(Sample Content) "Science & Technology and Miscellaneous" From Current Affairs Book For IAS Pre 2011

Sample Content: "Science & Technology and Miscellaneous"

WiMAX ready for deployment

• Just ahead of the auction for broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum, the WiMAX Forum said the industry was ready for roll out of advanced WiMAX networks in India that would help the Centre meet its goal of providing over 10-crore broadband connections by 2014.
• WiMAX is the only 4G technology available today that is two to five times cheaper than existing technologies.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis genome mapping released

• The government’s Open Source Drug Discovery (OSDD) initiative released the results of its ‘Connect 2 Decode’ (C2D) project to re-annotate the biological and genetic information relating to the Mycobacterium tuberculosis ( Mtb) genome.
• This is the first time that a comprehensive mapping of the Mtb genome has been compiled, verified and made publicly available. C2D’s findings may contain critical data to unlock previously undiscovered details of tuberculosis (TB); resulting in development opportunities for urgently needed new TB drugs in India and other developing countries.
• The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that 1.7 million people die annually from TB and that in some parts of the world, one in four people with TB has a form of the disease that can no longer be treated with standard drugs regimens.
• Under the C2D project, researchers and students pooled their time and skills using online tools to provide insights into 4000 genes of the deadly pathogen. The researchers also mapped the genes as they relate to functional interactions and pathways. Their work is held in a shared database, which the OSDD will share through a globally accessible database with any research institutions involved in TB research, through its open portal.
• The OSDD was launched in September 2008 by the CSIR. It is a $35 million (Rs. 146 crore) collaborative research effort that focuses primarily on TB. Its objective is to accelerate R&D for TB drugs. With a global community of nearly 3,000 members from 74 countries, the OSDD brings together scientists, doctors, students, policy experts, software professionals and others to work on TB research.
• It is the first project of its kind by any government.

Hubble turns 20

• The Hubble Space Telescope celebrated the 20th anniversary of its launch.with NASA releasing a new photograph from the orbiting observatory of a cosmic pillar of gas and dust in the Carina Nebula galaxy.
• Three light years tall towers of cool hydrogen laced with dust rise from the wall of the nebula, said the U.S. space agency, reminiscent of Hubble’s classic “Pillars of Creation” photograph from 1995.
• Hubble, named after the astronomer Edwin P. Hubble (1889-1953), was launched into low-Earth orbit on April 24, 1990. Since then, it has been sending back some of the most spectacular images of galaxies — helping scientists place the age of the universe at 13.7 billion years, learn that black holes are at the centre of most galaxies, monitor planetary formation and discover that the universe is expanding at an ever-faster pace.

YouTube turns five

• In the scant time since the first video was uploaded to YouTube on April 23, 2005, the website has rocketed to global stardom and become a key player in a shift to Internet television.
• Google is planning a series of celebratory events for closer to the fifth anniversary of the public launch of YouTube in October 2005.
• Google bought YouTube in a $1.65-billion deal about 19 months after the online video-sharing service was founded in February of 2005.
• California-based YouTube was the brainchild of then PayPal co-workers Steve Chen and Jawed Karim.

Stone inscription with Indus signs found in Gujarat

• An inscription on stone, with three big Indus signs and possibly a fourth, has been found on the Harappan site of Dholavira in Gujarat.
• The discovery is significant because this is the first time that the Indus script has been found engraved on a natural stone in the Indus Valley. The Indus script has so far been found on seals made of steatite, terracotta tablets, ceramics and so on. Dholavira also enjoys the distinction of yielding a spectacularly large Indus script with 10 big signs on wood. This inscription was three-metre long.
• Both the discoveries were made by a team led by R.S. Bisht, who retired as Joint Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India in 2004. While the stone inscription was discovered in 1999, the script with 10 large signs was found in 1991. (Locate In Atlas)

Megalith menhir with rock engravings found

• A megalith menhir with rock engravings, called petroglyphs, carved on it has been discovered on an open field on the left bank of Nagaleuru, a tributary of the Krishna at Karampudi, 100 km from Guntur.
• The menhir is a significant remnant of the pre-historic megalithic civilisation, when humans used signs to communicate, and dates back to 1000 B.C-300 B.C. Menhirs throw light on socio-ritualistic and ancestral beliefs.

Archaeological evidence indicates they were also used as places of worship.

