đŸ’„Join UPSC 2027,2028 Mentorship (July Batch) + XFactor Notes & Microthemes PDF
Talk to Mentor

Civilsdaily

Login

Subject: Science and Technology

  • 5G revolution and challenges

    5G revolution Context

    • Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently announced that 5G revolution deployment in India will commence sooner than expected.

    What is 5G technology?

    • 5G or fifth generation revolution  is the latest upgrade in the long-term evolution (LTE) mobile broadband networks.
    • 5G enables a new kind of network that is designed to connect virtually everyone and everything together including machines, objects, and devices.
    • It’s a unified platform which is much more capable than previous mobile services with more capacity, lower latency, faster data delivery rate and better utilisation of spectrum.

    How it evolved from 1G to 5G?

    • 1G: Launched in the 1980s. Analog radio signals and supported only voice calls.
    • 2G: Launched in the 1990s. Uses digital radio signals and supported both voice and data transmission with a Bandwidth (BW) of 64 Kbps.
    • 3G: Launched in the 2000s. With a speed of 1 Mbps to 2 Mbps it has the ability to transmit telephone signal including digitized voice, video calls and conferencing.
    • 4G: With a peak speed of 100 Mbps-1 Gbps it also enables 3D virtual reality.
    • 5G: with a speed of more than 1Gbps, it is capable of connecting entire world without limits.

    5G revolutionSalient features

    • Capability: 5G will provide much faster mobile broadband service as compared to the previous versions and will provide support to previous services like mission critical communication and the massive Internet Of Things (IoT).
    • Upgraded LTE: 5G is the latest upgrade in the long-term evolution (LTE) mobile broadband networks.
    • Speed: With peak delivering rate of up to 20 Gbps and an average of 100Mbps, it will be much faster as compared to its predecessors. The speed increment is partly achieved partly by using higher-frequency radio waves than previous networks.
    • Capacity: There will be up to 100 x increase in traffic capacity and network efficiency.
    • Spectrum usage: Will provide better usage for every bit of spectrum, from low bands below 1 GHz to high bands.
    • Latency: It’s expected to have lower latency with better instantaneous, real-time access of the data. The 5G, like 4G LTE, also uses Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) but the new 5G NR (New Radio) air interface will enhance OFDM and provide better flexibility in data delivery.


    5G revolutionApplications of 5G technology

    • High-Speed mobile network: 5G will revolutionize the mobile experience with supercharged wireless network. Compared to conventional mobile transmission technologies, voice and high-speed data can be simultaneously transferred efficiently in 5G.
    • Entertainment and multimedia: 5G can provide 120 frames per second, high resolution and higher dynamic range video streaming without interruption. Audiovisual experience will be rewritten after the implementation of the latest technologies powered by 5G wireless. Augmented Reality and virtual Reality services will be better experienced over 5G.
    • Internet of Things: IoT applications collects huge amount of data from millions of devices and sensors and thus requires an efficient network for data collection, processing, transmission, control and real-time analytics which 5G network is a better candidate.

    Interesting facts about 5G

    According to researchers, about 1.5 billion people will have access to 5G by 2024.

    It may not seem like it at present, however, 5G will cover about 40% of the world.

    The security risks introduced BY 5G

    • Increased attack surface: With millions and even billions more connected devices, 5G makes it possible for larger and more dangerous attacks. Current and future vulnerabilities of the existing internet infrastructure are only exacerbated. The risk of more sophisticated botnets, privacy violations, and faster data extraction can escalate with 5G.
    • More IoT, more problems: IoT devices are inherently insecure; security is often not built-in by design. Each insecure IoT device on an organization’s networks represents another potential hole that an attacker can expose.
    • Decreased network visibility: With 5G, our networks will only expand and become more usable by mobile users and devices. This means much more network traffic to manage. But without a robust wide area network (WAN) security solution like Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) in place, companies may not be able to gain the network traffic visibility required to identify abnormalities or attacks.
    • Increased supply chain and software vulnerabilities: Currently and for the foreseeable future, 5G supply chains are limited. Vulnerabilities exist — particularly as devices are rushed to market — increasing the potential for faulty and insecure components. Compared to traditional mobile networks, 5G is also more reliant on software, which elevates the risk of exploitation of the network infrastructure.

