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Subject: Science and Technology

  • [pib] Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIIT) Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2020

    Lok Sabha passed the IIIT Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2020.

    About IIIT Act

    • IIITs are envisaged to promote higher education and research in the field of Information Technology.
    • The IIT Act of 2014 and IIIT (Public-Private Partnership) Act, 2017 are the unique initiatives of the govt. to impart knowledge in the field of IT to provide solutions to the challenges faced by the country.
    • Every Institute shall be open to all persons irrespective of gender, caste, creed, disability, domicile, ethnicity and social or economic background.

    What are the proposed Amendments?

    • Introduction of the Amendment 2020 will amend the principal acts of 2014 and 2017.
    • It will grant statutory status to five IIIT in PPP mode in Gujarat (Surat), Madhya Pradesh (Bhopal), Bihar (Bhagalpur), Tripura (Agartala), and Karnataka (Raichur).
    • It would declare them as Institutions of National Importance along with already existing 15 IIIT under the 2017 Act.

  • A different fight-back

    Context

    Coronavirus crisis is an opportunity for India to build on domestic technological capabilities in artificial intelligence, big data analytics, life sciences and health technology in the private sector.

    How a small tech company flagged Covid-19 outbreak?

    • What does it do? A small tech company in Canada — BlueDot — was among first outside China to spot a new epidemic spreading out from Wuhan last December.
      • BlueDot, founded in Canada by a medical scientist of South Asian origin, Kamran Khan, tracks the origin and transmission of infectious diseases around the world.
    • How could they detect the outbreak in China?  BlueDot did this by sifting through massive volumes of news reports and blogs by individuals, including health professionals flowing out of China.
      • Data analytics and medical expertise combined: BlueDot combines “public health and medical expertise with advanced data analytics to build solutions that track, contextualise, and anticipate infectious disease risks”.
      • Use of AI: BlueDot is one of the many technology firms leveraging artificial intelligence for business and policy purposes.
      • Many governments are reaching out to tech companies to cope with the corona crisis.
      • The state government of California has just hired BlueDot to help it deal with the challenge.

    The growing role of technology in dealing with coronavirus

    • Across the world, policymakers see a growing role for technology in identification, tracking, and treating the coronavirus.
    • Alibaba and Tencent’s help in China: In China, the Communist Party roped in big tech companies like Alibaba and Tencent in the battle against the virus.
    • Silicon valley’s help in the US: In the US, President Donald Trump has set aside his well-known distaste for Democrat-leaning Silicon Valley to tackle what he now calls a war-like emergency.
    • India will need all the science and technology it can get hold of in overcoming the crisis that is bound to escalate by the day.
    • An opportunity to do good: For the small tech startups in related areas, this is a moment to shine. For the large tech companies, this is a huge opportunity to deploy their immense capabilities to resolve the specific problems posed by the spread of the coronavirus.
      • In rising to the occasion, they could fend off a lot of the recent negative criticism of their business practices and demonstrate that their commitment to “doing good” is not just empty rhetoric.
    • A good business proposition: “Doing good” is also a sensible business proposition at this time.
      • As governments desperately seek solutions to the crisis, the tech startups and established companies leverage the moment to scale up many technologies, develop new uses and markets.

    How countries used technology to deal with the outbreak

    • How China used technology? In China, as the government moved decisively after the delayed initial response, it turned to-
      • the well-established mass surveillance system based on facial recognition technologies,
      • sensing technologies to identify those with fever in public places and
      • data from mobile phone companies to trace the people who might be infected, and limit the spread of the disease.
    • China also developed a Health Code that uses data analytics to-
      • identify and assess the risk of every individual in a targeted zone based on travel history and time spent in infected places.
      • The individuals are assigned a colour code (red, yellow, or green) which they can access via popular apps to know if they ought to be quarantined or allowed in public.
    • How Korea used technology? Many Asian democracies like South Korea have also turned to AI tools to contain the spread of the disease.
    • How the US used technology? As it copes with the rapid spread of the coronavirus, the US had no option but to use surveillance to contain it.
      • Partners in dealing with outbreak: Unsurprisingly, the big tech companies in the US, based on collecting and monetising massive amounts of data from individuals, have inevitably become partners for Washington.
      • But the relationship between the government, corporations and individual citizens in the US is governed by a welter of laws.
      • There is mounting pressure now to tweak these laws to manage the corona crisis.
      • The US is also liberalising the regulations on the access to, and use of, patients’ health records.

