Type: Prelims Only

Central Idea: Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, is reportedly raising $100 million for Worldcoin, a unique cryptocurrency.

What is Worldcoin?

• Worldcoin, co-founded by Altman and Alex Blania in 2019, aims to provide every human being on Earth with a share of its digital token.
• Worldcoin is a crypto project that seeks to establish a global identity and financial network for everyone.
• It utilizes a device called the Orb, which scans people’s irises to verify their uniqueness and humanity.
• Individuals who undergo the iris scan are rewarded with Worldcoin tokens.
• The World App, developed by Worldcoin, enables users to make payments, purchases, and transfers using Worldcoin and other digital assets.
• The project plans to launch in the first half of 2023 and distribute a total of 10 billion tokens, with 80% going to users.

Functioning of Worldcoin

• Worldcoin’s founders aimed to freely distribute shares of the digital token to every person on the planet.
• They envisioned it as a global distribution system for Universal Basic Income and a means to distribute profits generated by AI systems equally among people.
• To ensure fair distribution, Worldcoin utilizes biometric iris scans through the Orb device.
• The Orb scans the iris and converts it into a hash, which is impossible to recreate even if compromised.
• The iris hash and the user’s public key hash are sent to Worldcoin servers, and if the person is new to the system, the hashes are added to the database and the company’s blockchain.

Challenges and criticisms

• Worldcoin faces challenges regarding the accessibility of the Orb and expanding the user database.
• The project plans to incentivize sign-ups by offering coupons or access to loans.
• Concerns exist about the privacy and security of biometric data and potential misuse.
• Questions arise about the feasibility and scalability of reaching unbanked or underbanked populations.
• The value and utility of the Worldcoin token and its competitiveness with other cryptocurrencies or fiat currencies are also subject to scrutiny.

Back2Basics: Cryptocurrency

• A cryptocurrency is a digital asset stored on computerised databases.
• These digital coins are recorded in digital ledgers using strong cryptography to keep them secure.
• The ledgers are distributed globally, and each transaction made using cryptocurrencies are codified as blocks.
• And multiple blocks linking each other forms a blockchain on the distributed ledger.
• There are estimated to be more than 47 million cryptocurrency users around the world.
• These cryptocurrencies are created through a process called mining.

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Central Idea

• The birth of a baby using three persons’ DNA using Mitochondrial Replacement Therapy (MRT) in the UK has generated significant attention and discussion.
• The baby has three parents, with the mitochondria coming from a donor in addition to the genetic material from the biological parents.
• This pioneering technology was employed to prevent the baby from inheriting the mother’s mitochondrial disease.

What is Mitochondria?

• Certain defects in mitochondria can lead to mitochondrial diseases, impacting the function of energy-hungry tissues in various organs.
• Mitochondrial diseases have no cure but can be treated, and their incidence is estimated to be one in 5,000 people.
• In this case, the mother had a mitochondrial disease that she wanted to avoid passing on to her baby, but she did not want to use a donor egg.

What is Mitochondrial Replacement Therapy (MRT)?

• MRT is a medical technique used to prevent the transmission of certain mitochondrial diseases from a mother to her child.
• It involves replacing faulty mitochondria in an egg or embryo with healthy mitochondria from a donor.
• The procedure is typically performed using in vitro fertilization (IVF) techniques.
• The nucleus, containing the majority of the genetic material, is transferred from the intended parents’ egg or embryo to a donor egg or embryo with healthy mitochondria.
• The resulting embryo, with nuclear DNA from the intended parents and healthy mitochondria from the donor, is then implanted into the mother’s uterus for gestation.

How does it work?

• The father’s sperm fertilizes the eggs from the biological mother and a female donor with healthy mitochondria.
• The genetic material from the donor’s egg is replaced with that of the biological parents, resulting in an egg with the parents’ DNA and the donor’s mitochondria.
• This modified egg is then implanted into the mother’s uterus and carried to full term, resulting in a baby free from the mother’s mitochondrial disease.

