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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.

  • E-Renminbi: China’s Official Digital Currency

    China in a significant move has launched a trial of digital yuan in four urban centres of the country for specific services even as the world grapples with the containment of Covid.

    What is a cryptocurrency? Discuss how a vibrant cryptocurrency segment could add value to India’s financial sector. (250 W)

    Prelims Perspective:-

    1. Subtle differences btn digital and virtual currency – e.g. Regulatory issues

    2. Which countries have official virtual currency – e.g. Petro of Venezuela

    e-RMB

    • It will be the electronic form of the renminbi, with a value equivalent to the paper notes and coins in circulation.
    • The People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, will be the sole issuer of the digital yuan, initially offering the digital money to commercial banks and other operators.
    • It will be launched in major cities of Shenzhen, Suzhou and Chengdu, as well as the Xiong’an New Area.
    • It aims to change the financial system in big ways — by cutting costs and making transactions easier, more convenient and more transparent.
    • The public would be able to convert money in their bank accounts to the digital version and make deposits via electronic wallets.

    Back2Basics: Cryptocurrency

    • A Cryptocurrency is an internet-based medium of exchange which uses cryptographical functions to conduct financial transactions.
    • It leverages blockchain technology to gain decentralization, transparency, and immutability.
    • The most important feature of a cryptocurrency is that it is not controlled by any central authority: the decentralized nature of the blockchain makes cryptocurrencies theoretically immune to the old ways of government control and interference.
    • It can be sent directly between two parties via the use of private and public keys.
    • Unlike decentralized cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin, that allow users to transfer value with no central authority or third party involved, the government-backed digital currency is preferred.

    What are Blockchains?

    • Blockchain, sometimes referred to as Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), makes the history of any digital asset unalterable and transparent through the use of decentralization and cryptographic hashing.
    • Blockchain consists of three important concepts: blocks, nodes and miners.
    • Nodes can be any kind of electronic device that maintains copies of the blockchain and keeps the network functioning.
    • Miners create new blocks on the chain through a process called mining.

  • Plasma therapy is no silver bullet

    The article discusses the issues with convalescent plasma therapy. The therapy has been in the news as a cure to Covid-19. The lack of conclusive evidence is a major issue. There are certain risks involved in large scale adoption. All such issues are dealt with in detail here.

    Importance of scientific research in dealing with Covid-19

    • The COVID-19 pandemic has posed unprecedented challenges to governments, health professionals and the general public at large, around the world.
    • Every response, administrative, social, economic or medical is being subjected to intense public scrutiny, as it rightly should be in the spirit of mature democracy.
    • Scientific research in medicine is the only means to overcome novel and complex diseases such as COVID-19 and that too thrives on the same spirit of debate and criticism.
    • Difficulty in establishing protocols: The difference is that the standards of evidence required, to generate consensus and arrive at the most optimal protocols, are far more rigorous and time-taking than in most other walks of life.

    Issues with plasma therapy

    • The convalescent plasma therapy, that is being currently studied by the Indian Council of Medical Research, through open-label, randomised controlled trial to evaluate it for both safety and efficacy.
    • The problem with the therapy is of the lack of established protocols.
    • What is involved in therapy? The therapy involves infusing patients suffering from COVID-19 with plasma from recovered patients.
    • In theory, the antibodies of the recovered person may help that patient’s immune system fight the virus.
    • While showing great promise, it is a line of treatment that is yet to be validated for efficacy and safety and cannot be deployed widely without caution.
    • The current evidence to conclude anything about the true benefits of this therapy is very thin.
    • Till date, there have been only three published case series for convalescent plasma in COVID-19 with a cumulative of 19 patients.
    • Given the very small number of patients involved in these studies and a publication bias in medicine, we cannot conclude the therapy will work on all patients all the time or even believe that the convalescent plasma was the only reason for their improvement.
    • The most important principle in medical ethics is “do no harm”.
    • The transfusion of convalescent plasma is also not without risks, which range from mild reactions like fever, itching, to life-threatening allergic reactions and lung injury.
    • To recommend a therapy without studying it thoroughly with robust scientific methods may cause more harm than good.
    • Further, convalescent plasma therapy requires intensive resources, healthy COVID-19 survivors to donate, a blood bank with proper machinery and trained personnel to remove plasma, equipment to store it and testing facilities to make sure it has an adequate amount of antibodies.