    Challenges in rolling out 5G

    • Enabling critical infrastructures: 5G will require a fundamental change to the core architecture of the communication system. The major flaw of data transfer using 5G is that it can’t carry data over longer distances. Hence, even 5G technology needs to be augmented to enable infrastructure.
    • Financial liability on consumers: For transition from 4G to 5G technology, one has to upgrade to the latest cellular technology, thereby creating financial liability on consumers.
    • Capital Inadequacy: Lack of flow of cash and adequate capital with the suitable telecom companies (like Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea) is delaying the 5G spectrum allocation.

    Way forward

    • India should not miss the opportunity and should proactively work to deploy 5G technology. We should focus on strengthening our cyber infrastructure.
    • 5G start-ups that enable this design and manufacturing capabilities should be promoted. This will spur leaps in the coverage, capacity and density of wireless networks.

    Conclusion

    • The recent recommendation of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India to the government to develop a national road map for India to implement 5G in the best possible manner should include cyber security concerns.

    Mains question

    Q. 5G is already transforming and enhancing connectivity. In this context Discuss India’s preparedness and cybersecurity challenges that needs to be taken care of for earlier roll out of 5G.

    UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

  • James Webb telescope : The most powerful space telescope

    James Webb telescopeContext

    • Much of the universe remains unknown. The James Webb telescope will hopefully provide a powerful window to help resolve some of the cosmos’s many mysteries.

    What is James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)?

    • It is a space telescope being jointly developed by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
    • It has taken 30 years and $10bn to develop, and is being described as one of the grand scientific endeavors of the 21st Century.

    Where it is placed?

    • The James Webb Space Telescope will not be in orbit around the Earth, like the Hubble Space Telescope is – it will actually orbit the Sun, 1.5 million kilometres (1 million miles) away from the Earth at what is called the second Lagrange point or L2.

    Mission

    • It will be “a giant leap forward in quest to understand the Universe and our origins”, as it will examine every phase of cosmic history: from the Big Bang to the formation of galaxies, stars, and planets to the evolution of our own Solar System.

    james webb telescope Special features of JWST

    • Time machine in space: Powerful space telescopes, like JWST or the Hubble Telescope, are often called time machines because of their ability to view very faraway objects. The light coming from those objects, stars or galaxies, which is captured by these telescopes, began its journey millions of years earlier. Essentially, what these telescopes see are images of these stars or galaxies as they were millions of years ago. The more distant the planet or star, the farther back in time are the telescopes able to see.
    • Farthest from Earth: James Webb telescope will also be positioned much deeper into space, about a million miles from Earth, at a spot known as L2. It is one of the five points, known as Lagrange’s points, in any revolving two-body system like Earth and Sun, where the gravitational forces of the two large bodies cancel each other out.
    • Engineering marvel: JWST has one large mirror, with a diameter of 21 feet (the height of a typical two-storey building), that will capture the infra-red light coming in from the deep universe while facing away from the Sun.

    What is the goal of this telescope?

    • The telescope will be able to see just about anything in the sky.
    • However, it has one overriding objective – to see the light coming from the very first stars to shine in the Universe.
    • These pioneer stars are thought to have switched on about 100-200 million years after the Big Bang, or a little over 13.5 billion years ago.
    • James Webb telescope will be picking out groupings of these stars.

    james webb telescope Its significance

    • It is widely expected to unveil many secrets of the universe, particularly those related to the Formation of stars and galaxies in the early period the first few hundred million years after the Big Bang.
    • Some have called James Webb telescope  the “telescope that ate astronomy”.
    • It is said to look back in time to the Dark Ages of the universe.

    Conclusion

    • The universe is vast and most of it is unknown. We hope that the James Webb telescope, over its lifetime would provide us with a powerful window to help resolve some of the many mysteries of the cosmos and make it a little bit more comprehensible.

    Mains question

    Q. What is James Webb telescope experiment? Do you think it shades light on dark matter? Explain.  

    UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

  • What is National Automated Fingerprint Identification System (NAFIS)?

