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Subject: Science and Technology

  • Explained: Solar Cycle 25

    NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has announced the commencement of solar cycle 25.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q. Which one of the following reflects back more sunlight as compared to the other three?

    (a) Sand desert

    (b) Paddy cropland

    (c) Land covered with fresh snow

    (d) Prairie land

    What is the Solar Cycle?

    • Like seasons on Earth, the Sun follows a cycle of 11 years, during which solar activities fluctuate between solar minima and maxima.
    • Depending on the number of sunspots detected on the Sun, scientists term it is as solar maxima (highest number of sunspots) or solar minima (lowest number of sunspots).
    • Sunspots are small and dark, yet cooler areas formed on the solar surface, where there are strong magnetic forces.
    • They start appearing at Sun’s higher latitudes and later shift towards the equator as a cycle progresses.
    • In short, when the Sun is active, there are more sunspots in comparison to fewer sunspots during the lesser active phase.
    • Maxima or minima is not a specific time in the 11-year cycle but is a period that can last for a few years.

    How are solar cycles determined?

    • One of the important elements researchers look out for on the Sun’s surface is the number of sunspots.
    • A new cycle commences when the Sun has reached its lowest possible minima phase.
    • Every time the cycle changes, the Sun’s magnetic poles reverse.

    Monitoring solar cycles

    • Since the Sun is a highly variable star, data of sunspot formation and its progress need close monitoring.
    • Data of six to eight months are required to confirm whether the star has undergone a minima phase.
    • Traditionally, telescopes were used to record sunspots and recorded data since 1755 is available.
    • With the advance in technology in recent decades, satellites are also used to make real-time sunspot observations.
    • On this basis, scientists announced the completion of solar cycle 24, which lasted between December 2008 and December 2019.
    • With the Sun’s activities having reached its lowest minima between the two cycles, the new solar cycle 25 has now commenced.

    How has the transition between solar cycles 24 and 25 been?

    • The Sun’s activities were notably lesser during 2019 and early 2020. There were no sunspots for 281 days in 2019 and 181 days in 2020.
    • Since December 2019, the solar activities have slowly picked up, corroborating the beginning of the news cycle.
    • The panel termed solar cycle 25 to be a weak one, with the intensity similar to that of Solar cycle 24.

    What solar activities affect us on Earth?

    • Solar activities include solar flares, solar energetic particles, high-speed solar wind and Coronal Mass Ejections (CME).
    • These influence the space weather which originates from the Sun.
    • Solar storms or flares can typically affect space-dependent operations like GPS, radio and satellite communications, besides hampering flight operations, power grids and space exploration programmes.
    • CMEs pose danger to space weather. Ejections travelling at a speed of 500km/second are common during solar peaks and create disturbances in Earth’s magnetosphere, the protective shield surrounding the planet.
    • At the time of spacewalks, astronauts face a great health risk posed by exposure to solar radiation outside Earth’s protective atmosphere.

     

  • Life signature on Venus

    Scientists have detected in the harshly acidic clouds of Venus a gas called phosphine that indicates microbes may inhabit Earth’s inhospitable neighbour, a sign of potential life beyond Earth.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q.Which phenomenon has Venusian winds rotating 60 times faster than the planet below on the dark side?

    (a) Super rotation

    (b) Monrotation

    (c) Dual rotation

    (d) Macrrotation

    Phosphine

    • Phosphine – a phosphorus atom with three hydrogen atoms attached – is highly toxic to people.
    • It is known to be produced only through a biological process, and not through any naturally occurring chemical process.
    • Phosphine was seen at 20 parts-per-billion in the Venusian atmosphere, a trace concentration.
    • Researchers examined potential non-biological sources such as volcanism, meteorites, lightning and various types of chemical reactions, but none appeared viable.
    • There are some other ways in which this chemical might be produced, for example, in the underbelly of volcanoes or meteorite activity, but that would have shown in much lower concentrations.

