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Subject: Science and Technology

  • Imparting direction to science in India

    The article elaborates on the various aspect of the 5th Science Policy.

    Scientific publication from India and issues with it

    • From the report published by the National Science Foundation of the U.S. in December 2019, India was the third-largest publisher of peer-reviewed science and engineering journal articles and conference papers, with 135,788 articles in 2018.
    • This milestone was achieved through an average yearly growth rate of 10.73% from 2008, which was greater than China’s 7.81%.
    • However, China and the United States had about thrice and twice the number, respectively, of India’s publications.
    • Also, the publications from India are not impactful.
    • From the report, in the top 1% of the most cited publications from 2016 (called HCA, or Highly Cited Articles), India’s index score of 0.7 is lower than that of the U.S., China and the European Union.
    • An index score of 1 or more is considered good.
    • The inference for India is that the impact, and hence the citation of publications from India, should improve.

    Patents filed by India

    • The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) through their Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) is the primary channel of filing international patent applications.
    • In its report for 2019, WIPO says India filed a modest number of 2,053 patent applications.
    • Compared to the 58,990 applications filed by China and 57,840 by the U.S., India has a long way to go.
    • The Indian Government put in place the National Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy in 2016 to “stimulate a dynamic, vibrant and balanced intellectual property rights system”.
    • One of the objectives is human capital development.
    • The mission to foster innovation, replicate it at scale and commercialise it is a work in progress consequent to the policy.

    India’s Science Policies

    • There have been four science policies till now, after 1947, with the draft of the fifth policy having been released recently.
    • India’s first science policy adopted in 1958.
    • It led to the establishment of many research institutes and national laboratories, and by 1980.
    • The focus in the second science policy, Technology Policy Statement, in 1983, was technological self-reliance and to use technology to benefit all sections of the society.
    • The Science and Technology Policy 2003, the first science policy after the economic liberalisation of 1991, aimed to increase investment in research and development and brought it to 0.7%.
    • The Scientific and Engineering Research Board (SERB) was established to promote research.
    • In 2013, India’s science policy included Innovation in its scope and was called Science, Technology and Innovation Policy.
    • The focus was to be one of the top five global scientific leaders, which India achieved.

    What 5th science policy seeks to achieve

    • The draft of the Science, Technology and Innovation Policy 2020 (STIP2020)  has an ambitious vision to “double the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) researchers, Gross Domestic Expenditure on R&D (GERD) and private sector contribution to the GERD every 5 years” .
    • It also aims to “position India among the top three scientific superpowers in the next decade”.
    • It also defines strategies to improve funding for and participation in research. India’s Gross Domestic Expenditure on R&D (GERD) is currently around 0.6% of GDP.
    • This is quite low when compared to the investments by the U.S. and China which are greater than 2% and Israel’s GERD is more than 4%.
    • The policy seeks to define strategies that are “decentralized, evidence-informed, bottom-up, experts-driven, and inclusive”.

    Solutions to improve funding

    • STIP2020 defines solutions to improve funding thus: all States to fund research, multinational corporations to participate in research, fiscal incentives and support for innovation in medium and small scale enterprises.
    • The new measures should not become a pretext to absolve the Union and State governments of their primacy in funding research; the government should invest more into research.

    Other critical focus areas

    • 1) Other critical focal areas ar inclusion of under-represented groups of people in research.
    • 2) Support for indigenous knowledge systems.
    • 3) Using artificial intelligence.
    • 4) Reaching out to the Indian scientific diaspora for collaboration.
    • 5) Science diplomacy with partner countries.
    • 6) Setting up a strategic technology development fund to give impetus to research.

    Conclusion

    More specific directives and implementation with a scientific temper without engaging in hyperbole will be key to the policy’s success; and its success is important to us because, as Carl Sagan said, “we can do science, and with it we can improve our lives”.

  • [pib] Sun’s Rotation over the Century

    Scientists at Kodaikanal Solar Observatory have estimated how the Sun has rotated over a century from data extracted from old films and photographs that have been digitized.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q.Consider the following phenomena:

    1. Size of the sun at dusk
    2. Colour of the sun at dawn
    3. Moon being visible at dawn
    4. Twinkle of stars in the sky
    5. Polestar being visible in the sky

    Which of the above are optical illusions?