    The Union Home Minister has inaugurated the National Automated Fingerprint Identification System (NAFIS).

    What is NAFIS?

    • NAFIS is developed by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) at the Central Fingerprint Bureau (CFPB) in New Delhi.
    • The project is a country-wide searchable database of crime- and criminal-related fingerprints.
    • The web-based application functions as a central information repository by consolidating fingerprint data from all states and Union Territories.
    • In April this year, Madhya Pradesh became the first state in the country to identify a deceased person through NAFIS.

    Utility of NAFIS

    • It enables law enforcement agencies to upload, trace, and retrieve data from the database in real time on a 24×7 basis.
    • It would help in the quick and easy disposal of cases with the help of a centralised fingerprint database.

    How does it work?

    • NAFIS assigns a unique 10-digit National Fingerprint Number (NFN) to each person arrested for a crime.
    • This unique ID will be used for the person’s lifetime, and different crimes registered under different FIRs will be linked to the same NFN.
    • The 2020 report states that the ID’s first two digits will be that of the state code in which the person arrested for a crime is registered, followed by a sequence number.
    • By automating the collection, storage, and matching of fingerprints, along with digitizing the records of fingerprint data, NAFIS will provide the much-needed unique identifier for every arrested person.
    • It will be included in the CCTNS (Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems) database as both are connected at the backend.

    Is this the first time that such an automation project is being attempted?

    • Upon the recommendations of the National Police Commission in 1986, the Central Fingerprint Bureau first began to automate the fingerprint database.
    • It began with digitizing the existing manual records through India’s first Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFI) in 1992, called Fingerprint Analysis & Criminal Tracing System (FACTS 1.0).
    • The latest iteration, FACTS 5.0, which was upgraded in 2007, was considered to have “outlived its shelf life”, according to a 2018 report by the NCRB and thus needed to be replaced by NAFIS.

    Since when has India relied on fingerprinting as a crime-fighting tool?

    • A system of fingerprinting identification first emerged in colonial India, where it was tested before it spread to Europe and beyond.
    • At first, it was used by British colonial officials for administrative rather than criminal purposes.
    • William Herschel, the chief administrator of the Hooghly district of Bengal, from the late-middle 1800s onwards, used fingerprinting to reduce fraud and forgeries.
    • It then aimed to ensure that the correct person was receiving government pensions, signing land transfer deeds, and mortgage bonds.
    • Anthropometry, the measurement of physical features of the body, was used by officials in India but was soon replaced with a system of fingerprints.

     

    UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

  • NASA’s DART mission prepares for an asteroid Dimorphos collision

    dart

    In the first-of-its kind NASA’s DART Mission is about to hit a small, harmless asteroid millions of miles away.

    What is DART Mission?

    • The main aim of the mission is to test the newly developed technology that would allow a spacecraft to crash into an asteroid and change its course.
    • It is a suicide mission and the spacecraft will be completely destroyed.
    • The target of the spacecraft is a small moonlet called Dimorphos (Greek for “two forms”).
    • It is about 160-metre in diameter and the spacecraft is expected to collide when it is 11 million kilometres away from Earth.
    • Dimorphos orbits a larger asteroid named Didymos (Greek for “twin”) which has a diameter of 780 metres.

    Why Dimorphos?

    • Didymos is a perfect system for the test mission because it is an eclipsing binary which means it has a moonlet that regularly orbits the asteroid.
    • It is observable when it passes in front of the main asteroid.
    • Earth-based telescopes can study this variation in brightness to understand how long it takes Dimorphos to orbit Didymos.

    Collision course

    • At the time of impact, Didymos and Dimorphos will be relatively close to Earth – within 6.8 million miles (11 million kilometers).
    • The spacecraft will accelerate at about 24,140 kilometers per hour when it collides with Dimorphos.
    • It aims to crash into Dimorphos to change the asteroid’s motion in space.
    • This collision will be recorded by LICIACube, or Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids, a companion cube satellite provided by the Italian Space Agency.
    • Three minutes after impact, the CubeSat will fly by Dimorphos to capture images and video.

    Why such mission?