    Why study Venus?

    • Venus is Earth’s closest planetary neighbour. Similar in structure but slightly smaller than Earth, it is the second planet from the sun. Earth is the third.
    • Venus is wrapped in a thick, toxic atmosphere that traps in heat. Surface temperatures reach a scorching 880 degrees Fahrenheit (471 degrees Celsius), hot enough to melt lead.
    • Existence of phosphine is the most credible evidence yet for the possibility of life away from Earth.

    Hosting life on Venus

    • There are several things that we know about Venus that make life, as we know it, unsustainable on that planet.
    • The temperature of Venus is too high, and its atmosphere is highly acidic, just two of the things that would make life impossible.
    • It is too early to consider this as evidence for extraterrestrial life.

    Paving way for future mission

    • Missions to Venus are not new. The finding can further ignite interest in space missions to Venus.
    • Spacecraft have been going near the planet since the 1960s, and some of them have even made a landing.
    • In fact, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is also planning a mission to Venus, tentatively called Shukrayaan, in the near future.
    • As of now, the plan is still on the drawing board. All future missions to Venus would now be attuned to investigating further evidence of the presence of life.

  • Panama Disease

    The scientists of Indian Council of Agriculture Research or ICAR have found a cure for one of the most dreaded diseases on Banana.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q.Recently, our scientists have discovered a new and distinct species of banana plant which attains a height of about 11 metres and has orange-coloured fruit pulp. In which part of India has it been discovered?

    (a) Andaman Islands

    (b) Anamalai Forests

    (c) Maikala Hills

    (d) Tropical rain forests of northeast

    Panama Disease

    • The fungal disease, called Fusarium Wilt, is popularly known as the ‘Panama Disease’ and afflicts banana plants.
    • For the first time, Indian scientists have brought out a biopesticide that can control the disease. This biopesticide has been made using another fungus.
    • For a long time, banana cultivators have been struggling with the Panama Disease.
    • This disease affects the Cavendish variety or the G9 Banana cultivar, which is the most widely grown banana in the world.

    Spread in India

    • In India, more than 60 per cent of bananas are of the G9 variety.
    • They go by names like ‘Grand Naine’, ‘Robusta’, ‘Bhusaval’, ‘Basrai’ and ‘Shrimanth’.
    • Farmers in at least four Indian states — Bihar, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh — have been badly affected by this disease.
    • All these are areas where the Cavendish variety is grown.

    Why is the disease so deadly?

    • Panama Disease is caused by a fungus with a long and complicated name called Fusarium oxysporum f. Sp cubense.
    • One of its strains which is called ‘Tropical Race 4’ or ‘TR4’ is creating the most havoc, threatening almost 80 per cent of the global banana production.
    • The disease is so deadly that it is sometimes referred to as ‘banana cancer’.
    • The fungus resides below ground and infects the plant through its roots. The infection then stops water and essential nutrients from being transported to the rest of the plant.
    • The leaves begin to wilt, and the stem of the plant starts turning dark brownish before the plant dies. If one plant gets it, then it is most likely that an entire plantation can be wiped out.

  • Exploring the idea of blockchain voting

    The article analyses the pros and cons of the adoption of blockchain technology for remote voting.

    Background

    • The Election Commission of India has been exploring the idea of further digitising the electoral infrastructure of the country.
    • In furtherance of this, it explored the possibility of using blockchain technology for the purpose of enabling remote elections.

    What will be the benefits

    • ‘Remote voting’ would appear to benefit internal migrants and seasonal workers, who account for roughly 51 million of the populace (Census 2011).
    • The envisioned solution might also be useful for some remotely-stationed members of the Indian armed forces.