    (a) 1, 2 and 3

    (b) 3, 4 and 5

    (c) 1, 2 and 4

    (d) 2, 3 and 5

    Sun’s Rotation

    • The Sun rotates around an axis that is roughly perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic; the Sun’s rotational axis is tilted by 7.25° from perpendicular to the ecliptic.
    • It rotates in the counterclockwise direction (when viewed from the north), the same direction that the planets rotate (and orbit around the Sun).
    • The Sun’s rotation period varies with latitude on the Sun since it is made of gas.
    • Equatorial regions rotate faster than Polar Regions.
    • The equatorial regions (latitude = 0 degrees) rotate in about 25.6 days. The regions at 60 degrees latitude rotate in about 30.9 days. Polar Regions rotate in about 36 days.

    Key observations of the study

    • The Sun rotates more quickly at its equator than at its poles.
    • Over time, the Sun’s differential rotation rates cause its magnetic field to become twisted and tangled.
    • The tangles in the magnetic field lines can produce strong localized magnetic fields.
    • When the Sun’s magnetic field gets twisted, there are lots of sunspots.
    • The sunspots which form at the surface with an 11-year periodicity are the only route to probe the solar dynamo or solar magnetism inside the Sun and hence measure the variation in solar rotation.

    Benefits offered

    • This estimation would help study the magnetic field generated in the interior of the Sun, which causes sunspots and results in extreme situations like the historical mini-ice age on Earth (absence of sunspots).
    • It could also help predict solar cycles and their variations in the future.

  • [pib] Who was Sant Ravidas?

    The President of India recently addressed the ‘Shri Guru Ravidas Vishva Mahapeeth Rashtriya Adhiveshan-2021’ in New Delhi.

    Try this PYQ from CSP 2019:

    Q.Consider the following statements:

    1.Saint Nimbarka was a contemporary of Akbar.

    2.Saint Kabir was greatly influenced by Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi.

    Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

    (a) 1 only

    (b) 2 only

    (c) Both 1 and 2

    (d) Neither 1 nor 2

    Who was Sant Ravidas?

    • Ravidas was an Indian mystic poet-saint of the Bhakti movement and founder of the Ravidassia religion during the 15th to 16th century CE.
    • Venerated as a guru (teacher) in the region of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and mainly Punjab and Haryana. He was a poet-saint, social reformer and spiritual figure.
    • The life details of Ravidas are uncertain and contested. Scholars believe he was born in 1450 CE, in the cobbler caste.
    • Ravidas’s devotional Verses were included in the Sikh scriptures known as Guru Granth Sahib.
    • The Panch Vani text of the Dadupanthi tradition within Hinduism also includes numerous poems of Ravidas.
    • He taught the removal of social divisions of caste and gender and promoted unity in the pursuit of personal spiritual freedoms.

    Why his preaching is important?

    • Philosophy and values of Sant Ravidas like social justice, equality and fraternity have been imbued in our constitutional values.
    • He had envisaged a society that is based on equality and free from any kind of discrimination.
    • He gave it the name ‘Be-gampura’ (a city near Lahore) where there is no place for any kind of grief or fear.
    • Such an ideal city would be bereft of fear, vulnerability or scarcity. Rule of law based on the right ideas like equality and welfare of all would be the principle for governance.

  • Life deep beneath Antarctica’s ice shelves

    Researchers have accidentally discovered living under the ice shelves of the Antarctic — in extremely cold and harsh conditions.

    Life beneath the Antarctic

    • Scientists have discovered sessile sponges — a pore bearing multicellular organism and other alien species — attached to the sides of rock beneath the ice sheets.
    • The unidentified species are estimated to be related to sponges, ascidians (sea squirts), hydroids, barnacles, cnidarian or polychaete. All of these look like bristle worms.
    • Scientists are yet to discover how these organisms access food.
    • They would use Environment Deoxyribonucleic acid (e-DNA) technology in future to identify the organisms.

    Organisms discovered

    Sponges

    • Sponges are the members of the phylum Porifera.
    • They are multicellular organisms that have bodies full of pores and channels allowing water to circulate through them, consisting of jelly-like mesohyl sandwiched between two thin layers of cells.

    Ascidians

    • Ascidians, or sea squirts, are invertebrate chordates that belong to the earliest branch in the chordate phylum.
    • Ascidians are found all over the world, usually in shallow water with salinities over 2.5%.