    Growing collaboration between science and the state

    • The race between China and the US: Overarching these arguments is a race between the US and China to find new vaccines for the coronavirus.
      • And, more broadly, for the mastery of new scientific capabilities — from artificial intelligence to health technologies.
      • The competition, in turn, is promoting a more intensive alliance between science and the state in both nations.
    • Collaboration could accelerate the technological capabilities: The collaboration between science and the state during past crises led to a dramatic acceleration of technological capabilities.
      • World War precedents: During the Second World War, science and the state got together to move nuclear physics from the lab to the battlefield.
      • Cold War precedent: The Cold War between America and Russia promoted the development of space technology, microelectronics, communications and computing.
    • Role of private entities: What marks out the current technological race between the US and China is the role of private and non-governmental entities.
      • That might well be the missing link in India’s effort to beat the coronavirus.

    Conclusion

    • Opportunity for India: The current crisis, however, is also an opportunity for India to build on the existing domestic technological capabilities in the areas of artificial intelligence, big data analytics, life sciences, health technology in the private sector.
    • India needs stronger private sector in science: In India, the state has dominated the development of science and its organisation. That was of great value in the early decades after Independence.
      • Today, what Delhi needs is a stronger private sector in science and greater synergy with it in dealing with challenges like the corona crisis.

  • [pib] How lipids play critical roles in infectious diseases

    A researcher from IIT Bombay is using biologically active lipid molecules as chemical biology tools to elucidate their biological disease-causing function.

    About the research

    • The research is focused to explore how lipids play critical roles in infectious diseases by intervening in cellular signaling, membrane trafficking, and protein function all of which are intimately involved in host-pathogen interplay.
    • The research works with lipids from Mycobacteria tuberculosis (Mtb), which synthesizes atypical lipids predisposed on its surface to interact with the human host membrane.
    • Using Mtb lipids as tools, the research elucidates a direct correlation between human host lipid membrane modification and modulation of associated signaling pathways by these exogenous Mtb lipids.

    What are Lipids?

    • A lipid is a biomolecule that is soluble in nonpolar solvents.
    • Non-polar solvents are typically hydrocarbons used to dissolve other naturally occurring hydrocarbon lipid molecules that do not (or do not easily) dissolve in water, including fatty acids, waxes, sterols, fat-soluble vitamins (such as vitamins A, D, E, and K), monoglycerides, diglycerides, triglycerides, and phospholipids.
    • The functions of lipids include storing energy, signaling, and acting as structural components of cell membranes.
    • Lipids have applications in the cosmetic and food industries as well as in nanotechnology.

    Role of Lipids

    • Lipids are important components of living cells and are responsible for maintaining the integrity of our cell membrane, which allows nutrients and drugs to pass through the cell.
    • These are commonly breached during infection and in diseases.
    • Lipids play a major role in altering cell membrane properties modulating lipid and protein diffusion and membrane organization.
    • Thus, changes in membrane properties control the proper functioning of cells and are harnessed by pathogens for their survival and infection.
    • Lipids critically dictate the molecular interactions of drugs with membranes influencing drug diffusion, partitioning, and accumulation, thereby underpinning lipid-composition specificity.

  • Time for a powerful display of humanity

    Context

    India is unprepared for dealing with the outbreak of coronavirus.

    Is India really faring better than the other countries?

