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Subject: Science and Technology

  • Free and Open Source Software

    Context

    Recognising its potential, in 2015, the Indian government announced a policy to encourage open source instead of proprietary technology for government applications. However, the true potential of this policy is yet to be realized.

    Advantages of FOSS

    • Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) today presents an alternative model to build digital technologies for population scale.
    • Freedom to modify: Unlike proprietary software, everyone has the freedom to edit, modify and reuse open-source code.
    • Reduced cost and innovation: This results in many benefits — reduced costs, no vendor lock-in, the ability to customise for local context, and greater innovation through wider collaboration.
    • Use in public service delivery: We have seen some great examples of public services being delivered through systems that use FOSS building blocks, including Aadhaar, GSTN, and the DigiLocker.
    • FOSS communities can examine the open-source code for adherence to data privacy principles, help find bugs, and ensure transparency and accountability.

    Challenges in adoption by government in GovTech

    • In 2015, the Indian government announced a policy to encourage open source instead of proprietary technology for government applications.
    • Several misconceptions remain in the understanding of FOSS, especially for GovTech.
    • Trust issue: “Free” in FOSS is perceived to be “free of cost” and FOSS is often mistaken to be less trustworthy and more vulnerable, whereas FOSS can actually create more trust between the government and citizens.
    • However, Many solutions launched by the government including Digilocker, Diksha, Aarogya Setu, Cowin — built on top of open-source digital platforms — have benefited from valuable inputs provided by volunteer open-source developers.
    • Such inputs have immensely helped in improving solutions and making them more robust.
    • Accountability issue: In the case of FOSS, there appears to be an absence of one clear “owner”, which makes it harder to identify who is accountable.
    • While this concern is legitimate, there are ways to mitigate it.
    • For example, by having the government’s in-house technical staff understand available documentation and getting key personnel to join relevant developer communities.

    Way forward for greater adoption of FOSS in GovTech

    • Here is a four-step path to make this vision a reality.
    • 1) Incentivise FOSS in government: The government’s policy requires all tech suppliers to submit bids with open source options.
    • Suppliers also need to justify in case they do not offer an open-source option
    • Sourcing departments are asked to weigh the lifetime costs and benefits of both alternatives before making a decision.
    • While this serves as a good nudge, the policy can perhaps go a step further by formally giving greater weightage to FOSS-specific metrics in the evaluation criteria in RFPs, and offering recognition to departments that deploy FOSS initiatives, such as, a special category under the Digital India Awards.
    • 2) Create a repository of GovtTech ready solutions: a repository of “GovTech ready” building blocks that are certified for use in government and audited for security compliances is needed.
    • Creating a repository of ready-to-use “GovTech-ised” building blocks can help departments quickly identify and deploy FOSS solutions in their applications.
    • 3) Encourage FOSS innovation: FOSS innovations can be encouraged through “GovTech hackathons and challenges”, bringing together the open-source community to design solutions for specific problem statements identified by government departments.
    • One such challenge — a #FOSS4Gov Innovation Challenge — was recently launched.
    • 4) Create an institutional mechanism: A credible institutional anchor is needed to be a home for FOSS-led innovation in India.
    • Such an institution can bring together FOSS champions and communities that are scattered across India around a shared agenda for collective impact.
    • Kerala’s International Centre for Free & Open Source Software (ICFOSS) is a great example of such an institution.

    Conclusion

    With an IT workforce of more than four million employees, what we need is a concerted push to harness the biggest promise that FOSS holds.

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  • BCG vaccine: 100 years and counting

    The first use of BCG (Bacillus Calmette-Guerin), the vaccine against tuberculosis (TB) in humans have been completed for 100 years.

    What is TB?

    • TB is a very ancient disease and has been documented to have existed in Egypt as early as 3000 BC.
    • It is caused by a bacterium called Mycobacterium tuberculosis, belonging to the Mycobacteriaceae family consisting of about 200 members.
    • Some of these cause diseases like TB and leprosy in humans and others infect a wide range of animals. Mycobacteria are also widely dispersed in the environment.
    • In humans, TB most commonly affects the lungs (pulmonary TB), but it can also affect other organs (extra-pulmonary TB).

    Yet not eliminated

    • Other historically dreaded diseases like smallpox, leprosy, plague, and cholera have been either eradicated or controlled to a large extent due to advances in science and technology.
    • However, TB continues to be a major public health problem in the world.
    • According to the WHO’s Global TB Report, 10 million people developed TB in 2019 with 1.4 million deaths. India accounts for 27% of these cases.