    Hydroids

    • Hydroids are a life stage for most animals of the class Hydrozoa, small predators related to jellyfish.
    • Some hydroids such as the freshwater Hydra are solitary, with the polyp attached directly to the substrate.

    Barnacles 

    • Barnacles are a highly specialized group of crustaceans.
    • A barnacle is a type of arthropod related to crabs and lobsters.

    Cnidarians

    • Cnidarians, also called coelenterate, any member of the phylum Cnidaria (Coelenterata), a group made up of more than 9,000 living species.
    • Mostly marine animals, the cnidarians include the corals, hydras, jellyfish, Portuguese men-of-war, sea anemones, sea pens, sea whips, and sea fans.

    Now take this chance to revise your biology basics on various phyla. It will be beneficial for state PSC exams. UPSC has also begun puzzling us on core biology questions.

    Defying old theories

    • The discovery has left many of them baffled for it contradicts earlier theories of non-survival of life in such extreme conditions.
    • Until now, scientists believed that sea life decreased with an increase in the depth of the Antarctic ice floor.

  • NASA’s Perseverance rover makes historic Mars landing

    NASA’s rover Perseverance, the most advanced astrobiology laboratory ever sent to another world has landed safely on the floor of Jezero Crater on Mars.

    Last week, separate probes launched by the UAE (Hope Mission) and China (Tianwen-1) reached Martian orbit. NASA has three Mars satellites still in orbit, along with two from the European Space Agency.

    Perseverance Rover

    • The Perseverance rover weighs less than 2,300 pounds and is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab.
    • It is a part of the mission named ‘Mars 2020’.
    • The rover’s mission will be to search for signs of past microbial life. It will also collect samples of Martian rocks and dust, according to the release.
    • All of NASA’s previous Mars rovers — including the Sojourner (1997), Spirit and Opportunity (2004) and Curiosity (exploring Mars since 2012) — were named in this way.

    Objectives of the mission

    • Looking for habitability: identify past environments capable of supporting microbial life.
    • Seeking bio-signatures: seek signs of possible past microbial life in those habitable environments, particularly in special rocks known to preserve signs over time.
    • Caching samples: collect core rock and regolith (“soil”) samples and store them on the Martian surface.
    • Preparing for humans: test oxygen production from the Martian atmosphere.

    Major components

    (a) Looking for underground water

    • Perseverance will carry the Radar Imager for Mars’ Subsurface Experiment (RIMFAX).
    • The instrument will look for subsurface water on Mars – which, if found, will greatly help the case for a human mission or the cause of a human settlement on Mars.

    (b) Testing a helicopter

    • The Mars Helicopter is a small drone. It is a technology demonstration experiment: to test whether the helicopter can fly in the sparse atmosphere on Mars.
    • The low density of the Martian atmosphere makes the odds of actually flying a helicopter or an aircraft on Mars very low.

    (c) Producing oxygen on Mars

    • Perseverance will have an instrument – MOXIE, or Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment – that will use 300 watts of power to produce about 10 grams of oxygen using atmospheric carbon dioxide.
    • Should this experiment be successful, MOXIE can be scaled up by a factor of 100 to provide the two very critical needs of humans: oxygen for breathing, and rocket fuel for the trip back to Earth.

  • Explained: National Hydrogen Energy Mission (NHEM)

    Recently, the Finance Minister in her budget speech formally announced the National Hydrogen Energy Mission which aims for generation of hydrogen from green power resources.

    Background

    • With this announcement, India has made an uncharacteristically early entry in the race to tap the energy potential of the most abundant element in the universe, hydrogen.
    • The proposal in the Budget will be followed up with a mission draft over the next couple of months — a roadmap for using hydrogen as an energy source.
    • The mission would have a specific focus on green hydrogen, dovetailing India’s growing renewable capacity with the hydrogen economy.

    Hydrogen as an element

    • The most common element in nature is not found freely.
    • Hydrogen exists only combined with other elements and has to be extracted from naturally occurring compounds like water (which is a combination of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom).
    • Although hydrogen is a clean molecule, the process of extracting it is energy-intensive.
    • The sources and processes, by which hydrogen is derived, are categorised by colour tabs.