    Key issues

    • Electors would still have to physically reach a designated venue in order to cast their vote,
    • Digitisation and interconnectivity introduce additional points of failure external to the processes which exist in the present day.
    • Blockchain solutions rely heavily on the proper implementation of cryptographic protocols.
    • If security is breached, it could unmask the identity and voting preferences of electors, or worse yet, allow an individual to cast a vote as someone else.
    • The provisioning of a dedicated line may make the infrastructure less prone to outages, it may also make it increasingly prone to targeted Denial-of-Service attack.
    • Digitised systems may also stand to exclude and disenfranchise certain individuals due to flaws in interdependent platforms, flaws in system design, as well as general failures caused by external factors.

    Way forward

    • Political engagement could perhaps be improved by introducing and improving upon other methods, such as postal ballots or proxy voting.
    • Another proposed solution to this issue includes the creation of a ‘One Nation, One Voter ID’ system.

    Consider the question “What are the opportunities and challenges in the adoption of blockchain technology. Suggest the other alternatives to enable the ballot portability.”

    Conclusion

    Adoption of technology should be weighed against the risk it carries in the electoral process. While the adoption of blockchain technology offers many opportunities, the concerns it raises must be addressed before its adoption.

  • Analysing the impact of Bt cotton

    After almost 20 years of adoption of Bt cotton in India, its time to review the claimed benefits of the Bt.

    Hybrid cotton seeds and issues

    • Until the 20th century the indigenous ‘desi’ variety, Gossypium arboreum was used.
    • From the 1990s, hybrid varieties of G. hirsutum were promoted.
    • These hybrids cannot resist a variety of local pests and require more fertilizers and pesticides.
    • Cotton suffers from plenty of infestation from moth pests such as the Pink Bollworm (PBW) and sap-sucking (Hemipteran) pests such as aphids and mealy bugs.
    • With increasing pressure to buy hybrid seeds, the indigenous varieties have lost out over the years.

    Resistant pests and introduction of Bt cotton

    • The increasing use of synthetic man-made pesticides to control pests and the rising acreage under the American long-duration cotton led to the emergence of resistant pests.
    • Resistant Pink and even American Bollworm (ABW), a minor pest in the past, began increasing, leading to a growing use of a variety of pesticides.
    • Rising debts and reducing yields, coupled with increasing insect resistance, worsened the plight of cotton farmers.
    • It was in this setting that Bt cotton was introduced in India in 2002.

    What is Bt cotton

    • The plant containing the pesticide gene from the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), has been grown in India for about twenty years.
    • This pesticide, now produced in each Bt plant cell, ought to protect the plant from bollworm, thereby increasing yields and reducing insecticide spraying on the cotton plant.

    Review of the utility of Bt cotton

    • Review  was published in the scientific journal Nature Plants, analysing the entire picture of the use of Bt cotton in India.
    • Earlier studies had attributed to Bt the tripling of cotton yield between 2002-2014 in India.
    • However, one detail that raises concerns over such a conclusion was that yield differences between farmers who were the early adopters of Bt cotton and those who were not suffered from selection bias.
    • Controlling for such bias showed (in 2012) that the contribution of Bt cotton to yield increase was only about 4% each year.
    • Since yields vary annually by over 10%, the benefits claimed were dubious.
    • There are discrepancies between yield and the deployment of Bt cotton.
    • For instance, the Bt acreage was only 3.4% of the total cotton area in 2003, not sufficient to credit it for the 61% increase in yield in 2003-2004.
    • The rise in cotton yields can be explained by improvements in irrigation, for instance in Gujarat, and a dramatic growth across the country in the use of fertilizers.
    • The PBW developed a resistance by 2009 in India. In a few years, the situation was dreadful.
    • A technology that works in the lab may fail in fields since real-world success hinges on multiple factors.

    Way forward

    • The cost of ignoring ‘desi’ varieties for decades has been high for India.
    • Research suggests that with pure-line cotton varieties, high density planting, and short season plants, cotton yields in India can be good and stand a better chance at withstanding the vagaries of climate change.
    •  But government backing for resources, infrastructure and seeds is essential.

