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

  • NASA’s OSIRIS-REx begins journey back from asteroid

    On May 11, NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft will depart asteroid Bennu, and start its two-year-long journey back to Earth.

    About OSIRIS-REx

    • OSIRIS-REx is NASA’s first mission to visit a near-Earth asteroid, survey its surface and collect a sample from it.
    • The mission was launched in 2016, it reached its target in 2018 and since then, the spacecraft has been trying to match the velocity of the asteroid using small rocket thrusters.
    • It also utilised this time to survey the surface and identify potential sites to take samples.
    • In October 2020, the spacecraft briefly touched asteroid Bennu, from where it collected samples of dust and pebbles. 
    • Once the surface was disturbed, the spacecraft’s robotic arm captured some samples.
    • The spacecraft’s engineers have also confirmed that shortly after the spacecraft made contact with the surface, it fired its thrusters and “safely backed away from Bennu”.

    About Bennu

    • Bennu is considered to be an ancient asteroid that has not gone through a lot of composition-altering change through billions of years, which means that below its surface lie chemicals and rocks from the birth of the solar system.
    • Around 20-40 percent of Bennu’s interior is empty space and scientists believe that it was formed in the first 10 million years of the solar system’s creation, implying that it is roughly 4.5 billion years old.
    • Bennu is a B-type asteroid, implying that it contains significant amounts of carbon and various other minerals.
    • Because of its high carbon content, the asteroid reflects about four percent of the light that hits it, which is very low when compared with a planet.
    • Bennu is named after an Egyptian deity.
    • The asteroid was discovered by a team from the NASA-funded Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research team in 1999.

  • What is 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG) and is it effective against Covid?

    About the drug

    • DRDO’s new anti-Covid oral drug, 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG), was recently granted emergency use approval by the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI).
    •  2-DG halts the spread of COVID-19 inside the body cells.
    • Clinical trial results have shown that this molecule helps in faster recovery of hospitalised patients and reduces supplemental oxygen dependence.
    • In efficacy trends, the patients treated with 2-DG showed faster symptomatic cure than Standard of Care (SoC) on various endpoints.
    • A significantly favourable trend (2.5 days difference) was seen in terms of the median time to achieving normalisation of specific vital signs parameters when compared to SoC.

    How 2-DG reduces dependence on oxygen

    • The 2 DG drug, like glucose, spreads through the body, reaches the virus-infected cells and prevents virus growth by stopping viral synthesis and destroys the protein’s energy production.
    • The drug also works on virus infection spread into lungs which help us to decrease patients dependability on oxygen.

     

  • Govt. gives nod for 5G trials

    Trials for 5G technology

    • The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on Tuesday gave permission to Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) to conduct trials for the use and application of 5G technology.
    • The applicant TSPs include Bharti Airtel Ltd., Reliance JioInfocomm Ltd., Vodafone Idea Ltd. and MTNL.
    • These TSPs have tied up with original equipment manufacturers and technology providers which are Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung and C-DOT.
    • Each TSP will have to conduct trials in rural and semi-urban settings also in addition to urban settings so that the benefit of 5G technology proliferates across the country.
    • This formally leaves out Chinese companies like Huawei and ZTE from the 5G race in India.

    About 5Gi technology

    • TSPs are encouraged to conduct trials using 5Gi technology in addition to the already known 5G technology.
    •  5Gi technology was advocated by India, as it facilitates much larger reach of the 5G towers and radio networks.
    • The 5Gi technology has been developed by the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M), Centre of Excellence in Wireless Technology (CEWiT) and IIT Hyderabad.

  • Hottest planet in the known universe discovered

    About the plane

    • TOI-1431b, also known as MASCARA-5b, was found 490 light-years from Earth and could be the hottest planet in the known universe.
    • Researchers at the University of Southern Queensland’s Centre for Astrophysics in Toowoomba led the global team that made the discovery.
    • NASA’s Training Exoplanet Survey Satellite first flagged TOI-1431b as a possible planet in late 2019.
    • Dayside temperature reaches approximately 2700 degrees celcius and nightside temperature approaches approximately 2300 degrees celcius – no life could survive in its atmosphere.
    • This temperature is significantly greater than the melting point of most metals, many of which will turn to liquid at under 2000 degrees celcius.
    • Titanium melts at 1670 degrees, platinum at 1770 degrees, and stainless steel at between 1375 and 1530 degrees.