• The necropolis was first discovered during 1870-71 by J.S. Boswell, Collector, Krishna, himself a keen archaeologist.
• The rock engravings are at a height of 8-9 feet from the ground. The upper row has four concentric circles with four small lines and a small pointed base. Archaeological reports point that the figures resemble the Muslim religious symbols ‘peer.’
• Below these circular figures, shapes of a crawling animal with an elongated head, probably that of a mongoose, a humped bull with V-shaped antlers and a peacock are found. In the last row, two men are seen carrying a pole on their shoulders and moving east (sun). (Locate In Atlas)

World Wide Web Consortium opens India office

• The adaptation of a gamut of web standards to the Indian context, especially those connected with the use of local languages in cyberspace, is expected to get a boost following the opening of an office of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in New Delhi on May 6.
• The W3C India Office will function under the aegis of the Technology Development for Indian Languages (TDIL) programme, being implemented by the Department of Information Technology’s Human-Centred Computing Division. TDIL has been working on the adaptation of W3C recommendations in India since 2006.
• The W3C was founded by Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web. It is jointly administered by three host institutions — Massachusetts Institute of Technology Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, United States, European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics, France and Keio University, Japan.

CSIR plans research academy

• The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) proposes to set up an Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research. The proposed academy will primarily focus on research on areas that are not taught in regular academic universities.
• The academy would be set up based on a “hub and the spokes’ model where the hub will be responsible for centralised administrative functions and would be housed in the Human resource Development Centre (HRDC) of CSIR at Ghaziabad. The spokes will be located in the 37 laboratories of CSIR, which will act as actual campuses for different subjects or areas depending on their respective specialisations.
• The activity of CSIR is clustered into six areas of biological sciences, chemical sciences, engineering sciences, physical sciences, information sciences and science and technology for social sector.
• The CSIR has an availability of 4,500 scientists in diverse branches of science and engineering of which 2,500 could be effectively be utilised for activities of the proposed academy.

Remains of “dino-bird” found

• Researchers have located chemical remains of the oldest known bird, Archaeopteryx, in a landmark development for palaeontology while studying fossils recovered 150 years ago, a new study has found.
• The discovery about the half-bird, half-dinosaur detailed in the May 10-15 journal Proceedings of National Academy of Science, shows “portions of the feathers are not merely impressions of long-decomposed organic material as was previously believed.
• “Instead, they include fossilised fragments of actual feathers containing phosphorous and sulphur, elements that compose modern bird feathers,” wrote researchers.
• British and U.S. researchers found that trace amounts of copper and zinc were also found in the Dinobird’s bones: like modern birds, the Archaeopteryx may have needed them to flourish.

Pioneering geneticist creates synthetic life

• U.S. geneticist Craig Venter and his team have built the genome of a bacterium from scratch and incorporated it into a cell to make what they call the world’s first synthetic life form in a landmark experiment that paves the way for designer organisms that are built rather than evolved.
• Dr. Venter said the achievement heralded the dawn of a new era in which new life was made to benefit humanity, starting with bacteria that churn out bio-fuels, soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and even manufacture vaccines.
• However critics, including some religious groups, condemned the work, with one organisation warning that artificial organisms could escape into the wild and cause environmental havoc or be turned into biological weapons. Others said Dr. Venter was playing God.
• The new organism is based on an existing bacterium that causes ‘mastitis’ in goats, but at its core is an entirely synthetic genome that was constructed from chemicals in the laboratory.
• The single-celled organism has four “watermarks” written into its DNA to identify it as synthetic and help trace its descendants back to their creator, should they go astray.
  BP to deploy “top-kill” operation
• In a pitched battle to shut off the MC252 well that has been spewing vast amounts of oil into the Gulf of Mexico for over a month, British Petroleum announced plans to use a new technical manoeuvre called a “top kill” operation. BP CEO Tony Hayward was reported to have said the manoeuvre had a “60 to 70 per cent chance of success.”
• The top-kill operation entails the use of heavy drilling fluids that would be injected into the well to stem the flow of oil and gas and, ultimately, kill the well, according to a statement by BP.
• It also explained that equipment was also in place to combine this operation with the injection under pressure of bridging material, aimed at sealing off upward flow through the blow-out preventer (BOP).