Uses of MRT

• Prevention of Mitochondrial Diseases: MRT helps prevent the transmission of certain mitochondrial diseases from mothers to their children.
• Family Planning: It enables individuals or couples with mitochondrial DNA mutations to have genetically related children without the risk of disease inheritance.
• Improved Health: MRT can significantly improve the overall health and well-being of individuals by avoiding debilitating mitochondrial diseases.
• Ethical Considerations: It provides an alternative to traditional donor egg options, allowing intended parents to have a child with their own genetic material while avoiding disease transmission.
• Scientific Advancements: MRT contributes to scientific research and advancements in assisted reproductive technologies, expanding our understanding of mitochondrial biology and potential treatment options for mitochondrial disorders.

Recent advancements in UK

• The baby primarily carries DNA from its biological parents and a small percentage from the donor whose mitochondria was used during fertilization.

Scientific process

• Mitochondrial diseases are inherited from the mother, prompting research to find ways to protect infants from inheriting these diseases.
• The Newcastle Fertility Clinic developed an advanced in vitro fertilization technique known as Mitochondrial Donation Treatment (MDT).

Legal Facilitation of MDT

• The UK government amended the law in 2015 to allow for mitochondrial replacement therapy (MRT) or MDT.
• The Newcastle Fertility Centre became the first center to obtain a license to perform the procedure, and the first cases were approved in 2018.

Issues with MRT

• Transfer of Defective Mitochondria: There is a minimal risk of transferring small amounts of defective mitochondria along with healthy ones during the procedure.
• Long-Term Safety: The long-term safety of MRT is still being studied, and ongoing monitoring is necessary to assess any potential risks or effects.
• Ethical and Social Concerns: MRT raises ethical and social considerations related to the creation and destruction of embryos, use of donor gametes, and altering the germline.
• Limited Availability: MRT is a highly regulated procedure, and its availability may be limited to specific countries or cases approved by regulatory bodies.
• Emotional and Psychological Impact: Undergoing MRT involves emotional implications and decision-making, which can have an impact on individuals and couples involved.

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Central Idea: Allahabad high court ordered the ASI to conduct the carbon dating process of the ‘Shivling’ found in the premises of the Gyanvapi mosque, without causing any damage to the structure.

What is Carbon Dating?

• Carbon dating is a widely-used method for determining the age of organic materials that were once living.
• The method is based on the radioactive decay of Carbon-14 (C-14), an isotope of carbon with an atomic mass of 14.
• It works by measuring the ratio of C-12 to C-14 in the atmosphere, as well as in plants and animals that acquire carbon through photosynthesis or food consumption.

The half-life concept

• Carbon-14 has a half-life of 5,730 ± 40 years—i.e., half the amount of the radioisotope present at any given time will undergo spontaneous disintegration during the succeeding 5,730 years.
• Because carbon-14 decays at this constant rate, an estimate of the date at which an organism died can be made by measuring the amount of its residual radiocarbon.

Limitations of Carbon Dating

• Carbon dating has certain limitations and cannot be applied in all circumstances.
• It is not suitable for determining the age of non-living things such as rocks.
• Carbon dating becomes less accurate for objects older than 40,000-50,000 years, as the amount of detectable C-14 becomes significantly small.
• Other radiometric dating methods are employed to determine the age of inanimate objects, which rely on the decay of radioactive elements present in the material.
• Examples of such methods include potassium-argon dating and uranium-thorium-lead dating, which analyze the ratios of specific isotopes to estimate the age of rocks.

Other Dating Methods

In addition to radiometric dating, there are alternative methods to determine the age of objects.

• Cosmogenic nuclide dating: CRN is one such method that utilizes radioactive decay to estimate age and is commonly used to study the age of ice cores in Polar Regions.
• Potassium-argon dating: A radiometric dating method that measures the ratio of potassium to argon isotopes in rocks to determine their age.
• Uranium-thorium-lead dating: A radiometric dating method that analyses the ratios of uranium, thorium, and lead isotopes in rocks to estimate their age.

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