GS Paper: GS3-17.Awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, Robotics, Nano-technology, Bio-technology and issues relating to Intellectual Property Rights.

Bitcoin prices are rising these days and so will be its mining. As cryptocurrency will become mainstream, its carbon footprint cannot be ignored.

What are Cryptocurrencies?

Cryptocurrency

Global crypto market

• In 2019, the global cryptocurrency market was approximately $793 million.
• It’s now expected to reach nearly $5.2 billion by 2026, according to a report by the market research organization Facts and Factors.
• In just one year—between July 2020 and June 2021—the global adoption of cryptocurrency surged by more than 880 percent.

Carbon footprints of Bitcoins

• Increasing popularity of cryptocurrency has environmentalists on edge, as the digital “mining” of it creates a massive carbon footprint due to the staggering amount of energy it requires.
• A/c to the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index, the carbon footprint of Bitcoin is equivalent to that of New Zealand.
• Both emit nearly 37 megatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year.

What is Mining?

• Mining is a process in which computational puzzles are solved in order to verify transactions between users, which are then added to the blockchain.
• In simpler terms, the works are created, or “minted,” through a process called proof-of-work (PoW), which establishes its unique identity.

How do cryptocurrencies create such a footprint?

• Unlike mainstream traditional currencies, bitcoin is virtual and not made from paper or plastic, or even metal.
• Bitcoin is virtual but power-hungry as it is created using high-powered computers around the globe.
• Bitcoin is created when high-powered computers compete against other machines to solve complex mathematical puzzles.
• This is an energy-intensive process that often relies on fossil fuels, particularly coal, the dirtiest of them all.

Conclusion

• What this means is that, unlike traditional currency or gold, Bitcoin is not solely a settlement layer, not solely a store of value, and not solely a medium of exchange.
• This makes Bitcoin’s relative energy consumption productive in comparison to comparative sectors, given its robust potential uses.
• The promise of such an endeavor offers hope for a more sustainable cryptocurrency future.
• Whether this will make much difference to the climate crisis in light of government and industrial inaction remains to be seen.

Back2Basics: Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index

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Recent work by researchers at the National Centre of Biological Sciences, Bengaluru, has thrown light on what stimulates the synapses (connection of nerve cells) to form.

What are Synapses?

• Neurons, or nerve cells, in the brain connect by means of junctions known as synapses through which they transmit signals.
• There are two types of synapses – chemical and electrical:

(1) Chemical Synapse

• In this, there is a space of about 20 nanometres between two neurons, and the way they communicate is this: One neuron converts electrical signal into chemical signals.
• This chemical is released into the synaptic space and the receiving neuron converts the chemical signal back into an electrical signal.

(2) Electrical synapse

• In these synapses, the two neurons have a physical connection and the conversion of electrical to chemical need not occur, and they communicate directly.
• Electrical synapses are like a physical wire, communication is faster but they are also fewer in number.

Observing these synapses

• Researchers from TIFR-National Centre of Biological Sciences, Bengaluru, have chosen Zebrafish as a model organism to study this process.
• Zebrafish are transparent and neuron development in larval zebrafish can be observed from day to day by injecting a dye or by engineering the fish to express fluorescent proteins.
• It was observed that electrical synapses are formed before chemical synapses, they are like a blueprint in which neurons make a handshake. This results in the making of chemical synapses.
• Research on organisms such as leeches showed that if you remove electrical synapses, the chemical synapses do not form.
• However, the mechanism of how it happens in higher organisms such as vertebrates was not known.

What induces these synapses?

• The group observed that knocking out a particular protein known as the gap junction delta 2b (gjd2b) in the cerebellum of zebrafish affected levels of the enzyme CaMKII.
• Levels of CaMKII were seen to increase in the Purkinje neurons in the cerebellum.
• These neurons and the cerebellum itself control coordination of movements in the organism.

Why study this?

• In humans for example, excess abuse of alcohol leads to damage of these cells, which results in lack of coordination in movement.
• The cerebellum shows an evolutionary continuity in all vertebrates, so, too, the Purkinje neurons.
• Even though fish and humans diverged from a common ancestor about 500 million years ago, the cerebellum has been evolutionarily conserved.
• While zebrafish have about 300-400 Purkinje neurons, humans have thousands of these.

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The Indian SARS-CoV-2 Consortium on Genomics (INSACOG) has sequenced about 1,00,000 samples.

What is INSACOG?

• INSACOG is a consortium of 10 labs and 18 satellite labs across India tasked with scanning COVID samples from patients and finding the variants that has led to spike in transmission.
• The institutes involved include the laboratories of the Department of Biotechnology, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Indian Council of Medical Research, and the Health Ministry.
• Its work began in January 2020, by sequencing all samples with a history of travel from the U.K. and a proportion of positive samples in the community.

Tasks of INSACOG

• The NCDC is tasked with coordinating collections of samples from the States as well as correlating disease with certain mutations.
• It is mainly involved in genomic sequencing which is done by isolating the genetic material of the coronavirus samples.
• It is also tasked with tracking certain combinations of mutations that become more widespread in India.

What has it found so far?