    BCG Vaccine for TB

    • BCG was developed by two Frenchmen, Albert Calmette and Camille Guerin, by modifying a strain of Mycobacterium Bovis (that causes TB in cattle) till it lost its capacity to cause disease while retaining its property to stimulate the immune system.
    • It was first used in humans in 1921.
    • Currently, BCG is the only licensed vaccine available for the prevention of TB.
    • It is the world’s most widely used vaccine with about 120 million doses every year and has an excellent safety record.

    BCG in India

    • In India, BCG was first introduced on a limited scale in 1948 and became a part of the National TB Control Programme in 1962.
    • India is committed to eliminating TB as a public health problem by 2025.

    Effectiveness of BCG

    • One intriguing fact about BCG is that it works well in some geographic locations and not so well in others.
    • Generally, the farther a country is from the equator, the higher is the efficacy.
    • In children, BCG provides strong protection against severe forms of TB.
    • This protective effect appears to wane with age and is far more variable in adolescents and adults, ranging from 0–80%.
    • In addition to its primary use as a vaccine against TB, BCG also protects against respiratory and bacterial infections of newborns and other mycobacterial diseases like leprosy and Buruli’s ulcer.
    • It is also used as an immunotherapy agent in cancer of the urinary bladder and malignant melanoma.

    Try answering this PYQ:

    What is the importance of using pneumococcal conjugate vaccines in India? (CSP 2020)

    1. These vaccines are effective against pneumonia as well as meningitis and sepsis.
    2. Dependence on antibiotics that are not effective against drug-resistant bacteria can be reduced.
    3. These vaccines have no side effects and cause no allergic reactions

    Select the correct answer using the given code below:

    (a) 1 only

    (b) 1 and 2 only

    (c) 3 only

    (d) 1, 2 and 3

     

    [wpdiscuz-feedback id=”0nhdmcqe70″ question=”Please leave a feedback on this” opened=”1″]Post your answers here.[/wpdiscuz-feedback]

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  • [pib] Merging of three Supermassive Black Holes

    Indian researchers have discovered three supermassive black holes from three galaxies merging together to form a triple active galactic nucleus, a compact region at the centre of a newly discovered galaxy that has a much-higher-than-normal luminosity.

    What are Supermassive black holes?

    • A supermassive black hole is the largest type of black hole, with mass on the order of millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun.
    • Black holes are a class of astronomical objects that have undergone gravitational collapse, leaving behind spheroidal regions of space from which nothing can escape, not even light.
    • They are difficult to detect because they do not emit any light. But they can reveal their presence by interacting with their surroundings.

    Active galactic nuclei (AGN) from such black holes

    • When the dust and gas from the surroundings fall onto a supermassive black hole, some of the mass is swallowed by the black hole, but some of it is converted into energy.
    • This is emitted back as electromagnetic radiation that makes the black hole appear very luminous.
    • They are called active galactic nuclei (AGN) and release huge amounts of ionized particles and energy into the galaxy and its environment.
    • Both of these ultimately contribute to the growth of the medium around the galaxy and ultimately the evolution of the galaxy itself.

    How does merger of black holes occur?

    • A major factor impacting galaxy evolution is galaxy interactions, which happen when galaxies move close by each other and exert tremendous gravitational forces on each other.
    • During such galaxy interactions, the respective supermassive black holes can get near each other.
    • The dual black holes start consuming gas from their surroundings and become dual AGN.

    What happens when galaxies collide?

    • If two galaxies collide, their black hole will also come closer by transferring the kinetic energy to the surrounding gas.
    • The distance between the blackholes decreases with time until the separation is around a parsec (3.26 light-years).
    • The two black holes are then unable to lose any further kinetic energy in order to get even closer and merge.
    • This is known as the final parsec problem.

    Here comes the third black hole

    • Many AGN pairs have been detected in the past, but triple AGN are extremely rare, and only a handful has been detected before using X-ray observations.
    • The presence of a third black hole can solve this problem.
    • The dual merging blackholes can transfer their energy to the third blackhole and merge with each other.

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  • Colourful molecules of turmeric

    Researchers have come forward with some interesting findings on Turmeric.

    Turmeric

    • Turmeric has about 3% of the active component molecule called curcumin, a polyphenol diketone (and not a steroid).
    • Researchers point out that there is another molecule in turmeric called piperine, which is an alkaloid, responsible for the pungency of pepper that we use every day in our cooking, along with turmeric.
    • Piperine enhances curcumin absorption in the body. It gives turmeric its multivariate healing and protective power.