    Need for the Randomised Controlled Trials (RCT)

    • To say with certainty whether a drug is truly effective or not, the gold standard in medicine is to conduct a randomised controlled trial.
    • In RCT half the patients get the experimental drug and the other half do not.
    • Only if patients in the first half show substantial improvement over those in the second half, it indicates the drug is beneficial.

    Exploring other options and focusing on health infrastructure

    • Too much focus on one approach can take away the focus from other important therapeutic modalities like the use of oxygen therapy, antivirals, and antibiotics for complicated hospital courses.
    • To overcome the pandemic comprehensively, we should focus on strengthening health systems at all levels, including referral systems, supply chain, logistics and inventory management.
    • We need to work on protecting our healthcare workers, improving prevention methods, promoting cough etiquettes, effective quarantining and accurate testing.

    A direct question based on the therapy like- “What is convalescent plasma therapy and what are the issues involved in its adoption?” can be asked by the UPSC.

    Conclusion

    Even these times of collective uncertainty are no reason to lower scientific temper. Science should be driven by reason and evidence with hope as a catalyst but not by either fear or populism. Pushing one or the other therapy without evidence or caution can only set back our larger fight against COVID-19.

  • [pib] Earth’s Magnetosphere and its dynamics

    Scientists at the Indian Institute of Geomagnetism (IIG) have developed a generalized one-dimensional fluid simulation code capable of studying a wide spectrum of coherent electric field structures of earth’s magnetosphere which can be useful in the planning of future space missions.

    The newscard talks of not so new phenomenon but a basic terminology of space sciences. Kindly make a note of what the Magnotesphere is, how it is formed, role of solar winds, Geodynamo etc.

    Earth’s Magnetosphere

    • The magnetosphere is the region of space surrounding Earth where the dominant magnetic field is the magnetic field of Earth, rather than the magnetic field of interplanetary space.
    • It is generated by the interaction of the solar wind with Earth’s magnetic field.

    Features of the Earth’s magnetosphere

    1) Bow shock,

    2) Magnetosheath,

    3) Magnetopause,

    4) Northern tail lobe,

    5) Southern tail lobe,

    6) Plasmasphere,

    7) Solar wind.

    How is it formed?

    • Sun is the major source of plasma deposition in space around the Earth. Sun forces some of its plasma towards the earth in the form of the solar wind.
    • The speed of this wind varies between 300 to 1500 km/s, which carries with it solar magnetic field, called as Interplanetary Magnetic Field (IMF).
    • The magnetic field is generated by electric currents due to the motion of convection currents of a mixture of molten iron and nickel in the Earth’s outer core.
    • These convection currents are caused by heat escaping from the core, a natural process called a geodynamo.

    Why study the magnetosphere?

    • The Earth’s magnetosphere is a vast region which has a finite number of satellites hurtling through this realm.
    • The morphology of the plasma processes around the satellite can be understood quite well.
    • However, when they leave the observational domain of one satellite to enter into another, a vast blind arena is created.
    • How the morphology of these processes changes over space and time can be ideally deciphered only through computer simulations.

    Outcome of the study

    • Almost 99% of matter in the universe is in the form of plasma, Earth’s magnetosphere, too, contains this material and the plasma.
    • They have the ability to hamper the working of a number of satellites that have been placed in orbit in the magnetospheric region.

    Significance

    • Apart from the well being of these expensive satellites, the academic understanding of this region is quite essential to comprehend the cosmos in its entirety.
    • The study will help advance the knowledge of plasma waves, instabilities, and coherent effects associated with wave-particle interactions that are useful in planning of future space missions.
    • It can also lead to precisely controlled fusion laboratory experiments for ever-expanding energy needs of humanity.

  • [pib] HCARD robot to assist frontline COVID-19 healthcare warriors

    HCARD, a robot, to assist frontline COVID-19 healthcare warriors has been developed by a CSIR lab.

    It is very unlikely to create a prelim question on HCARD. However, developments as such help in exemplifying the scientific developments which helped contain such highly contagious outbreaks.

    What is HCARD?

    • The robotic device HCARD, an acronym for Hospital Care Assistive Robotic Device, can help frontline healthcare workers in maintaining physical distance from those infected by the coronavirus.
    • The device is equipped with various state-of-the-art technologies and works both in automatic as well as manual modes of navigation.
    • This robot can be controlled and monitored by a nursing booth with a control station having such features as navigation, drawer activation for providing medicines and food to patients, sample collection and audio-visual communication.
    • The cost of this device is less than Rs 5 lakh and the weight is less than 80 kilograms.

  • GW190412: The first merger of two black holes with unequal masses

    For the first time since it started functioning, the gravitational wave observatories at LIGO scientific collaboration have detected a merger of two unequal-mass black holes.