• The INSACOG sequenced about 1,00,000 samples as of early December 2021 when this data was last made publicly available.
• The bulk of its effort has been focussed on identifying international ‘variants of concern’ (VoC) that are marked out by the WHO as being particularly infectious or pathogenic.
• International travellers who arrive in India and test positive are the ones whose samples usually get sent to INSACOG for determining the genomic variant.

Why is genome sequencing useful?

• Understanding mutations: The purpose of genome sequencing is to understand the role of certain mutations in increasing the virus’s infectivity.
• Immune response: Some mutations have also been linked to immune escape, or the virus’s ability to evade antibodies, and this has consequences for vaccines.
• Effectiveness of vaccines: Labs across the world, including many in India, have been studying if the vaccines developed so far are effective against such mutant strains of the virus.
• Evolution of viruses: Studies such as this have shown that Omicron, for instance, has evolved to evade antibodies much better than the Alpha or Delta variant. This prompted the push towards booster doses.

How is it done?

• Genomic sequencing is done by isolating the genetic material (RNA) of the coronavirus samples.
• RNA consists of millions of nucleotide bases and genomic sequencing is about identifying and comparing the sequence in a given sample to a reference sample.
• Changes in the sequence are clues to mutations that show that the virus may have undergone distinct changes at some key locations.
• There are several approaches to genome sequencing — whole genome sequencing, next-generation sequencing — that have different advantages.
• It has now evolved to a stage where large sequencers can process even thousands of samples simultaneously.

Various challenges that INSACOG faces

• Geographical variations: Given that COVID-19 is spreading, mutating and showing geographical variations, the original aim of the group was to sequence at least 5% of COVID-19 samples.
• Shortage of funds: But only 1% has been achieved yet, primarily due to a shortage of funds, insufficient reagents and tools necessary to rapidly scale up.
• Red-tapism: The INSACOG, in spite of being peopled by expert scientists, is ultimately within the Central government’s communication structure.
• Infrastructure lacunae: Not all INSACOG labs have the same quality of equipment and manpower and therefore a surge or spike in some cities can mean difficulties in processing.

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The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued directives to create a framework as well as gather more information about the potential effects of 5G on crucial aviation safety equipment.

What is 5G technology?

• 5G or fifth generation is the latest upgrade in the long-term evolution (LTE) mobile broadband networks.
• It mainly works in 3 bands, namely low, mid and high-frequency spectrum — all of which have their own uses as well as limitations.

Three bands of 5G

• The low band spectrum has shown great promise in terms of coverage and speed of internet and data exchange, the maximum speed is limited to 100 Mbps (Megabits per second).
• This means that while telcos can use and install it for commercial cellphones users who may not have specific demands for very high-speed internet, the low band spectrum may not be optimal for specialised needs of the industry.
• The mid-band spectrum, on the other hand, offers higher speeds compared to the low band but has limitations in terms of coverage area and penetration of signals.
• Telcos and companies, which have taken the lead on 5G, have indicated that this band may be used by industries and specialised factory units for building captive networks that can be moulded into the needs of that particular industry.
• The high-band spectrum offers the highest speed of all the three bands, but has extremely limited coverage and signal penetration strength.
• Internet speeds in the high-band spectrum of 5G have been tested to be as high as 20 Gbps (gigabits per second), while, in most cases, the maximum internet data speed in 4G has been recorded at 1 Gbps.

What is the issue?

• There is a threat of potential radar altimeter interference from 5G cellular in the 3700 MHz-3800 MHz frequency or the C-band.
• The 3700-4200 MHz band is close to the 4200 MHz-4400 MHz range used by aircraft radio altimeters.

Potential impacts

• Operations by aircraft including large jets could be limited or prohibited from using certain landing and navigation systems in places where there is scope for potential interference from new 5G cellular networks.
• The restrictions could be severe for smaller aircraft and helicopters.
• Overall, these could result in flight cancellations, delays or diversions in 46 places where these towers are, according to an aviation report.

What is the aircraft equipment that can be affected?

• The radio altimeter measures height (not altitude) of the aircraft above the surface immediately below the plane. It transmits a radio signal directly below.
• There are various other systems that depend on inputs from the radio altimeter — for example, predictive wind shear, ground proximity warning system, traffic collision avoidance system, and auto land.
• These effects are only when the aircraft is close to the ground, i.e. up to 2,500 ft above ground level (depending on the aircraft make).
• Any disturbance to internal radio altimeter readings caused by 5G or other equipment transmitting in frequency bands close to it can result in disastrous effects on crucial systems during approach/landing.

Impact of mobile phones

• 5G devices can interfere with aircraft altitude instruments and recommended that they should be turned off (or put to flight mode) during flight.
• Experts believe that electrical interference from a mobile phone could have been a factor in the crash of a small aircraft.
• The navigation system of the small aircraft could be disrupted by mobile phone signals.
• But up until now, there has been no evidence of a mobile phone having caused a crash.

What about the implications for India?

• Pilots in India are aware of the implications of 5G in the country.
• However, in India, 5G could be rolled out in the 3.2 GHz-3.6 GHz band, which may not have the potential to interfere with aircraft operations.

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