton inflicted vast damage to the ranks of the FSA as they killed 4 FSA fighters, and wounded 5 others, and that in response to the recent bombardments with mortars and Obis haphazardly against the civilians’ houses.

International Reactions from UN Members

Germany: The spokesman assistant of the minister of foreign affairs said they understand that Turkey wants to protect their borders, but suggests moderation regarding armed conflict.

Syrian Arab Republic: The Syrian Foreign Ministry condemned the Turkish aggression against the town of Afrin, calling it "an inseparable part of Syria.”

The Turkish General Staff: made the announcement in a statement published on its website, saying the objective of the mission is to "establish security and stability on our borders and region, to eliminate terrorists of PKK/KCK/PYD-YPG and ISIL.”

United States:  A spokesman for the Pentagon stated: "We encourage all parties to avoid escalation and to focus on the most important task of defeating ISIS." The spokesman then added that the United States understands Turkey's concerns about the PKK, but would like to see a de-escalation of violence and instead focus on fighting ISIS. US State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert called on Turkey not to engage in any invasion of Syria's Afrin, reiterating a statement made by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who also assured that the US had no intention of building a Syria-Turkey border force, saying the issue, which has incensed Ankara, had been "misportrayed.”

Russian Republic:  The Russian Foreign Ministry stated that Moscow was closely following the situation in Syria's Afrin and was concerned by the news about the Turkish military engagement in the city. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that Russia was withdrawing its troops from Syria's Afrin, the target of the Turkish offensive.

Reactions from Regional Actors

Syrian National Coalition:  Syrian Turkmen councilhead Emin BozoÄŸlan stated "We were informed that the terror group PYD/PKK will transfer its arms to Raqqa, where they used to work with regime forces for years." He also said Turkey should "definitely" take necessary measures in this regard.

The YPG stated that "they will respond to the Turkish provocation since civilians have been attacked".General Command of YPG in Afrin stated: "We know that, without the permission of global forces and mainly Russia, whose troops located in Afrin, Turkey cannot attack civilians using Afrin air space. Therefore we hold Russia as responsible as Turkey and stress that Russia is the crime partner of Turkey in massacring the civilians in the region.”

Friday, January 19, 2018

The Bangladesh Liberation War

The Bangladesh Liberation War (also known as the Bangladesh War of Independence, or simply the Liberation War in Bangladesh), was a revolution and armed conflict sparked by the rise of the Bengali nationalist and self-determination movement in what was then East Pakistan during the 1971 Bangladesh genocide. It resulted in the independence of the People's Republic of Bangladesh. The war began after the Pakistani military junta based in West Pakistan launched Operation Searchlight against the people of East Pakistan on the night of 25 March 1971. It pursued the systematic elimination of nationalist Bengali civilians, students, intelligentsia, religious minorities and armed personnel. The junta annulled the results of the 1970 elections and arrested Prime minister-designate Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The war ended on 16 December 1971 after West Pakistan surrendered.

Rural and urban areas across East Pakistan saw extensive military operations and air strikes to suppress the tide of civil disobedience that formed following the 1970 election stalemate. The Pakistan Army, which had the backing of Islamists, created radical religious militias – the Razakars, Al-Badr and Al-Shams – to assist it during raids on the local populace. Urdu-speaking Biharis in Bangladesh (ethnic minority) were also in support of Pakistani military. Members of the Pakistani military and supporting militias engaged in mass murder, deportation and genocidal rape. The capital Dhaka was the scene of numerous massacres, including the Operation Searchlight and Dhaka University massacre. An estimated 10 million Bengali refugees fled to neighboring India, while 30 million were internally displaced. Sectarian violence broke out between Bengalis and Urdu-speaking immigrants. An academic consensus prevails that the atrocities committed by the Pakistani military were a genocide.

The Bangladeshi Declaration of Independence was proclaimed from Chittagong by members of the Mukti Bahini – the national liberation army formed by Bengali military, paramilitary and civilians. The East Bengal Regiment and the East Pakistan Rifles played a crucial role in the resistance. Led by General M. A. G. Osmani and eleven sector commanders, the Bangladesh Forces waged a mass guerrilla war against the Pakistani military. They liberated numerous towns and cities in the initial months of the conflict. The Pakistan Army regained momentum in the monsoon. Bengali guerrillas carried out widespread sabotage, including Operation Jackpot against the Pakistan Navy. The nascent Bangladesh Air Force flew sorties against Pakistani military bases. By November, the Bangladesh forces restricted the Pakistani military to its barracks during the night. They secured control of most parts of the countryside.

The Provisional Government of Bangladesh was formed on 17 April 1971 in Mujibnagar and moved to Calcutta as a government in exile. Bengali members of the Pakistani civil, military and diplomatic corps defected to the Bangladeshi provisional government. Thousands of Bengali families were interned in West Pakistan, from where many escaped to Afghanistan. Bengali cultural activists operated the clandestine Free Bengal Radio Station. The plight of millions of war-ravaged Bengali civilians caused worldwide outrage and alarm. The Indian state led by Indira Gandhi provided substantial diplomatic, economic and military support to Bangladeshi nationalists. British, Indian and American musicians organised the world's first benefit concert in New York City to support the Bangladeshi people. Senator Ted Kennedy in the United States led a congressional campaign for an end to Pakistani military persecution; while US diplomats in East Pakistan strongly dissented with the Nixon administration's close ties to the Pakistani military dictator Yahya Khan.

India joined the war on 3 December 1971, after Pakistan launched preemptive air strikes on North India. The subsequent Indo-Pakistani War witnessed engagements on two war fronts. With air supremacy achieved in the eastern theatre and the rapid advance of the Allied Forces of Bangladesh and India, Pakistan surrendered in Dacca on 16 December 1971.

The war changed the geopolitical landscape of South Asia, with the emergence of Bangladesh as the seventh-most populous country in the world. Due to complex regional alliances, the war was a major episode in Cold War tensions involving the United States, the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. The majority of member states in the United Nations recognized Bangladesh as a sovereign nation in 1972.

                                 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh_Liberation_War