    Its types as fuel

    • Hydrogen produced from fossil fuels is called grey hydrogen; this constitutes the bulk of the hydrogen produced today.
    • Hydrogen generated from fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage options is called blue hydrogen; hydrogen generated entirely from renewable power sources is called green hydrogen.
    • In the last process, electricity generated from renewable energy is used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.

    Hydrogen for mobility

    • While proposed end-use sectors include steel and chemicals, the major industry that hydrogen has the potential of transforming is transportation.
    • This sector contributes a third of all greenhouse gas emissions, and where hydrogen is being seen as a direct replacement of fossil fuels, with specific advantages over traditional EVs.
    • Hydrogen fuel cell cars have a near-zero carbon footprint.
    • Hydrogen is about two to three times as efficient as burning petrol because an electric chemical reaction is much more efficient than combustion.

    We already had H-CNG!

    • In October 2020, Delhi became the first Indian city to operate buses running on hydrogen spiked compressed natural gas (H-CNG) in a six-month pilot project.
    • The buses will run on a new technology patented by Indian Oil Corp for producing H-CNG — 18 per cent hydrogen in CNG — directly from natural gas, without resorting to conventional blending.

    Try this PYQ from CSP 2019:

    In the context of proposals to the use of hydrogen-enriched CNG (H-CNG) as fuel for buses in public transport, consider the following statements :
    1. The main advantage of the use of H-CNG is the elimination of carbon monoxide emissions.
    2. H-CNG as a fuel reduces carbon dioxide and hydrocarbon emissions.
    3. Hydrogen up to one-fifth by volume can be blended with CNG as fuel for buses.
    4. H-CNG makes the fuel less expensive than CNG.
    Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
    (a) 1 only
    (b) 2 and 3 only
    (c) 4 only
    (d) 1, 2, 3 and 4

    Green hydrogen has specific advantages

    1. One, it is a clean-burning molecule, which can decarbonize a range of sectors including iron and steel, chemicals, and transportation.
    2. Two, renewable energy that cannot be stored or used by the grid can be channelled to produce hydrogen.
    • This is what the government’s Hydrogen Energy Mission, to be launched in 2021-22, aims for.

    Philosophy behind NHEM

    • India’s electricity grid is predominantly coal-based and will continue to be so.
    • In several countries that have gone in for an EV push, much of the electricity is generated from renewables — in Norway for example, it is 99 per cent from hydroelectric power.
    • Experts believe hydrogen vehicles can be especially effective in long-haul trucking and other hard-to-electrify sectors such as shipping and long-haul air travel.
    • Using heavy batteries in these applications would be counterproductive, especially for countries such as India, where the electricity grid is predominantly coal-fired.

    Back2Basics: How hydrogen fuel cells work?

    • Hydrogen is an energy carrier, not a source of energy.
    • Hydrogen fuel must be transformed into electricity by a device called a fuel cell stack before it can be used to power a car or truck.
    • A fuel cell converts chemical energy into electrical energy using oxidizing agents through an oxidation-reduction reaction.
    • Inside each individual fuel cell, hydrogen is drawn from an onboard pressurized tank and made to react with a catalyst, usually made from platinum.
    • As the hydrogen passes through the catalyst, it is stripped of its electrons, which are forced to move along an external circuit, producing an electrical current.
    • This current is used by the electric motor to power the vehicle, with the only byproduct being water vapour.

      Issues with H-Fuel cells

    • A big barrier to the adoption of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles has been a lack of fuelling station infrastructure.
    • There are fewer than 500 operational hydrogen stations in the world today, mostly in Europe, followed by Japan and South Korea.
    • Safety is seen as a concern. Hydrogen is pressurized and stored in a cryogenic tank, from there it is fed to a lower-pressure cell and put through an electrochemical reaction to generate electricity.
    • Scaling up the technology and achieving critical mass remains the big challenge.
    • More vehicles on the road and more supporting infrastructure can lower costs. India’s proposed mission is seen as a step in that direction.

  • Govt liberalized Geospatial Data Policy

    In sweeping changes to the country’s mapping policy, the government has announced liberalisation of norms governing the acquisition and production of geospatial data.

    Q.What do you mean by Geo-Spatial Data? What are its economic and strategic significance?

    What is the news?