    • Dimorphos was chosen for this mission because its size is relative to asteroids that could pose a threat to Earth.
    • The spacecraft is about 100 times smaller than Dimorphos, so it won’t obliterate the asteroid.
    • The fast impact will only change Dimorphos’ speed as it orbits Didymos by 1%, which doesn’t sound like a lot — but it will change the moon’s orbital period.

     

    UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

  • Dvorak Technique of Weather Forecasting

    Recently, the American meteorologist Vernon Dvorak passed away at the age of 100 who pioneered the widely used Dvorak Technique.

    Who was Vernon Dvorak?

    • Dvorak was an American meteorologist best credited for developing the Dvorak (read as Do-rak) technique in the early 1970s.
    • The technique helps forecast the tropical storm.
    • His technique has saved the lives of millions of people across the world and will continue to do so.

    What is the Dvorak technique?

    • The Dvorak technique was first developed in 1969 and tested for observing storms in the northwest Pacific Ocean.
    • Forecasters used the available satellite images obtained from polar orbiting satellites to examine the features of the developing tropical storms (hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons).
    • During day time, images in the visible spectrum were used while at night, the ocean would be observed using infrared images.
    • It was a cloud pattern recognition technique based on a concept model of the development and decay of the tropical cyclone.

    Why is technique still widely in use?

    • Unlike land, ocean observations in the 1970s were sparse.
    • Today, there continues to be an improved network of land-based meteorological observations, either in the form of taking manual observations, installing automatic weather stations or automatic rain gauges.
    • On the other hand, ocean observations still remain limited.
    • There are many vast regions across the four oceans that have not been fully examined with meteorological instruments.
    • Ocean observations are mostly taken by deploying buoys or dedicated ships, but the number of observations from the seas is still not sufficient across the world.
    • That is why meteorologists have had to depend more on satellite-based imageries, and combine it with the available ocean-data at the time of forecasting the intensity and wind speed of the tropical cyclones.

     

     

    UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

  • Explained: Lumpy Skin Disease in India

    lumpy

    The Mumbai Police have ordered the prohibition of cattle transportation in the city to prevent the spread of the lumpy skin disease (LSD).

    What is the Lumpy Skin Disease?

    • Lumpy skin disease is caused by the lumpy skin disease virus (LSDV), which belongs to the genus capripoxvirus, a part of the poxviridae family.
    • Smallpox and monkeypox viruses are also a part of the same family.
    • The LSDV shares antigenic similarities with the sheeppox virus (SPPV) and the goatpox virus (GTPV) or is similar in the immune response to those viruses.

    How does it spread?

    • It is not a zoonotic virus, meaning the disease cannot spread to humans.
    • It is a contagious vector-borne disease spread by vectors like mosquitoes, some biting flies, and ticks and usually affects host animals like cows and water buffaloes.
    • Infected animals shed the virus through oral and nasal secretions which may contaminate common feeding and water troughs.
    • Thus, the disease can either spread through direct contact with the vectors or through contaminated fodder and water.
    • Studies have also shown that it can spread through animal semen during artificial insemination.

    How does it affect the animal?

    • LSD affects the lymph nodes of the infected animal, causing the nodes to enlarge and appear like lumps on the skin, which is where it derives its name from.
    • The cutaneous nodules, 2–5 cm in diameter, appear on the infected cattle’s head, neck, limbs, udder, genitalia, and perineum.
    • The nodules may later turn into ulcers and eventually develop scabs over the skin.
    • The other symptoms include high fever, sharp drop in milk yield, discharge from the eyes and nose, salivation, loss of appetite, depression, damaged hides, wasting of animals, infertility and abortions.

    Do it kills the animal?

    • The incubation period or the time between infection and symptoms is about 28 days according to the FAO, and 4 to 14 days according to some other estimates.
    • The morbidity of the disease varies between two to 45% and mortality or rate of date is less than 10%.
    • However, the reported mortality of the current outbreak in India is up to 15%, particularly in cases being reported in the western part (Rajasthan) of the country.

    What is the geographical distribution and how did it spread to India?

    • The disease was first observed in Zambia in 1929.
    • Subsequently it got spread to most African countries, followed by West Asia, Southeastern Europe, and Central Asia, and more recently spreading to South Asia and China in 2019.
    • As per the FAO, the LSD disease is currently endemic in several countries across Africa, parts of the West Asia (Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syrian Arab Republic), and Turkey.