    Conclusion

    It is time to pay attention to science and acknowledge that Bt cotton has failed in India, and not enter into further misadventures with other Bt crops such as brinjal or herbicide resistance.

  • [pib] Heritage of Punjab

    The Ministry of Tourism’s DekhoApnaDesh Webinar series titled “Punjab- A historic perspective” has recently gone live.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q.Rivers that passes through Himachal Pradesh are: (CSP 2012)

    (a) Beas and Chenab only

    (b) Beas and Ravi only

    (c) Chenab, Ravi, and Satluj only

    (d) Beas, Chenab, Ravi, Satluj, and Yamuna

    Heritage of Punjab

    • Punjab means ‘the land of Five Waters’ referring to the rivers Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej, and Beas.
    • Much of the Frontier was occupied by Maharaja Ranjit Singh also known as Sher-e-Punjab in the early 19th century and then taken over by the East India Company when it annexed Punjab in 1849.
    • The state is divided into three parts- Majha, Doaba and Malwa.
    • It’s many festivals–Teej, Lohri, Basant Panchami, Baisakhi and Hola Mahalla to name some are celebrations that mirror the farming ethos.
    • Historically, Punjab has played host to a number of ethnicities, including the Aryans, Persians, Greeks, Afghans and Mongols, thus bestowed with a rich tangible heritage.
    • The southeastern city of Punjab, Patiala was once a princely state established under Baba Ala Singh, a Jat Sikh chieftain. He laid the foundation of the fort and now, is located in the region around Qila Mubarak or the Fortunate Castle.
    • Important tourist attractions are Kali Temple, Baradari Garden, Sheesh Mahal, Gurudwara Dukh Niwaran Sahib, Qila Mubarak complex etc.

    Holy shrines

    • The most sacred of Sikh shrines, the Golden Temple, is a major pilgrimage destination for devotees from around the world, as well as, an ever-increasing popular tourist attraction.
    • Construction of the Amrit Sarovar (pool of nectar) was initiated by Guru Amar Das, the third Guru, in 1570 and was completed by Guru Ram Das, the fourth Guru.
    • His successor, Guru Arjan Dev began work on the building after inviting Mian Mir, the Sufi saint, to lay its foundation stone in 1588.
    • Three years later, the Harimandar Sahib, or Darbar Sahib got completed.
    • In step with Sikhism’s basic tenet of universal brotherhood and all-inclusive ethos, the Golden Temple can be accessed from all directions.

    Legend of Banda Bahadur

    • The city of Fatehgarh Sahib is of special significance to Sikhs. The word “Fatehgarh”, means “Town of Victory”.
    • It is so-called because, in 1710, Sikhs under the leadership of Baba Banda Singh Bahadur conquered the area and destroyed the Mughal fort.
    • Banda Bahadur announced the establishment of the Sikh rule in the city and an end to the tyranny of the Mughal rule which had spread terror and injustice.

  • Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator Vehicle (HSTDV)

    The DRDO has successfully demonstrated the hypersonic air-breathing scramjet technology with the flight test of the Hypersonic Technology Demonstration Vehicle (HSTDV).

    Take note of close dissimilarities between Ramjet and Scramjet engines.

    About HSTDV

    • HSTDV is an unmanned scramjet vehicle with a capability to travel at six times the speed of sound.
    • The scramjets are a variant of a category of jet engines called the air-breathing engines.
    • The ability of engines to handle airflows of speeds in multiples of the speed of sound gives it a capability of operating at those speeds.
    • Hypersonic speeds are those which are five times or more than the speed of sound.
    • The unit tested by the DRDO can achieve upto six times the speed of sound or Mach 6, which is well over 7000 km per hour or around two km per second.

    Its development

    • The DRDO started on the development of the engine in the early 2010s.
    • The ISRO has also worked on the development of the technology and has successfully tested a system in 2016. DRDO too has conducted a test of this system in June 2019.
    • The special project of the DRDO consisted of contributions from its multiple facilities including the Pune headquartered Armament and Combat Engineering Cluster.