    • The Ministry of Science and Technology has released new guidelines for the Geo-spatial sector in India.
    • It deregulated the existing protocol and liberalizes the sector to a more competitive field.

    What is a Geo-Spatial Data?

    • Geospatial data is data about objects, events, or phenomena that have a location on the surface of the earth.
    • The location may be static in the short-term, like the location of a road, an earthquake event, malnutrition among children, or dynamic like a moving vehicle or pedestrian, the spread of an infectious disease.
    • Geospatial data combines location information, attribute information, and often also temporal information or the time at which the location and attributes exist.
    • Geo-spatial data usually involves information of public interest such as roads, localities, rail lines, water bodies, and public amenities.
    • The past decade has seen an increase in the use of geospatial data in daily life with various apps such as food delivery apps like Swiggy or Zomato, e-commerce like Amazon or even weather apps.

    What is the present policy on geospatial data?

    • There are strict restrictions on the collection, storage, use, sale, dissemination of geo-spatial data and mapping under the current regime.
    • The policy had not been renewed in decades and has been driven by internal as well as external security concerns.
    • Private companies need to navigate a system of permissions from different departments of the government as well as the defence and Home Ministries, to be able to collect, create or disseminate geospatial data.

    Why has the government deregulated geospatial data?

    • This system of acquiring licenses or permission, and the red tape involved, can take months, delaying projects, especially those that are in mission mode – for both Indian companies as well as government agencies.
    • The deregulation eliminates the requirement of permissions as well as scrutiny, even for security concerns.
    • Indian companies now can self-attest, conforming to government guidelines without actually having to be monitored by a government agency- these guidelines, therefore, place a great deal of trust in Indian entities.
    • There is also a huge lack of data in the country which impedes planning for infrastructure, development and businesses which are data-based.
    • The mapping of the entire country that too with high accuracy, by the Indian government alone could take decades.
    • The government, therefore, felt an urgent need to incentivise the geospatial sector for Indian companies and increased investment from private players in the sector.
    • Large amounts of geospatial data are also available on global platforms, which makes the regulation of data that is freely available in other countries, untenable.

    What next?

    • While for decades, geospatial data has been a priority for strategic reasons and for internal and external security concerns.
    • This priority has seen a shift in the past 15 years – geospatial data has now become imperative for the government in planning for infrastructure, development, social development as well as the economy.
    • More and more sectors such as agriculture, environment protection, power, water, transportation, communication, health (tracking of diseases, patients, hospitals etc) are relying heavily on this data.
    • There has also been a global push for open access to geospatial as it affects the lives of ordinary citizens.

    Expected impacts

    • By liberalizing the system, the government will ensure more players in the field, the competitiveness of Indian companies in the global market, and more accurate data available to both the government to formulate plans and administer, but also for individual Indians.
    • Startups and businesses can now also use this data in setting up their concerns, especially in the sector of e-commerce or geospatial based apps – which in turn will increase employment in these sectors.
    • Indian companies will be able to develop indigenous apps, for example, an Indian version of Google maps.
    • There is also likely to be an increase in public-private partnerships with the opening of this sector with data collection companies working with the Indian government on various sectoral projects.
    • The government also expects an increase in investment in the geospatial sector by companies, and also an increase in export of data to foreign companies and countries, which in turn will boost the economy.

  • ISRO collaborates to build alternative to Google Maps

    The ISRO has joined hands with MapmyIndia to combine their geospatial expertise and build holistic solutions by leveraging their geoportals.

    Note various geo-spatial solutions of ISRO mentioned in the newscard.

    What is the Project?

    • It combines the power of MapmyIndia’s digital maps and technologies with ISRO’s catalogue of satellite imagery and earth observation data.
    • Indian users would not be dependent on foreign organisations for maps, navigation and geospatial services, and leverage made-in-India solutions instead.

    Various components

    The collaboration will enable them to jointly identify and build holistic geospatial solutions utilising the ISRO’s earth observation datasets such as-

    • IRNSS (Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System) called NavIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation, is India’s own navigation system, developed by ISRO.
    • Bhuvan is the national geo-portal developed and hosted by ISRO comprising geospatial data, services and tools for analysis.
    • VEDAS (Visualization of Earth observation Data and Archival System) is an online geo-processing platform using an optical, microwave, thermal and hyperspectral EO data covering applications particularly meant for academia, research and problem solving, according to ISRO.
    • MOSDAC (Meteorological and Oceanographic Satellite Data Archival Centre)is a data repository for all the meteorological missions of ISRO and deals with weather-related information, oceanography and tropical water cycles.