    Lumpy in India

    • The spread in South Asia first affected Bangladesh in July 2019 and then reached India in August that year, with initial cases being detected in Odisha and West Bengal.
    • The long porous borders between India, Nepal and Bangladesh allow for a significant amount of bilateral and informal animal trade, including cattle and buffaloes.
    • This may have contributed to the spread of LSD in July-August 2019 between Bangladesh and India.
    • While the 2019 outbreak later subsided, the recent spread in India began in June this year.

    Is it safe to consume the milk of affected cattle?

    • Studies say that it has not been possible to ascertain the presence of viable and infectious LSDV virus in milk derived from the infected animal.
    • However, that a large portion of the milk in Asia is processed after collection and is either pasteurised or boiled or dried in order to make milk powder.
    • This process ensures that the virus is inactivated or destroyed.

    Economic implications of Lumpy on Dairy Sector

    • Milk reduction: Lumpy leads to reduced milk production as the animal becomes weak and also loses appetite due to mouth ulceration.
    • Animal wasting: The income losses can also be due to poor growth, reduced draught power capacity and reproductive problems associated with abortions, infertility and lack of semen for artificial insemination.
    • Impact of trade ban: Movement and trade bans after infection also put an economic strain on the whole value chain.

    Why India is at higher risk?

    • India is the world’s largest milk producer at about 210 million tonnes annually.
    • India also has the largest headcount of bovines
    • In Rajasthan, which is witnessing the worst impact of LSD, it has led to reduced milk production, which lessened by about three to six lakh litres a day.
    • Reports indicate that milk production has also gone down in Punjab owing to the spread of the disease.
    • According to FAO, the disease threatens the livelihoods of smaller poultry farmers significantly.
    • Notably, farmers in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab have incurred losses due to cattle deaths and are seeking compensation from their State governments.

    How bad is the current spread in India?

    • Lumpy has infected over 16 lakh cattle in 197 districts as of September 11.
    • Of the nearly 75,000 cattle that the disease has killed, more than 50,000 deaths, mostly cows, have been reported from Rajasthan.

    Remedies available in India

    • The Union Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying informed that the ‘Goat Pox Vaccine’ is very effective against LSD.
    • It is being used across affected States to contain the spread.

    Way forward

    The FAO has suggested a set of spread-control measures for LSD, which involves:

    • Vaccination of susceptible populations with more than 80% coverage
    • Movement control of bovine animals and quarantining
    • Implementing biosecurity through vector control by sanitising sheds and spraying insecticides
    • Strengthening active and passive surveillance
    • Spreading awareness on risk mitigation among all stakeholders involved, and
    • Creating large protection and surveillance zones and vaccination zones

     

    UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

  • Patents in India

    patent systemContext

    • Increasing the efficiency of processing patent applications and wider academia-industry collaboration are crucial steps for patent system.

    What is patent system?

    • A patent system is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention.

    Why are patents important?

    • A patent is important because it can help safeguard our invention. It can protect any product, design or process that meets certain specifications according to its originality, practicality, suitability, and utility. In most cases, a patent can protect an invention for up to 20 years.

    patent systemHow to get patent?

    • To get a patent, technical information about the invention must be disclosed to the public in a patent application.
    • The patent owner may give permission to, or license, other parties to use the invention on mutually agreed terms.
    • The owner may also sell the right to the invention to someone else, who will then become the new owner of the patent.
    • Once a patent expires, the protection ends, and an invention enters the public domain; that is, anyone can commercially exploit the invention without infringing the patent.