    Benefits of turmeric consumption

    • Turmeric has been known for over 4,000 years in the Indian subcontinent, West Asia, Burma, Indonesia and China, and is used as an essential part of our daily food – what the colonials called curry powder.
    • It has also been known as a medicine for ages, and to have anti-bacterial, anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.
    • Herbal medicine experts have used turmeric to treat painful symptoms of arthritis, joint stiffness, and joint pain.
    • They have also claimed that turmeric helps cure acute kidney injuries. Some of these claims need to be checked using controlled trials.

    Against COVID-19

    • Most recently, an exciting study has recently been published by a group in Mumbai which shows that turmeric aids in the treatment of COVID-19 patients.
    • The researchers did a trial of about 40 COVID-19 patients and found that turmeric could substantially reduce morbidity and mortality.

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  • Nuclear Fusion and the recent breakthrough

    California based researchers have announced that their experiment has made a breakthrough in nuclear fusion research.

    What exactly is Nuclear Fusion?

    • Nuclear fusion is defined as the combining of several small nuclei into one large nucleus with the subsequent release of huge amounts of energy.
    • The difference in mass between the reactants and products is manifested as either the release or the absorption of energy.
    • Nuclear fusion powers our sun and harnessing this fusion energy could provide an unlimited amount of renewable energy.
    • An example of nuclear fusion is the process of four hydrogens coming together to form helium.

    What was the experiment?

    • In the experiment, lasers were used to heat a small target or fuel pellets.
    • These pellets containing deuterium and tritium fused and produced more energy.
    • The team noted that they were able to achieve a yield of more than 1.3 megajoules of heat energy.
    • This megajoule of energy released in the experiment is indeed impressive in fusion terms.

    How was the new breakthrough achieved?

    • The team used new diagnostics, improved laser precision, and even made changes to the design.
    • They applied laser energy on fuel pellets to heat and pressurize them at conditions similar to that at the center of our Sun. This triggered the fusion reactions.
    • These reactions released positively charged particles called alpha particles, which in turn heated the surrounding plasma.
    • At high temperatures, electrons are ripped from an atom’s nuclei and become a plasma or an ionized state of matter. Plasma is also known as the fourth state of matter.
    • The heated plasma also released alpha particles and a self-sustaining reaction called ignition took place.

    Future prospects: Benefits

    • It is expected that fusion could meet humanity’s energy needs for millions of years.
    • Fusion fuel is plentiful and easily accessible: deuterium can be extracted inexpensively from seawater, and tritium can be produced from naturally abundant lithium.
    • Future fusion reactors will not produce high activity, long-lived nuclear waste, and a meltdown at a fusion reactor is practically impossible.
    • Importantly, nuclear fusion does not emit carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and so along with nuclear fission could play a future climate change mitigating role as a low carbon energy source.

  • Celebrating Einstein’s century

    Context

    In 1921, the Nobel Prize Committee concluded that Einstein would have to wait and the Committee decided not to award the Prize to anyone in 1921. Opinions changed in a year and when Einstein did receive the 1921 Prize in 1922.

    Background

    • Noble Prize was not awarded for his theories of relativity but for “his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect”.
    • The citation harked back to the revolutionary theories that Einstein had established in 1905. ‘Annus Mirabilis’, or the Year of Miracles, is how 1905 is remembered by physicists because Einstein, only 26 then, published four remarkable papers that year.
    • One of them explained that light was made of photons and when the light shone on metal, each photon’s energy correlated to the electron’s speed on the metal’s surface.
    • This theory redefined the composition of light and Einstein himself dubbed it revolutionary.
    • It was for this that he received the Nobel Prize.

    Special theory of relativity

    • The special theory of relativity was published in 1905.
    • James Maxwell had established that light was an electromagnetic wave and the value of its speed was calculated. Building on this,
    • Speed of light remains constant for all observers: Einstein understood that while moving from one frame of reference to another, which is moving at a different speed, the speed of light remains a constant.
    • He gave a physical interpretation to the equations governing the transformation from one frame to another based on this fact.
    • Time slows down when measured from the rest: Einstein’s theory establishes that time moves slower within a moving body when measured from a point at rest (but moves normally within the moving body itself).
    • Length reduces: The length of the moving body contracts when measured from an outside point at rest.
    • When a moving body emits light, the length contraction and time slowdown of the moving body are just exactly what are needed to restore the speed of light to its constant value.
    • Einstein’s insight was that there was no absolute time because time was measured by the simultaneity of two events and this simultaneity would be observed differently.
    • As lagniappe to the scientific community, Einstein published his famous mass-energy equivalence E=mc2 in late 1905.
    • A mundane example of the application of the special theory of relativity is the use of GPS on our phones.