    • 45 days for first 100,000: Globally, it took roughly 45 days for the first 100,000 cases. It is likely to take nine days for the next 100,000.
    • Death count: The global death count is now doubling every nine days and stands at 8,248, with 207,518 confirmed cases.
    • That is how epidemics work — they gather steam as infected individuals go on to infect even more people. Confirmed cases in India, as of today stand at 169.
      • It is much lower than in small countries such as Iceland (around 250). Could this really be the case that we have fared better than everyone else?
    • Probably India is not performing better: Testing in India remains abysmally low. Only about 10 in a million people in India have been tested, compared to say nearly 120 in a million in Thailand or 40 per million in Vietnam.
    • Why testing in not being done in India? The stated explanation is that the limited number of test kits are being conserved for when they are truly needed but when is the need greater than right now?
      • There are probably shortages even in being able to procure adequate supplies given that many countries are seeking to buy the limited stocks.
    • Importance of testing: Testing is the most important thing we could be doing right now.
      • As the Director-General of the World Health Organization, said recently about the need for more testing, “You cannot fight a fire blindfolded.”

    Avoiding undercounting

    • Timely identification is essential to prevent secondary infection: We need to identify coronavirus-infected patients in a timely manner in order to increase our chances of preventing secondary infections.
      • There is no shame in saying that we have far more cases than what we have detected so far.
    • K.’s admitted undercounting: Even the United Kingdom, which has a far better health system than India, has admitted that it is probably undercounting its true infections by a factor of 12, and is likely have about 10,000 cases.
      • Is it possible that India with 20 times their population has only 169 cases?
    • Preparedness to deal with a higher number of cases: If widespread testing were to commence in India, the number of confirmed cases would likely climb to the thousands very quickly. This is something we have to be prepared for without panic or fear-mongering.
    • Positive action: This is how epidemics move and the real numbers should spur us into positive action.
    • Strict measures by the government: At some stage, it is possible that the government may have to put in place very strict measures on quarantining and closures, much like what China had to do to control the epidemic in Wuhan.

    How prepared is India?

    • There is not an easy answer to how worst things could go.
    • Mutation or sensitivity of virus: If we escape the worst, either because this virus mutates to a less virulent form or because there is something about its temperature or geographical sensitivity that we know nothing about, then we should count our blessings.
      • Viruses do mutate and generally to be less lethal.
    • Projection from Europe: If the projections from Europe are applicable in India, our ‘namastes’ and clean hands notwithstanding, the prevalence in India would be upwards of 20%.
    • In other words, we should expect to see about 200-300 million cases of COVID-19 infections and about four and eight million severe cases of the kind that are flooding hospitals in Italy and Spain at the moment.
    • More importantly, these cases are projected to appear in just a two to the four-month window.
      • In the current scenario, we are not ready.
    • India has somewhere between 70,000 and 100,000 intensive care unit beds and probably a smaller number of ventilators.
      • That is simply inadequate.
    • What should be done? The next two weeks should be spent on planning for large, temporary hospitals that can accommodate such numbers. If we are lucky, we will not need them.

    Unprepared for pandemics

    • Catastrophic event with highest probability-Pandemic: This all sounds doomsday-like. But we have known for decades now that of all catastrophic events to befall humanity, between an asteroid hit and a nuclear war, a disease pandemic has always been the highest on our list of impact and probability.
    • Not enough changes in preparedness: There were some changes after the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) but not nearly enough.
      • Pandemic preparedness always took a backseat to the crisis of the moment.
      • And in fairness, there is truly no amount of preparation that can fully mitigate such an occurrence.

    Conclusion

    Things are about to get a lot worse. Let us hope that this brings out the best in us, and not the worst. Whether we know this or not, these events are just a dress rehearsal for the more challenging events such as climate change that are likely to be with us this century. And if we take care of each other, we will survive both these challenges with our humanity intact.

     

  • [pib] Friction-reducing Nanocomposite Coatings

    A group of scientists at the International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy & New Materials (ARCI) have developed a process for size-selective deposition of nanocomposite coatings which can reduce friction of these dynamic systems.

    What are Nanocomposites?

    • Nanocomposite coatings are formed by mixing two or more dissimilar materials at nanoscale to improve the physical, chemical and physicochemical properties of the new materials.
    • The scientists have found that nickel tungsten-based coatings with infusion of particular sized Silicon Carbide (SiC) submicron particles using a pulsed electroplating can provide an excellent combination of wear and corrosion resistance.