    Back2Basics: Ramjet V. Scramjet

    • A ramjet is a form of air-breathing jet engine that uses the vehicle’s forward motion to compress incoming air for combustion without a rotating compressor.
    • Fuel is injected in the combustion chamber where it mixes with the hot compressed air and ignites.
    • A ramjet-powered vehicle requires an assisted take-off like a rocket assist to accelerate it to a speed where it begins to produce thrust.
    • Ramjets work most efficiently at supersonic speeds around Mach 3 (three times the speed of sound) and can operate up to speeds of Mach 6.
    • However, the ramjet efficiency starts to drop when the vehicle reaches hypersonic speeds.
    • A scramjet engine is an improvement over the ramjet engine as it efficiently operates at hypersonic speeds and allows supersonic combustion. Thus it is known as Supersonic Combustion Ramjet or Scramjet.

  • Vitamin-D Deficiency

    The pandemic-induced lockdown has confined people to their houses for five months now. The resultant lack of sunlight, followed by rains, has brought down the vitamin D levels to the lowest.

    Try this PYQ from CSP 2014:

    Q.Consider the following pairs:

    Vitamin Deficiency:: Disease

    1. Vitamin C::Scurvy
    2. Vitamin D:: Rickets
    3. Vitamin E:: Night blindness

    Which of the pairs given above is/are correctly matched?

    (a) 1 and 2 only

    (b) 3 only

    (c) 1, 2 and 3

    (d) None

    What is Vitamin-D?

    • Vitamin D is an essential vitamin that has myriad positive effects on several systems in the body.
    • Unlike other vitamins, it functions like a hormone and every cell in your body has a receptor for it.
    • It is sparsely found in certain fatty fish and fortified dairy products, and it is extremely difficult to get the Recommended Daily Intake (RDI) of 600-800 IU from diet alone.

    There are two main forms of vitamin D in the diet:

    – Vitamin D2 (Ergocalciferol) — found in plant foods like mushrooms.
    – Vitamin D3 (Cholecalciferol) — found in animal foods like salmon, cod and egg yolks.

    Common signs and symptoms of the deficiency

    Vitamin D deficiency is incredibly common and most people are unaware of it, as the symptoms are subtle and nonspecific.

    – Getting sick or infected often with common cold and flu, because of a weak immune system.
    – Fatigue and tiredness
    – Bone and muscle pains
    – Depression
    – Impaired wound healing
    – Bone loss and osteoporosis

    Sources of Vit. D

    • Sunlight is the best natural source of vitamin D. Sunlight synthesizes cholesterol into Vitamin D3.
    • Usually, 20 to 30 minutes of sun exposure between 10 am and 3 pm is adequate to meet daily requirements, in places with minimum pollution levels.

  • Black Holes Merger

    Billions of years ago, a collision between two black holes sent gravitational waves rippling through the universe. In 2019, signals from these waves were detected at the gravitational wave observatory LIGO (United States) and the detector Virgo (Italy).

    Try this PYQ:

    Q.Recently, scientists observed the merger of giant ‘blackholes’ billions of light-years away from the Earth. What is the significance of this observation?

    (a) ‘Higgs boson particles’ were detected.

    (b) ‘Gravitational waves’ were detected.

    (c) Possibility of inter-galactic space travel through ‘wormhole’ was confirmed.

    (d) It enabled the scientists to understand ‘singularity’.

    Why in news?

    • The cause of curiosity is the mass of one of the parent black holes, which defies traditional knowledge of how black holes are formed.

    What exactly was detected?

    • It was a signal from a gravitational wave, a relatively new field of discovery.
    • Gravitational waves are invisible ripples that form when a star explodes in a supernova; when two big stars orbit each other; and when two black holes merge.
    • Travelling at the speed of light, gravitational waves squeeze and stretch anything in their path.