    General theory of relativity

    • The theory is general enough to apply to all forms of motion, including those where gravity does not appear.
    • Einstein worked out equations using tensors, the mathematical implement to describe the transformation of different dimensions.
    • In November 1915, Einstein completed the general theory of relativity.
    • As per this theory, space and time form a continuum, like a fabric, and every object in the universe distorts this fabric, much like how dropping a large ball distorts a taut trampoline sheet.
    • This distortion is gravity. It produces two effects.
    • One, the fabric causes any other object in the vicinity to move towards the heavier object and this is why gravity causes an object to pull things towards it.
    • Two, it bends light in the process of attracting it.

    Conclusion

    In just two decades, Einstein led physics out of its traditional moorings, laid the entablature of modern physics on Newtonian and Maxwellian pillars of classical physics and opened it up to newer questions.

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  • [pib] Revamped National Gene Bank

    The Union Agriculture Minister has inaugurated the world’s second-largest refurbished gene bank at the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources.

    National Gene Bank

    • The National Gene Bank was established in the year 1996 to preserve the seeds of Plant Genetic Resources (PGR) for future generations.
    • It has the capacity to preserve about one million germplasm in the form of seeds.
    • Presently it is protecting 4.52 lakh accessions, of which 2.7 lakh are Indian germplasm and the rest have been imported from other countries.
    • National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources is meeting the need of in-situ and ex-situ germplasm conservation through Delhi Headquarters and 10 regional stations in the country.

    Key facilities provided

    • The NGB has four kinds of facilities to cater to long-term as well as medium-term conservation namely:
    1. Seed Gene bank (- 18°C),
    2. Cryo gene bank (-170°C to -196°C),
    3. In-vitro Gene bank (25°C), and
    4. Field Gene bank
    • It stores different crop groups such as cereals, millets, medicinal and aromatic plants, and narcotics, etc.

    What is the latest update?

    • This is the world’s second-largest gene bank located in the national capital.
    • It has the capacity to preserve about one million germplasm in the form of seeds.
    • Presently, it is protecting 4.52 lakh accessions, of which 2.7 lakh are Indian germplasm and the rest have been imported from other countries.

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    Also read:

    Svalbard Global Seed Vault

  • National Hydrogen Mission

    During his I-Day speech, the PM has announced a National Hydrogen Mission and said India will become the world’s largest exporter of green hydrogen in the years to come.

    National Hydrogen Mission

    • The PM’s announcement takes forward the proposal, made in the 2021 Budget, for the launch of NHM that would enable the generation of hydrogen “from green power sources”.
    • The added advantage of hydrogen is that, apart from transportation, it can be a “decarbonizing agent” for industries like chemicals, iron, steel, fertilizer and refining, transport, heat and power.
    • While the details of the NHM are yet to emerge, India has taken several exploratory steps.
    • India has been working on a pilot project on Blue Hydrogen, Hydrogen CNG (H-CNG), and Green Hydrogen.
    • Several programs are focusing to blend hydrogen with compressed natural gas for use as a transportation fuel as well as an industrial input to refineries.

    Hydrogen as a fuel

    • Hydrogen is the fuel of stars and packs awesome energy. It is also the most abundant element in the universe.
    • But on Earth, it is found in complex molecules such as water or hydrocarbons.
    • Hydrogen is not a source of energy, like fossil fuels or renewable sources like sunlight and air, but an energy carrier, which means it has to be produced, or extracted, and stored before it can be used.
    • But no matter how it is used, the by-product the burning of hydrogen produces is water.

    How is Hydrogen produced?

    • There are several ways of extracting hydrogen and, depending on the method, the hydrogen produced is classified as ‘grey’, ‘blue’, or ‘green’ hydrogen.
    • According to WEC, as of 2019, 96 percent of hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels via carbon-intensive processes.
    • Hydrogen thus obtained is called ‘grey’ hydrogen as the process, though not as expensive as the other methods, releases a lot of carbon dioxide.

    What Is Grey, Blue, Green Of Hydrogen?

    • ‘Grey’ hydrogen becomes ‘blue’ hydrogen when the CO2 given out during its production is locked up through carbon capture and storage (CCS) processes.
    • But while the CO2 output is lowered, this process is quite expensive.
    • ‘Grey’ and ‘blue’ hydrogen, thus, are both produced by the same processes, the only difference for ‘blue’ hydrogen being that the CO2 produced is sequestered.
    • But it is ‘green’ hydrogen that governments are aiming at. This is any hydrogen that is produced from clean energy sources like renewables.
    • ‘Green’ hydrogen is released via the electrolysis of energy from renewable sources. This process, though it gives rise to no CO2 emissions, is expensive and not commercially viable yet.