    This newscard contains few basic terms that one must know-

    Gravitational waves

    General Relativity

    Black Holes

    GW190412

    • The event, dubbed GW190412, was detected nearly a year ago, and this is almost five years after the first-ever detection of gravitational-wave signals by these powerful detectors.
    • Subsequent analysis of the signal coming from the violent merger showed that it involved two black holes of unequal masses coalescing.
    • One of them was some 30 times the mass of the Sun and the other which had a mass nearly 8 times the solar mass.
    • The actual merger took place at a distance of 2.5 billion light-years away.

    Significant feature observed

    • The detected signal’s waveform has special extra features in it when it corresponds to the merger of two unequal-sized black holes as compared with a merger of equal-sized black holes.
    • These features make it possible to infer many more things about the characters such as- a more accurate determination of the distance from the event, the spin or angular momentum of the more massive black hole and the orientation of the whole event with respect to viewers on Earth.
    • While the mass of the black hole bends the space-time close to it, the spin or angular momentum of this inscrutable object drags the nearby space-time, causing it to swirl around, along with it.
    • Hence both these properties are important to estimate.

    Confirmed General Relativity

    • An Indian team consisting of researchers verified the consistency of the signal with the prediction of General Relativity.
    • The existence of higher harmonics was itself a prediction of General Relativity.

    Must refer for an easy and illustrated understanding of General Relativity-

     

  • The Curie Family and its Nobel legacy

    This newscard is inspired by an article published in the DTE which talks about a family which has received a total of four Nobel prizes, the highest won by a single-family.

    Last year in 2019 CSP, there was a question on pure Biology about Hepatitis and its variants. With such news trending, we can expect a core chemistry or physics based question coupled with a slight Current Affairs blend.

    The ‘Nobel’ family

    • On April 20, 1902, Marie and Pierre Curie successfully isolated radioactive radium salts from pitchblende, a mineral, in a laboratory in Paris, France.
    • They were inspired by French physicist Henri Becquerel’s 1896 experiment on phosphorescence or the phenomenon that allows certain objects to glow in the dark.
    • They were able to find traces of two radioactive elements—polonium (Element 84) and radium (Element 88).
    • Curie shared the 1903 Nobel with her fellow researcher Pierre Currie and Becquerel for their combined work on radioactivity.

    Important facts

    • In 1903, Marie Curie received the Nobel Prize in Physics making her the world’s first woman to win the prize.
    • In 1911, she created history again by becoming the first woman to have won two Nobel awards.
    • The 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Marie after she managed to produce radium as a pure metal. This proved the new element’s existence beyond doubt.
    • However, this was not the last Nobel for the Curie family.
    • The 1935 Nobel in Chemistry went to Irène Curie and her husband and co-researcher Frédéric Joliot for their joint work on the artificial creation of new radioactive elements.
    • The Curies have received a total of four of Nobel prizes, the highest won by a single-family. They also have the unique distinction of having three Nobel-prize winning members in the family.

    Birth of Radioactivity

    • While delivering a lecture at the Royal Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden in 1911, Curie shared some critical details about “radioactive elements” and the phenomenon called “radioactivity”.
    • She also spoke about the chemical properties of radium, the new element that was about a million times more radioactive than uranium.
    • Radium in solid salts was about 5 million times more radioactive than an equal weight of uranium.

    Back2Basics: Radioactivity

    • Radioactivity refers to the particles which are emitted from nuclei as a result of nuclear instability.
    • It is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation.
    • The most common types of radiation are called alpha, beta, and gamma radiation, but there are several other varieties of radioactive decay.
    • Radioactive decay rates are normally stated in terms of their half-lives, and the half-life of a given nuclear species is related to its radiation risk.
    • Examining the amounts of decay products makes possible radioactive dating.

    Its applications

    • Medical use: Many diseases such as cancer are cured by radiotherapy. Sterilization of medical instruments and food is another common application of radiation.
    • Scientific use: Alpha particles emitted from the radioisotopes are used for nuclear reactions.
    • Industrial use: Radioisotopes are used as fuel for atomic energy reactors. Also used in Carbon dating.

  • Unified Geologic Map of the Moon

    The first-ever digital, unified, global, geological map of the moon was released virtually by the  United States Geological Survey (USGS), NASA and the Lunar Planetary Institute.