    Terms of Patent

    • Patents may be granted for inventions in any field of technology, from an everyday kitchen utensil to a nanotechnology chip.
    • An invention can be a product – such as a chemical compound, or a process, for example – or a process for producing a specific chemical compound.
    • Patent protection is granted for a limited period, generally 20 years from the filing date of the application.
    • Patents are territorial rights. In general, the exclusive rights are only applicable in the country or region in which a patent has been filed and granted, in accordance with the law of that country or region.

    patent systemHow patents can support inventors and improve lives

    • Recognize and reward: Patents recognize and reward inventors for their commercially-successful inventions. As such they serve as an incentive for inventors to invent. With a patent, an inventor or small business knows there is a good chance that they will get a return on the time, effort and money they invested in developing a technology. In sum, it means they can earn a living from their work.
    • Economic opportunity: When a new technology comes onto the market, society as a whole stands to benefit – both directly, because it may enable us to do something that was previously not possible, and indirectly in terms of the economic opportunities (business development and employment) that can flow from it.
    • Research and development (R&D): The revenues generated from commercially successful patent-protected technologies make it possible to finance further technological research and development (R&D), thereby improving the chances of even better technology becoming available in the future.
    • Opportunities for business growth: A patent effectively turns an inventor’s know-how into a commercially tradeable asset, opening up opportunities for business growth and job creation through licensing and joint ventures, for example.
    • Commercialization of a technology: Holding a patent also makes a small business more attractive to investors who play a key role in enabling the commercialization of a technology.
    • Spark new ideas: The technical information and business intelligence generated by the patenting process can spark new ideas and promote new inventions from which we can all benefit and which may, in turn, qualify for patent protection.
    • No freebies: A patent can help stop unscrupulous third parties from free riding on the efforts of the inventor.

    What is KAPILA Initiative?

    • Full form: KAPILA is an acronym for Kalam Program for IP (Intellectual Property) Literacy and Awareness.
    • Guidelines for patent Filing: Under this campaign, students pursuing education in higher educational institutions will get information about the correct system of the application process for patenting their invention and they will be aware of their rights.
    • Encouragement to students: The program will facilitate the colleges and institutions to encourage more and more students to file patents.

    Thing to remember

    Remember one thing, ‘KAPILA’ Program is related to IP awareness. It sounds much like an animal husbandry related initiative.

    Way ahead

    • As the patent system is a critical aspect of the national innovation ecosystem, investing in the patent ecosystem will help in strengthening the innovation capability of India.
    • The right interventions should be made for the promotion of the quality of patent applications and collaboration between academia and industry.

    Mains question

    Q. A patent can help stop unscrupulous third parties from free riding on the efforts of the inventor. Discuss this statement in context of protection of innovative ecosystem in India.

     

    UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

  • Scientists remain sceptical about how Liquid Nano Urea benefits crops

    Liquid Nano Urea, a fertilizer patented and sold by the Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Ltd. (IFFCO), has been approved by the government for commercial use because of its potential to substantially reduce the import bill, but several experts have questioned the science underlying its efficacy.

    What is Liquid Nano Urea (LNU)?

    • Urea is chemical nitrogen fertiliser, white in colour, which artificially provides nitrogen, a major nutrient required by plants.
    • LNU is essentially urea in the form of a nanoparticle.
    • It is sprayed directly on the leaves and gets absorbed by the plant.
    • Fertilisers in nano form provide a targeted supply of nutrients to crops, as they are absorbed by the stomata, pores found on the epidermis of leaves.
    • According to IFFCO, liquid nano urea contains 4 per cent total nitrogen (w/v) evenly dispersed in water.
    • The size of a nano nitrogen particle varies from 20-50 nm. (A nanometre is equal to a billionth of a metre.)

    Using LNU

    • The liquid nano urea produced by IFFCO Limited comes in a half-litre bottle priced at Rs 240, and carries no burden of subsidy currently.
    • By contrast, a farmer pays around Rs 300 for a 50-kg bag of heavily subsidised urea.
    • According to IFFCO, a bottle of the nano urea can effectively replace at least one bag of urea.

    How efficient is LNU?

    • While conventional urea has an efficiency of about 25 per cent, the efficiency of liquid nano urea can be as high as 85-90 per cent.
    • Conventional urea fails to have the desired impact on crops as it is often applied incorrectly, and the nitrogen in it is vaporized or lost as a gas.
    • A lot of nitrogen is also washed away during irrigation.
    • Liquid nano urea has a shelf life of a year, and farmers need not be worried about “caking” when it comes in contact with moisture.