    Key challenges

    • Lack of infrastructure:  India does not have enough storage capacity for the current state of domestic consumption.
    • Safety concerns: Hydrogen is highly inflammable.

    Way ahead

    • Developing technologies to produce ‘green’ hydrogen is cost-intensive.
    • However, falling renewable energy and fuel cell prices and stringent climate change requirements have provided an impetus for investments in this area.
    • In India, the IITs, IISc, Benaras Hindu University, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research laboratories etc. are exploring different aspects of hydrogen production.

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    Also read:

    [Burning Issue] India’s push for a Gas-based Economy

  • CHAPEA Mission by NASA

    NASA is seeking applications for its new mission called the Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA), which is related to Mars.

    CHAPEA

    • The mission is set to begin in 2022 and will give four successful applicants the chance to live and work in a 1,700 square-foot module that is created by a 3D printer and is called the Mars Dune Alpha.
    • The simulated quarters include a kitchen, areas for medical, recreation, fitness, work, crop growth, a technical work area and two bathrooms.
    • This habitat will simulate what it feels like to carry out missions on Mars including resource limitations, equipment failure, communication delays and any other environmental stressors.
    • The crew will be expected to perform simulated spacewalks, scientific research and use virtual reality and robotic controls and exchange communications.

    What is the purpose of this mission?

    • The habitat in which the crew members will stay will be as Mars-realistic as possible.
    • The results from this analog mission will provide scientific data that will help in validating the systems that will be used for actual missions to Mars and also help in solving problems for spaceflight research.
    • CHAPEA is not the only analog mission, there are others including Aquarius/NEEMO, Concordia, Desert RATS, and HESTIA.
    • Analog missions are required because not all experiments can be carried out in space because resources and money are limited.

  • What is Absorption Spectroscopy?

    Researchers from IIT Madras and IISER Kolkata have developed a method to detect minute quantities of chemicals in solution using Absorption Spectroscopy.

    Note: These days there has been a rise in questions from biology (rather cell biology in particular).

    Absorption Spectroscopy

    • Absorption spectroscopy is a tool to detect the presence of elements in a medium.
    • Light is shone on the sample, and after it passes through the sample is examined using a spectroscope.
    • Dark lines are seen in the observed spectrum of the light passed through the substance, which correspond to the wavelengths of light absorbed by the intervening substance and are characteristic of the elements present in it.
    • In usual methods, about a cubic centimeter of the sample is needed to do this experiment.
    • In the method developed here, minute amounts of dissolved substances can be detected easily.
    • Usually in absorption spectroscopy, the principle used is that light because of its wavelike nature, shows diffraction patterns, that is, dark and light fringes, when it scatters off any object.

    Studying small objects

    • A related concept called the Abbe criterion sets a natural limit on the size of the object being studied.
    • According to this criterion, the size of the observed object has to be at least of the order of the wavelength of the light being shone on it.
    • If one wants to perform absorption spectroscopy using visible light, namely, blue, green and red, the wavelengths [of these colours] are about 400 nm, 500 nm and 600 nm, respectively.

    What has Indian researchers achieved?

    • In the method used by the researchers here, tiny, nano-sized particles that can absorb light being shone on them and re-emit red, blue and green light were employed.
    • The particles emit electric fields that are analogous to how a tiny magnet would give off magnetic lines of force – this is called a dipole, and the particle is like a tiny mobile phone’s antenna.
    • This dipole generates an electromagnetic field depending upon the quantum properties of the erbium dopants in the glass.
    • The absorption leaves a gap in the reflected light, which is what is observed and used to analyse the nature of the absorbing material.

    Applications of this technology

    • There are many potential applications.
    • Small molecules almost ten-millionth of an mm in diameter can be detected while these pass the emission region of the glass particle.
    • The future is to use it to measure individual molecules, see absorption spectroscopy of a single DNA or protein molecule.

    Try this

    Q.Which of the following statements are correct regarding the general difference between plant and animal cells?

    1. Plant cells have cellulose cell walls whilst animal cells do not.
    2. Plant cells do not have plasma membranes unlike animal cells which do.
    3. Mature plant cell has one large vacuole whilst an animal cell has many small vacuoles.

    Select the correct answer using the code given below:

    (a) 1 and 2 only

    (b) 2 and 3 only

    (c) 1 and 3 only

    (d) 1, 2 and 3

    [wpdiscuz-feedback id=”zkyreycvm5″ question=”Please leave a feedback on this” opened=”1″]Answer this PYQ here: [/wpdiscuz-feedback]