    Applications

    • Many aerospace, defence, automobile, space devices need to reduce friction, wear, and tear to enhance the life of components.
    • Lubricating these dynamic systems add to the cost, complexity, and weight of these systems.
    • The coating could help in reducing the friction of such devices.

  • [pib] Potential Fishing Zone (PFZ) Advisories

    The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), Hyderabad has reported that Oceansat Satellite data from ISRO are used to prepare the PFZ advisories on the potential rich fishing areas and provide to the sea faring fishermen in all states.

    Potential Fishing Zone (PFZ)

    • This is the first advisory service started by INCOIS. The backbone of this service is the real-time data for ocean color and SST provided by the OCEANSAT and NOAA respectively.
    • This service was started because there was a need to identify the potential fishing zones to help the fishermen to get better catch while they were at the sea.
    • This service was started by the Ministry of Earth Sciences with the help of the Department of Space and several institutions under the Ministry of Agriculture.

    How it works?

    • This service makes use of parameters such as sea surface temperature and chlorophyll content provided by NOAA-AVHRR and Oceancolor satellites.
    • Features such as oceanic fronts, Meandering Patterns, Eddies, Rings, Up Welling areas etc. are identified sites for fish accumulation.
    • These features can easily be identified from Sea Surface Temperature and Chlorophyll data.
    • The availability of Chlorophyll from OCEANSAT and MOdDIS has further enriched these advisories in the recent years.
    • Hence, PFZ advisories have helped the fishing community to locate the fishing zones with accuracy.

    Special advisories for fisherman

    • Another feature of PFZ service is the generation of species-specific advisory to enable the fishermen folk to distinguish between the exploited and under-exploited species in the potential fishing zones.
    • This enables them to have sustainable fishery management by targeting only the under-exploited species in the fishing zones.
    • This approach enables them to avoid fishing the over-exploited species over and over again.

  • PCR Test for Diagnosis of the COVID-19

     

    The diagnosis of COVID-19 can be done with the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Test which is explained as under:

    The PCR Test

    • It uses a technique that creates copies of a segment of DNA. ‘Polymerase’ refers to the enzymes that make the copies of DNA.
    • Kary Mullis, the American biochemist who invented the PCR technique, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1993.
    • The ‘chain reaction’ is how the DNA fragments are copied, exponentially — one is copied into two, the two are copied into four, and so on.
    • However, SARS-COV-2 is a virus made of RNA, which needs to be converted into DNA. For this, the technique includes a process called reverse transcription.
    • A ‘reverse transcriptase’ enzyme converts the RNA into DNA. Copies of the DNA are then made and amplified.
    • A fluorescent DNA binding dye called the “probe” shows the presence of the virus. The test also distinguishes SARS-COV-2 from other viruses.

    Various Stages:

    1) Collection and transport

    • Testing centre takes swabs from nasal cavities and back of the throat (pharynx), and puts samples in a “virus transport medium”, which contains balanced salts and albumin to prevent the virus from disintegrating.
    • Sample is then transported in cold storage to the testing lab.

    2) Extraction of viral RNA

    • Coronaviruses have large single-stranded RNA genomes.
    • Testing lab extracts the RNA from the samples, using commercially available kits.

    3) Putting THE RNA in THE PCR mix

    • Extracted RNA is added to a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) mix.
    • This includes the ‘master mix’, which contains a ‘reverse transcriptase’ enzyme that converts the RNA into DNA.
    • Master Mix contains Taq polymerase, the enzyme that creates copies of the DNA, nucleotides, as well as other elements such as magnesium — an ion of which is needed to amplify the DNA.
    • The PCR mix also contains ‘reagents’ such as ‘primers’ and ‘probes’.
    • Primers are particular strands of DNA that are designed to bind with the DNA that is to be copied; probes are used to detect the specific sequence in the DNA sample.
    • Finally, the PCR mix consists of a “housekeeping” gene — a normal human gene (RNAse P) that is used to ensure that samples were properly collected, and RNA extracted.