    Significance of LNU

    • This patented product is expected to not only substitute imported urea, but to also produce better results in farms.
    • Apart from reducing the country’s subsidy bill, it is aimed at reducing the unbalanced and indiscriminate use of conventional urea.
    • It will help increase crop productivity, and reduce soil, water, and air pollution.

    Why in news now?

    • Plants need nitrogen to make protein and they source almost all of it from soil bacteria which live in a plant’s roots and have the ability to break down atmospheric nitrogen, or that from chemicals such as urea into a form usable by plants.
    • Chemically packaged urea is 46% nitrogen, which means a 45-kg sack contains about 20 kg of nitrogen.
    • Contrastingly, nano urea sold in 500-ml bottles has only 4% nitrogen (or around 20 g).
    • How this can compensate for the kilograms of nitrogen normally required puzzles scientists.

     

    UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

  • Cyborg Cockroaches to help in urban search-rescue missions

    cyborg

    Japanese scientists have devised a system that can create cyborg cockroaches that are part insect and part machine.

    Cyborg cockroaches

    • Cyborg cockroaches’ movements are controlled by tiny integrated circuits.
    • They will be able to conduct surveillance in procedures like urban search and rescue, environmental monitoring and inspection of areas dangerous to humans.
    • By equipping the cockroaches with small wireless control modules, handlers will be able to control the insect’s legs remotely for long periods of time.
    • The team used Madagascar cockroaches, which are not only the largest species of cockroaches, reaching an estimated 6 cm, but are also known for making hissing sounds when disturbed, which they make by expelling air from the openings on their back.

    How is it powered?

    • The researchers also designed the system to be rechargeable, by powering it with a super thin 0.004 mm solar cell module that is installed on the dorsal side of the cockroach’s abdomen.
    • This was done to ensure that the battery remains charged and the cockroach can be controlled for long periods of time, while simultaneously ensuring that the movement remains unhindered.

     

    UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

  • ISRO tests system recoverable rocket ‘Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator (IAD)’

    The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has successfully tested a technology that could aid the cost-effective recovery of spent rocket stages and safely land payloads on other planets.

    What is IAD?

    • IAD is a technique used for an atmospheric entry payload.
    • An inflatable envelope and an inflatant (anything that inflates the envelope, like air or helium) make up the inflatable aerodynamic decelerator.
    • While entering the atmosphere, it inflates like a balloon and decelerates the lander.
    • The inflatant is designed to fill the inflatable envelope to a condition such that it surrounds the payload meant to enter the atmosphere of a planet or satellite and causes aerodynamic forces to slow it down.
    • In simpler words, IAD is designed to increase drag upon entering the atmosphere of any planetary body, like Earth, Mars, or even Moon.
    • Its shape is maintained by a closed, gas-pressured body and the inflatant gas is also generated internally. Some versions also use ram air or both.

    How significant is this IAD?

    • Some space agencies, including NASA, have already successfully tested advanced versions of the technology, including the supersonic and hypersonic variants.
    • However, for near future missions of ISRO, the current version that it tested is perfect.
    • Its use was first proposed by NASA more than 50 years ago for planetary entries.

    Minuscule of ISRO’s IAD

    • The IAD tested by ISRO was inflated at an altitude of around 84 km and the sounding rocket’s cargo dropped through the atmosphere on it.
    • It is fitted with a booster motor. It also has a spin rocket that is ejectable.
    • The inflatable structure is made out of Kevlar fabric, which is a very strong synthetic fibre and also heat resistant to withstand atmospheric pressure and temperature changes.
    • On top of it, it’s coated with polychloroprene, an oil and wax resistant rubber, to withstand extreme temperatures.
    • In the inflation system, it uses compressed nitrogen stored in a bottle.
    • It has consistently decreased the payload’s velocity through aerodynamic drag while maintaining the expected trajectory during the test flight.

    Where does ISRO intend to use it?

    • The IAD will help ISRO in performing many space tasks effectively including recovery of spent stages of rockets, for landing payloads on missions to other planetary bodies.
    • This is the first instance where an IAD has been specially created for spent stage recovery.
    • So inter-planetary missions are certainly one aspect that ISRO wishes to explore.

     

    UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)