SCI-TECH

Sony launches Xperia Z5,

Z5 Premium flagships T
LENOVO VIBE P1, P1M LAUNCHED IN INDIA

The mid-range Vibe P1 is priced at Rs 15,999, while the budget-priced Vibe P1m
will be available for Rs 7,999. Both smartphones will be available exclusively
via Flipkart starting Tuesday, with the P1m being offered through flash sales.

21

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2015

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Pune Mirror, October 22, 2015 Pp.21

Most Earth-like
planets yet to be born
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The high-end smartphones match the recently launched new iPhones and Samsungs latest Galaxy S
and Note offerings for price, with plenty of pre-order bonuses and freebies thrown in to woo buyers

The Xperia Z5 (left) will be available in three colour options, while the 4K display-packing Z5 Premium features a chrome body and will come in two colours
Sameer.Desai
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ony unveiled three smartphones in its

new flagship Xperia Z5 line last month,
and two of them the Xperia Z5 and
the Xperia Z5 Premium will arrive later this month and in early November
respectively.
The Z5 line features a brand new camera with
Sonys large 1/2.3 Exmor RS 23 megapixel sensor and F2.0 G Lens. Sony claims the Z5 camera is
capable of faster autofocus than other smartphones; 0.037 seconds, to be precise.
The Xperia Z5 sports a waterproof body that
is a mix of metal frame and frosted glass back;
Sony calls it a continuous plate form. The
phone features a 5.2-inch display, while the Z5
Premium packs a 5.5-inch screen.
The Z5 is powered by the octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 CPU and sports a fingerprint scanner on the side along with support for

the FIDO standard, which uses fingerprint

authentication for online payments.
Sony claims a battery life of two days, and fast
charging through Qualcomm Quick Charge
2.0, which claims to give five hours usage with
just ten minutes of charging.
The Xperia Z5 Premium is Sonys top-of-theline offering, featuring the worlds first 4K
smartphone display. The phone will also upscale
lower resolution content and display it in 4K.
Like the other Z5 devices, it also packs a Snapdragon 810 CPU, 3430 mAh battery, dual-SIM
support, and 32 GB of storage, expandable up to
200 GB via a MicroSD card.
Both Z5 phones feature DSEE HXTM technology, which upscales existing MP3 audio to
near hig-hres audio quality. The phones also
pair with the PlayStation 4 via Wi-Fi to let you
play console games on your phone using a PS4
controller via remote play.
The Xperia will be available in India starting
October 23, priced Rs 52,900, while the Xperia

Z5 Premium will hit stores starting November 7,

priced Rs. 62,990.
The prices are comparable to recent flagship
launches from the likes of Apple and Samsung.
The new iPhone 6S launched earlier this
month at Rs 62,000 for the lowest 16 GB variant,
while the larger iPhone 6S Plus starts at Rs 72,000
for the same capacity model.
Samsungs latest flagship, the Galaxy S6
Edge+ launched in India in August, priced Rs
57,900 for the 32 GB model. It followed that up
with the launch of the Note 5 in September,
priced Rs 53,900 for the 32 GB variant.
Sony is offering free Smart Covers, priced Rs
3,500, for both phones, which customers can redeem at Xperia Lounge outlets. Those preordering the Z5 Premium before November 4 will also
receive the Sony MDR-EX31BN wireless headset
worth Rs 5,490 for free.
Buyers of both phones will also receive free
three-month subscriptions to Sony Music, Sony
LIV and Hungama Play, and free Kindle e-books
worth Rs 1,000.

Protein that may boost learning, memory identified

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esearchers have found that increasing a

crucial cholesterol-binding membrane
protein in nerve cells within the brain
can improve learning and memory in aged
mice.
This is a novel strategy for treating neurodegenerative diseases, and it underscores the
importance of brain cholesterol, said Chitra
Mandyam, associate professor at The Scripps
Research Institute (TSRI) and co-first author of
the study with Jan M Schilling of University of
California San Diego and the Veterans Affairs

San Diego Healthcare System (VA).

By bringing back this protein, youre
actually bringing cholesterol back to the cell
membrane, which is very important for forming new synaptic contacts, said senior author
Brian Head, a research scientist with the VA
and associate professor at UC San
Diego.
The study focuses on a specific membrane
protein called caveolin-1 (Cav-1) and expands
scientists understanding of neuroplasticity,
the ability of neural pathways to grow in
response to new stimuli.
Researchers delivered Cav-1 directly into a
region of the brain known as the hippocampus
in adult and aged mice. The hippocampus is

astructure thought to participate in the formation of contextual memories.

In addition to improved neuron growth,
treated mice demonstrated better retrieval of
contextual memories they froze in place, an
indication of fear, when placed in a location
where theyd once received small electric
shocks.
Mandyam and Head believe that this type
of gene therapy may be a path toward treating
age-related memory loss.
The researchers are now testing this gene
therapy in mouse models of Alzheimers
disease and expanding it to possibly treat injuries such as spinal cord injury and traumatic
brain injury.

he bulk of potentially habitable planets are yet

to be born in the universe, according to a new
study that suggests that there should at least be
one billion Earth-sized worlds in the Milky Way at
present.
When our solar system was born 4.6 billion
years ago, only eight per cent of the potentially
habitable planets that will ever form in the universe existed, researchers said.
Most of those planets 92 per cent are yet to
be born, according to the assessment of data
collected by NASAs Hubble Space Telescope and
the prolific planet-hunting Kepler space observatory.
Our main motivation was understanding the
Earths place in the context of the rest of the universe, said study author Peter Behroozi of the
Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI).
Compared to all the planets that will ever
form in the universe, the Earth is actually quite
early, said Behroozi.
Looking far away and far back in time, Hubble
has given astronomers a family album of galaxy
observations that chronicle the universes star formation history as galaxies grew.
The data shows that the universe was making
stars at a fast rate 10 billion years ago, but the fraction of the universes hydrogen and helium gas
that was involved was very low.
Today, star birth is happening at a much slower
rate than long ago, but there is so much leftover gas
available that the universe will keep cooking up
stars and planets for a very long time to come.
There is enough remaining material [after the
big bang] to produce even more planets in the future, in the Milky Way and beyond, added co-investigator Molly Peeples of STScI.
Keplers planet survey indicates that Earthsized planets in a stars habitable zone, the perfect
distance that could allow water to pool on the surface, are ubiquitous in our galaxy.
Based on the survey, scientists predict that
there should be one billion Earth-sized worlds in
the Milky Way galaxy at present, a good portion of
them presumed to be rocky. That estimate skyrockets when you include the other 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe.
This leaves plenty of opportunity for untold
more Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone to
arise in the future.
The last star isnt expected to burn out until 100
trillion years from now. Thats plenty of time for
literally anything to happen on the planet landscape.
The researchers say that future Earths are more
likely to appear inside giant galaxy clusters and also in dwarf galaxies, which have yet to use up all
their gas for building stars and accompanying
planetary systems.
ESO/L. CALCADA

FINAL KISS OF STARS BEFORE CATASTROPHE

An international team of astronomers has found the hottest
and most massive double star with components so close they
touch each other. The two stars in the extreme system, VFTS
352, could be heading for a dramatic end, during which they
either create a single giant star or form a binary black hole.