    4) Amplification of the viral DNA

    • Sample, in its PCR mix, is put into tubes or plates, which are then put in a thermal cycler machine that is used to conduct the PCR process.
    • First, the RNA is converted into DNA. Then the process of copying the genes starts.
    • The thermal cycler heats and cools the mixture with the sample, alternating between three temperatures — for melting the DNA to separate the two strands.
    • The thermal cycler runs 30-40 such cycles in order to amplify the DNA to check for the virus.

    5) Testing against controls

    • Amplified DNA is tested against a positive control, which usually consists of genes of the virus cloned into plasmid, and a negative control, which is a ‘known’ sample that has tested negative for the virus earlier.
    • RNase P should show amplification, positive control should be positive, negative control should be negative, and then whatever result you get for the specimen, is the correct result.
    • In order for a test to be valid before the result is released, certain ‘validity criteria’ have to be met.
    • If the housekeeping gene (RNase P) is positive, positive control is positive, negative control is negative, and the sample does not show any PCR positive result, the sample is declared negative.
    • If the PCR result is positive, the patient has COVID-19.

  • Epidemics that have hit India since 1900

    India has witnessed widespread illnesses and virus outbreaks in parts of the country, including the SARS outbreak between 2002 and 2004. However, statistics show that they were nowhere as widespread as the COVID-19 that has now reached almost every part of the country and almost every country in the world.

    What is an Epidemic?

    • The WHO defines epidemics as “the occurrence in a community or region of cases of an illness, specific health-related behaviour, or other health-related events clearly in excess of normal expectancy.
    • The community or region and the period in which the cases occur are specified precisely.
    • The number of cases indicating the presence of an epidemic varies according to the agent, size, and type of population exposed, previous experience or lack of exposure to the disease, and time and place of occurrence.
    • Epidemics are characterized by the rapid spread of the specific disease across a large number of people within a short period of time.

    Epidemics in India

    • Many Indian citizens born at the start of the 21st century have not fully witnessed or experienced circumstances surrounding the mass outbreak of epidemics.
    • This is not to say however, that as a nation, India is completely unfamiliar with dealing with epidemics and public health crises, some with exceptional success such as:

    1915-1926⁠ — Encephalitis lethargica

    • Encephalitis lethargica, also known as ‘lethargic encephalitis’ was a type of epidemic encephalitis that spread around the world between 1915 and 1926.
    • The disease was characterized by increasing languor, apathy, drowsiness and lethargy and by 1919, had spread across Europe, the US, Canada, Central America and India.
    • It was also called encephalitis A and Economo encephalitis or disease.
    • Approximately 1.5 million people are believed to have died due to this disease.

    1918-1920 — Spanish flu

    • This epidemic was a viral infectious disease caused due to a deadly strain of avian influenza.
    • The spread of this virus was largely due to World War I which caused mass mobilization of troops whose travels helped spread this infectious disease.
    • In India, approximately 10-20 million people died due to the Spanish flu that was brought to the region a century ago, by Indian soldiers who were part of the war.

    1961–1975 — Cholera pandemic

    • Vibrio cholerae, one type of bacterium, has caused seven cholera pandemics since 1817.
    • In 1961, the El Tor strain of the Vibrio cholerae bacterium caused the seventh cholera pandemic when it was identified as having emerged in Makassar, Indonesia.
    • In a span of less than five years, the virus spread to other parts of Southeast Asia and South Asia, having reached Bangladesh in 1963 and India in 1964.

    1974 — Smallpox epidemic

    • According to WHO, smallpox was officially eradicated in 1980. The infectious disease was caused by either of the two virus variants Variola major and Variola minor.
    • Although the origins of the disease are unknown, it appears to have existed in the 3rd century BCE.
    • This disease has a history of occurring in outbreaks around the world and it is not clear when it was first observed in India. India was free of smallpox by March 1977.