    About MapmyIndia

    • MapmyIndia is an Indian technology company that builds digital map data, telematics services, location-based SaaS (Software as a service) and GIS AI services.
    • The company was founded in 1992 and is headquartered at New Delhi with regional offices in Mumbai and Bengaluru and smaller offices across India.
    • Its map covers all 7.5 lakh villages, 7500+ cities at street and building-level, connected by all 63 lakh kilometres of road network pan India and within cities, in total providing maps for an unparalleled 3+ crore places across India.

  • Mechanophotonics: Manipulating light through crystals

    Crystals are normally rigid, stiff structures, but researchers from the University of Hyderabad have shown how crystals can be sliced and even bent using atomic force microscopy. They have named this technique as “mechanophotonics”.

    The newscard discusses an out of the box technology which if brought to reality in practical use, can create immense disruptions in the technology market.

    Manipulating light through crystals

    • Manipulating them with precision and control comes in very useful in the field of nanophotonics, a qualitative, emerging field.
    • The aim is to go beyond electronics and build-up circuits driven entirely by photons (light).

    If the technique can be successfully developed, this can achieve an unprecedented level of miniaturisation and pave the way to all-optical-technology such as pliable, wearable devices operated by light entirely.

    What Indian researchers have achieved?

    : Bending light path

    • Light, when left to itself moves along straight paths, so it is crucial to develop materials and technology that can cause its path to bend along what is required in the circuits.
    • This is like using fibre optics, but at the nanoscale level using organic crystals.
    • The Hyderabad group has demonstrated how such crystals can be lifted, bent moved, transferred and sliced using atomic force microscopy.

    : How?

    • Researchers add a crucial piece to the jigsaw puzzle of building an “organic photonic integrated circuit” or OPIC.
    • Generally, millimetre- to centimetre-long crystals were bent using hand-held tweezers.
    • This method lacks precision and control. Also, the crystals used were larger than what was required for miniaturisation.
    • The atomic force microscopy (AFM) cantilever tip could be used to lift a crystal, as crystals tend to stick to the tip due to tip–crystal attractive forces.
    • Thus they demonstrated the real waveguiding character of the crystal lifted with a cantilever tip.

    In 2014, for the first time, the group led by Rajadurai Chandrasekar of the Functional Molecular Nano/Micro Solids Laboratory in University of Hyderabad demonstrated that tiny crystals could be lifted and moved with precision and control using atomic force microscopy.

    What is Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM)?

    • AFMs are a type of electron microscope used for the observation at an atomic level.
    • It is commonly used in nanotechnology.
    • The AFM works by employing an ultra-fine needle attached to a beam.
    • The tip of the needle runs over the ridges and valleys in the material being imaged, “feeling” the surface.

  • Novel Open Reading Frames (NORF)

    A team from the University of Cambridge set out to find whether new genes emerge in the genome of living organisms and if they do, how they do so. They have now catalogued 1,94,000 novel regions.

    Genes/Genomes/DNA/RNA is all-time favourite of UPSC. You can easily find 1-2 questions every year since 2017 in Prelims.

    Novel genomic regions

    • The ‘novel’ genomic regions cannot be defined by our current ‘definition’ of a gene.
    • Hence, researchers call these novel regions – novel Open Reading Frames or as nORFs.
    • Researchers found that the mutations in nORFs do have physiological consequences and a majority of mutations that are often annotated as benign have to be re-interpreted.

    What novel did the researchers find?

    • nORF regions were uniquely present in the cancer tissues and not present in the control tissue.
    • They found that some nORF disruptions strongly correlated with the survival of patients.
    • nORFs proteins can form structures, can undergo biochemical regulation like known proteins and be targeted by drugs in case they are disrupted in diseases.
    • The researchers also identified these nORFs in Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite which causes the deadliest form of malaria.

    Connected to disease

    • The research found that these regions are also broadly involved in diseases.
    • The nORFs were seen as dysregulated in 22 cancer types.
    • Dysregulated is a term which means that they could either be mutated, upregulated, or downregulated, or they could be uniquely present.