    Planet with a retrograde orbit

    • These types of planets, known as ultra-hot Jupiters, are rarely discovered but this particular one is even more unusual due to its retrograde orbit.
    • In our Solar System, all the planets orbit in the same direction that the Sun rotates and they’re all along the same plane.
    • This new planet’s orbit is tilted so much that it is actually going in the opposite direction to the rotation of its host star.

  • Understanding the Ct value in a Covid-19 test

    Recently, the Maharashtra government sought clarity from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on the threshold Ct value to treat a person Covid-negative.

    What is Ct value

    • Short for cycle threshold, Ct is a value that emerges during RT-PCR tests.
    • In an RT-PCR test, RNA is extracted from the swab collected from the patient.
    • It is then converted into DNA, which is then amplified.
    • Amplification refers to the process of creating multiple copies of the genetic material — in this case, DNA.
    • Amplification takes place through a series of cycles — one copy becomes two, two becomes four, and so on.
    • Put simply, the Ct value refers to the number of cycles after which the virus can be detected.
    • The lower the Ct value, the higher the viral load — because the virus has been spotted after fewer cycles.

    Why Ct value is important

    • According to the ICMR, a patient is considered Covid-positive if the Ct value is below 35.
    • If the benchmark were to be lowered to 24 — the value mentioned in Maharashtra’s letter — it would mean that Ct values in the range 25-34 would not be considered positive.
    • A benchmark of 35, therefore, means that more patients would be considered positive than we would get if the benchmark were 24.
    • The ICMR has said lowering Ct threshold parameter may lead to missing several infectious persons.

    Does Ct score indicate the severity of disease

    • A small study published in the Indian Journal of Medical Microbiology in January this year found that there was no correlation between Ct values and severity of disease or mortality in patients with Covid-19 disease.
    • It found that the time since the onset of symptoms has a stronger relationship with Ct values as compared to the severity of the disease.
    • The Ct value tells us about the viral load in the throat and not in the lungs.
    • The Ct value does not correlate with severity – only with infectivity.

  • Brucellosis: Preventive measures launched

    Health and Animal Husbandry teams have launched preventive measures and initiated an epidemiological investigation, after one case of brucellosis, was confirmed in a prisoner.

    • The infection is passed on to humans through the ingestion of unpasteurized milk and milk products or contact with animal secretions.

    Brucellosis:

    • Brucellosis is a bacterial disease that mainly infects cattle, swine, goats, sheep and dogs.
    • Humans can get infected if they come in direct contact with infected animals or by eating or drinking contaminated animal products or by inhaling airborne agents.
    • According to the WHO, most cases of the disease are caused by ingesting unpasteurised milk or cheese from infected goats or sheep.

    Symptoms:

    • Fever, sweats, malaise, anorexia, headache and muscle pain
    • While some signs and symptoms can last for long periods of time, others may never go away.
    • These include recurrent fevers, arthritis, swelling of the testicles and scrotum area, swelling of the heart, neurologic symptoms, chronic fatigue, depression and swelling of the liver or spleen.
    • Human to human transmission of the virus is rare.

  • [pib] Drone use permission for feasibility study of Covid-19 vaccine delivery

    Conditional drone use exemption for vaccine delivery

    • Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) and Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) have granted conditional exemption to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).
    • The exemption is granted for conducting feasibility study of Covid-19 vaccine delivery using drones in collaboration with IIT Kanpur.
    • The permission exemption is valid for a period of one year or until further orders.

    Entities using drone on conditional drone use exemption basis

    • Conditional drone use exemption has been granted to the below entities for said purposes:
    • Nagar Nigam of Dehradun, Haldwani, Haridwar & Rudrapur for preparation of GIS based property database & electronic tax register.
    • West Central Railway, (WCR) Kota for train accident site & maintaining safety & security of the railway assets.
    • West Central Railway, (WCR) Katni for train accident site & maintaining safety & security of the railway assets.
    • Vedanta Ltd. (Cairn Oil & Gas) also received the conditional drone usage exemption for data acquisition for asset inspecting & mapping.

  • Plasmid

    • Scientists have developed a Covid-19 vaccine that could offer protection against not only existing and future strains of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.
    • The vaccine costs $1 a dose. It uses the plasmid of E-coli bacteria to produce the vaccine.
    • A plasmid is a small, extrachromosomal DNA molecule within a cell that is physically separated from chromosomal DNA and can replicate independently.