    Detecting gravitational waves

    • Gravitational waves were proposed by Albert Einstein in his General Theory of Relativity over a century ago.
    • It was only in 2015, however, that the first gravitational wave was actually detected — by LIGO. Since then, there have been a number of subsequent detections of gravitational waves.
    • The signal detected at LIGO and Virgo, as described by the LIGO Collaboration, resembled “about four short wiggles” and lasted less than one-tenth of a second.

    Where did it come from?

    • Subsequent analysis suggested that GW190521 had most likely been generated by a merger of two black holes. The signal likely represented the instance that the two merged.
    • It was calculated to have come from roughly 17 billion light-years away, and from a time when the universe was about half its age.

    Some questions to verify

    • The findings led to further questions.
    • One of the two merging black holes falls in an “intermediate-mass” range — a misfit that cannot be explained by traditional knowledge of how black holes form.

    Why is it unusual?

    • All the black holes observed so far belong to either of two categories.
    • One category ranges between a few solar masses (one solar mass is the mass of our Sun) and tens of solar masses. These are thought to form when massive stars die.
    • The other category is of supermassive black holes. This range from hundreds of thousands, to billions of times that of our sun.
    • According to traditional knowledge, stars that could give birth to black holes between 65 and 120 solar masses do not do so — stars in this range blow themselves apart when they die, without collapsing into a black hole.

    Observing for the first time

    • In the merger leading to the GW190521 signal, the larger black hole was of 85 solar masses —well within this unexpected range, known as the pair-instability mass gap.
    • It is the first “intermediate-mass” black hole ever observed. (In fact, the smaller black hole to is borderline, at 66 solar masses.)
    • The two merged to create a new black hole of about 142 solar masses. Energy equivalent to eight solar masses was released in the form of gravitational waves, leading to the strongest ever wave detected by scientists so far.

    Possible reasons for its formation

    • The researchers suggest that the 85-solar-mass black hole was not the product of a collapsing star, but was itself the result of a previous merger.
    • Formed by a collision between two black holes, it is likely that the new black hole then merged with the 66-solar-mass black hole — leading to gravitational waves and the signal received by LIGO and Virgo.

  • [pib] Global Innovation Index 2020

    India has climbed 4 spots and has been ranked 48thby the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in the Global Innovation Index 2020 rankings.

    Try this PYQ from CSP 2016:

    Q.India’s ranking in the ‘Ease of Doing Business Index’ is sometimes seen in the news. Which of the following has declared that ranking?

    a) Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)

    b) World Economic Forum

    c) World Bank

    d) World Trade Organization (WTO)

    About the Global Innovation Index

    • The GII is an annual ranking of countries by their capacity for, and success in, innovation. It was started in 2007 by INSEAD and World Business a British magazine.
    • It is published by Cornell University, INSEAD, and the WIPO, in partnership with other organisations and institutions.
    • It is based on both subjective and objective data derived from several sources, including the International Telecommunication Union, the World Bank and the World Economic Forum.
    • The GII is commonly used by corporate and government officials to compare countries by their level of innovation.
    • The theme of the 2019 GII is Creating Healthy Lives – The Future of Medical Innovation, which aims to explore the role of medical innovation as it shapes the future of healthcare.

    Components of GII

    Five input pillars capture elements of the national economy that enable innovative activities under GII are:

    1. Institutions,
    2. Human capital and research,
    3. Infrastructure,
    4. Market sophistication, and
    5. Business sophistication.

    Two output pillars capture actual evidence of innovation outputs:

    1. Knowledge and technology outputs and
    2. Creative outputs

    India’s performance this year

    • In midst of the COVID -19 pandemic, it comes as uplifting news for India and is a testament of its robust R&D Ecosystem.
    • India was at the 52nd position in 2019 and was ranked 81st in the year 2015.
    • The WIPO had also accepted India as one of the leading innovation achievers of 2019 in the central and southern Asian region, as it has shown a consistent improvement in its innovation ranking for the last 5 years.