    1994 — Plague in Surat

    • In September 1994, pneumonic plague hit Surat, causing people to flee the city in large numbers. Rumours and misinformation led to people hoarding essential supplies and widespread panic.
    • This mass migration contributed to the spread of the disease to other parts of the country. Within weeks, reports emerged of at least 1,000 cases of patients afflicted with the disease and 50 deaths.

    2002-2004 — SARS

    • SARS was the first severe and readily transmissible new disease to have emerged in the 21st century.
    • In April 2003, India recorded its first case of SARS, severe acute respiratory syndrome, that was traced to Foshan, China.
    • Similar to COVID-19, the causative agent of SARS was a type of coronavirus, named SARS CoV that was known for its frequent mutations and spread through close person-to-person contact and through coughing and sneezing by infected people.

    2014-2015 — Swine flu outbreak

    • In the last few months of 2014, reports emerged of the outbreak of the H1N1 virus, one type of influenza virus, with states like Gujarat, Rajasthan, Delhi, Maharashtra and Telangana being the worst affected.
    • By March 2015, according to India’s Health Ministry, approximately 33,000 cases had been reported across the country and 2,000 people had died.

    2018 — Nipah virus outbreak

    • In May 2018, a viral infection attributed to fruit bats was traced in the state of Kerala, caused by the Nipah virus that had caused illness and deaths.
    • The spread of the outbreak remained largely within the state of Kerala, due to efforts by the local government and various community leaders who worked in collaboration to prevent its spread even inside the state.
    • Between May and June 2018, at least 17 people died of Nipah virus and by June, the outbreak was declared to have been completely contained.

  • What is Herd Immunity?

    As Europe was declared the epicentre of the novel coronavirus outbreak last week, Britain announced a different strategy to tackle the situation. Officials said that Britain would contain the spread of the virus but would not suppress it completely to build up a degree of ‘herd immunity’.

    Herd Immunity

    • Herd immunity is when a large number of people are vaccinated against a disease, lowering the chances of others being infected by it.
    • When a sufficient percentage of a population is vaccinated, it slows the spread of disease.
    • It is also referred to as community immunity or herd protection.
    • The decline of disease incidence is greater than the proportion of individuals immunized because vaccination reduces the spread of an infectious agent by reducing the amount and/or duration of pathogen shedding by vaccines, retarding transmission.
    • The approach requires those exposed to the virus to build natural immunity and stop the human-to-human transmission. This will subsequently halt its spread.

    Can it work?

    • Globally, this strategy has been criticized.
    • COVID-19 is a new virus to which no one has immunity. More people are susceptible to infection.
    • The goal seems to have been delaying urgent action to allow an epidemic to infect large numbers of people.
    • To combat COVID-19, there is an urgent need to implement social distancing and closure policies.

  • Role of Glucose in Regulating Liver Functions

    A study by researchers from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai (TIFR) has revealed that glucose in the body controls the function of SIRT1 enzymes directly.

    What is SIRT1?

    • SIRT1 is an enzyme that deacetylates (removal of acetyl) proteins which contribute to cellular regulation.
    • A shortage or absence of the control by glucose may lead to a diabetic-like state, while excess feeding and sustained low levels of SIRT1 can lead to obesity and enhanced ageing.
    • This information is expected to tackle lifestyle disorders and ageing-related diseases.

    How do they function?

    • In normal healthy individuals, SIRT1 protein levels are known to increase during fasting and decrease during the feed, which is essential to maintain a balance between glucose and fat metabolism.
    • The glucose controls the functions of a protein SIRT1 which in turn maintains everyday feed-fast cycles and is also associated with longevity.
    • The feed-fast cycle is a basic pattern and the metabolism-related to this is largely taken care of by the liver.
    • Thus, the study shows that both over-activation and under-activation of SIRT1 can lead to diseases.
    • Glucose puts a check on the activity of SIRT1 in the fed state. In the absence of this check, SIRT1 activity increases and results in hyperglycemia in a fasted state, mimicking diabetic state.
    • The constant feeding or high-calorie intake that leads to a sustained reduction in the levels of SIRT1 by glucose which is associated with ageing and obesity.