    • They are most commonly found as small circular, double-stranded DNA molecules in bacteria; however, plasmids are sometimes present in archaea and eukaryotic organisms.

  • How & why of oxygen therapy

    How Covid-19 leads to shortness of breath?

    • Shortness of breath occurs because of the way Covid-19 affects the patient’s respiratory system.
    • When a person inhales, the tiny air sacs in the lungs — alveoli — expand to capture this oxygen, which is then transferred to blood vessels and transported through the rest of the body.
    • Respiratory epithelial cells line the respiratory tract.
    • Their primary function is to protect the airway tract from pathogens and infections, and also facilitate gas exchange.
    • And the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus can infect these epithelial cells.
    • To fight such infection, the body’s immune system releases cells that trigger inflammation.
    • When this inflammatory immune response continues, it impedes the regular transfer of oxygen in the lungs.
    • Simultaneously, fluids too build up.
    • Both these factors combined make it difficult to breathe.
    •  Low levels of oxygen triggered by Covid-19 are inflammatory markers, which include elevated white blood cell counts and neutrophil counts.

    Does a patient always show Covid symptoms when their oxygen levels drop?

    • No.
    • According to the FAQs on Covid-19 from AIIMS e-ICUS, sudden deaths have been reported at presentation to the emergency department, as well as in hospital.
    • AIIMS has said that the reasons that have been proposed include a sudden cardiac event, preceding “silent hypoxia” that went unnoticed, or due to a thrombotic complication such as pulmonary thromboembolism.
    • In silent hypoxia, patients have extremely low blood oxygen levels, yet do not show signs of breathlessness.

  • What is the Whitest Paint?

    Engineers in the US have created what they are calling the whitest paint yet.

    What is the whitest paint?

    • The researchers created an ultra-white paint pushing the limits of how white paint can be.
    • This older formulation was made of calcium carbonate, while the new one is made up of barium sulphate, which makes it more white.
    • The newer paint is whiter and keeps the surface areas it is painted on cooler than the formulation before this could.
    • If this new paint was used to cover a roof area of 1,000 square feet, it may be able to get a cooling power of 10 kilowatts.
    • Most ovens use up about 2.3 kilowatts to run for an hour and a 3 ton 12 Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio (SEER) air conditioner uses up about 3 kilowatts to run for an hour.

    The researchers have claimed that this paint may be the closest equivalent to the blackest black paint called “Vantablack” which is able to absorb up to 99.9 per cent of visible light.

    What determines if a colour absorbs or reflects light?

    • To understand how this works one needs to note that whenever an object is seen by the eye, it is either because of sunlight or the artificial light in the room.
    • This light is made up of seven different colours (Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange and Red or VIBGYOR).
    • Specifically, light is made up of wavelengths of different colours.
    • If an individual is looking at a sofa that is green, this is because the fabric or material it is made up of is able to absorb all the colours except green.
    • This means that the molecules of the fabric reflect the green coloured wavelengths, which is what the eye sees.
    • Therefore, the colour of any object or thing is determined by the wavelength the molecules are not able to absorb.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q.Rainbow is produced when sunlight falls on drops of rain. Which of the following physical phenomena are responsible for this?

    1. Dispersion
    2. Refraction
    3. Internal reflection

    Select the correct answer using the codes given below:

    a) 1 and 2 only

    b) 2 and 3 only

    c) 1 and 3 only

    d) 1, 2 and 3

    What determines which wavelength of light will be reflected and absorbed?

    • This is dependent on how electrons are arranged in an atom (the building block of life, an atom is made up of electrons, protons and neutrons.
    • These three particles make up everything in the known universe from mountains, planets, humans to pizza and cake).
    • In contrast, if an object is black, it is because it has absorbed all the wavelengths and therefore no light is reflected from them.
    • This is the reason that darker objects, as a result absorbing all wavelengths tend to heat up faster (during absorption the light energy is converted into heat energy).

    So, what makes the paint so white?

    There are two features:

    1. One is the paint’s high concentration of a chemical compound called barium sulfate, which is also used to make photo paper and cosmetics white.
    2. The second feature is that the team has used different sized particles of this chemical compound, which means different sizes scatter different amounts of light.

    In this way, the varying size of particles of the compound makes sure that the paint can scatter more of the light spectrum from the sun.