    Unified Geologic Map of the Moon

    • The UGM will serve as a blueprint for future human missions and a source of research and analysis for the educators and the general public interested in lunar geology.
    • The map is a ‘seamless, globally consistent, 1:5,000,000-scale geologic map’.
    • The mapped surface features of the moon included crater rim crests, buried crater rim crests, fissures, grabens, scarps, mare wrinkle ridges, faults, troughs, rilles, and lineaments.

    How it was prepared?

    • The researchers built on the original digital renovation of the six maps comprising of the near, central far, east, west, north and south sides that was released in 2013.
    • The final map consists of 43 geologic units across the entire lunar surface, broken down into groups based on characteristics like materials of craters, basins, terra, plains and volcanic units.
    • Data from NASA’s Apollo Missions were used to come up with the map.

    Its’ significance

    • The moon’s South Pole is especially interesting because the area is much larger than the North Pole and there could be a possibility of the presence of water in these permanently shadowed areas.
    • Further, the South Pole region also contains the fossil record of the early Solar System.
    • These present and future moon missions’ success can be further helped by the digital map of the moon.
    • The Chandrayaan 2, an active mission also targets the Lunar South Pole for exploration.

  • Reverse Vaccinology and its benefits

    The Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University has developed a vaccine candidate against SARS-CoV-2 through ‘reverse vaccinology’.

    A definition based prelims question can be expected on Reverse Vaccinology. Ex. Which of the following statements best describes ‘Reverse Vaccinology’?

    Reverse Vaccinology

    • Reverse vaccinology is an improvement on vaccinology that employs applied bioinformatics.
    • The basic idea behind it is that an entire pathogenic genome can be screened using bioinformatics approaches to find genes.
    • Some traits that the genes are monitored for may indicate antigenicity.
    • Those genes are filtered for desirable attributes that would make good vaccine targets such as outer membrane proteins.
    • Once the candidates are identified, they are produced synthetically and are screened in animal models of the infection.
    • Since then, it has been used on several other bacterial vaccines.

    Benefits

    • Earlier researchers had to do a viral culture in the laboratory to develop a vaccine, and this was time-consuming.
    • The major advantage for reverse vaccinology is finding vaccine targets quickly and efficiently.
    • Traditional methods took decades to unravel pathogens and antigens, diseases and immunity
    • With ‘reverse vaccinology’ scientists know what molecules make the genomic sequence.

  • [pib] Super-luminous Supernova SN 2010kd

    Indian researchers have found that SN 2010kd, a super-luminous supernova stands out with the amount of mass as well as Nickel ejected during explosion.

    Space science-related terms these days are often focused on Gravitational waves, Black holes etc. But basic terminologies are very important and need to be taken care of. For example, a layman may hardly find any difference between Novae-Supernovae, Neutron star, Nebula etc. UPSC often tries to bust you with such basic differences.

    What are Supernovae?

    • Supernovae are kind of energetic explosions were the core of massive stars (a few times to that of the mass of our Sun) goes to a catastrophic phase of explosion liberating huge amounts of energy and mass.
    • These events are visible through very far away distances much beyond our own solar system.
    • Super-luminous supernovae are a special type of stellar explosions having energy output 10 or more times higher than that of standard supernovae.

    What is so distinct about SN 2010kd?

    • The mass ejection from SN 2010kd is metallic and is much more than seen in case of normal core-collapse supernovae.
    • The scientists found that SN 2010kd exploded with a larger velocity but decayed slower than other similar supernovae.
    • The observations show that parameters like rotation and metallicity play a crucial role in stellar explosions.

  • [pib] ‘NanoBlitz 3D’ tool to map properties of nano-materials

    Indian scientists have developed an advanced tool for mapping nano-mechanical properties of materials like multi-phase alloys, composites, and multi-layered coatings.

    Nanotechnology is a pathbreaking technology which can create many new materials and devices with a wide range of applications, such as in nanomedicine, nanoelectronics etc.  NanoBlitz 3D is another distinct development. We can expect a prelims question asking what the NanoBlitz 3D is , with confusing options like 3d printing tool etc.

     NanoBlitz 3D

    • Scientists from Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy and New Materials (ARCI) an autonomous institute under the Dept. of S&T have developed this tool.
    • It is an advanced tool for mapping nano-mechanical properties of materials like multi-phase alloys, composites, and multi-layered coatings.
    • The tool has been useful to yield excellent results on a wide range of material systems, including glass-fibre-reinforced polymer composites, dual-phase steels, softwood and shale.
    • An important aspect of this technique is its high-throughput, with just a few hours of testing required for generating more than 10,000 data points that can be processed using machine learning (ML) algorithms.