Sample Content: "Science & Technology and Miscellaneous"

The next step in telephony

• If a mobile phone is an integral part of your identity, all the recent talk about 3G might have left you a bit lost and confused. The government has earned windfall revenue from the recent 3G spectrum auction, but what does the acronym mean to users hooked to their mobile device?
• 3G or 3rd Generation is the next step in the evolution of mobile telephony standards. A mobile phone is essentially an extremely sophisticated radio (one which  you can send and receive a voice message overlapped on top of a carrier signal), and wireless telephony has come a long way since Marconi’s first successful trans-Atlantic radio-telegraph message in 1902.
• The significant difference in the functionality offered by a 3G phone is that it allows simultaneous use of speech and data services.
• The 3G phone uses a method of data transmission technology called Packet Switching. Data is split into packets that have a unique address. Data can be sent on any path in a network and recombined and inter-connected. Thus data will be transmitted faster than voice calls, though both are routed through the same virtual band of frequencies called the spectrum.
• The higher data rate, however, comes at a cost. During the recent spectrum auctions, 5MHz slots were allotted to various telecom players.
• Imagine the 2G GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) standard of 31 carriers of 200KHz to be 31 cycle tracks, then the 5MHz 3G spectrum split into four 1.25MHz carrier pathways (as per International Telecommunication Union standards) can be viewed as a highway with traffic in both directions. Voice and data can be accommodated in the same channel, as the carrying capacity is greater. Data transfer rates can go up to several Mbps.
• Services like video calling and on-demand TV essentially tap into this extra space in the air waves. The amount of bandwidth required to explore the full potential of 3G could be as much as 15-20 MHz, a 500-fold increase in the amount of bandwidth required.
• The widened spectrum means that an upgrade of both the handset (due to the requirement for a baseband chipset architecture that supports the 3G cellular modem) and the air interfaces of the existing cellular network is required. The dominant 3G air interface technologies are W-CDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) and CDMA200, which are ‘revolutionary’ upgrades of GSM and CDMA.
• As devices get upgraded, 3G will be at the convergence of computing, communications and consumer devices.

How smoking affects women

• About 200 million of the world’s one billion smokers are women.
• This constitutes about nine per cent of the world’s women (40 per cent of the world’s men are smokers).
• Approximately 1.5 million women die every year from tobacco use. But this number is steadily increasing: the tobacco industry aggressively targets women in order to increase its consumer base and to replace those consumers who quit or who die prematurely from cancer, heart attack, stroke, emphysema or other tobacco-related diseases.

China tightens control on rare earth elements

• The future of India’s, and the world’s, green technologies depends on them. So do mobile phones, MP3 players and even missiles.
• Rare earths are a select group of 17 elements that are crucial to many of the world’s most advanced technologies. They also happen to be found widely in China, which is estimated to account for more than 95 per cent of their global supply.
• The Chinese government is now considering tightening its control over the production and export of the valuable minerals, by restricting private companies’ access to their mines and their license to trade.
• The rising importance of the 17 rare earth elements, which are crucial to a range of green technologies from hybrid cars and wind turbines to solar cells, has seen a proliferation of illegal mines in China. The mining of rare earths has also resulted in severe environmental damage in China’s south, prompting the government to consider tighter regulations. Many countries have abandoned projects to mine the elements.

Indigenous A(H1N1) vaccine launched

• India launched its first indigenously manufactured anti-influenza vaccine that will protect people against the A(H1N1) flu, which has killed over 1,500 people in the country since the pandemic broke out last year.
• Manufactured by Zydus-Cadila Healthcare, Vaxiflu-S will be available in markets .The monovalent single-dose vaccine, available for Rs.350 on prescription, will be effective for one year.
• The egg-based inactivated vaccine, based on conventional technology, has been developed by the Ahmedabad-based Cadila’s Vaccine Technology Centre.
• It can be used only by people in the age group 18-60 and is not meant for children, pregnant women and those allergic to eggs.

Soft drink plants cause chromium pollution

• Your daily dose of cola could be poisoning the lives of communities living near soft drink manufacturing plants, according to a study by Hazards Centre.
• The NGO found high levels of toxic chromium and other pollutants in the soil and water around five Coca Cola and Pepsico plants in northern India.
• The study was released two months after a Kerala government panel ruled that Coca Cola must pay Rs.216 crore in compensation to villagers affected by pollution, and a depletion of groundwater resources, by its Plachimada bottling plant.
• Now, five other communities — Mehdiganj and Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh, Kaladera and Chopanki in Rajasthan, and Panipat in Haryana — are also claiming that the soft drinks plants in their vicinity are responsible for their woes.
• Chromium can cause skin rashes, upset stomachs and ulcers, respiratory problems and cancer.

Low-cost sanitary napkins for rural girls

• The Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry approved a scheme for providing highly subsidised sanitary napkins to adolescent girls in the rural areas to promote menstrual hygiene. The scheme, to be launched in 150 districts across the country in the first phase, will cost Rs.150 crore for the current financial year.
• Approved by the Mission Steering Group – the highest decision-making body – of the National Rural Health Mission, at its sixth meeting, the scheme envisages covering 1.5-crore girls in the age group of 10-19 years every month. Of this, the approximate number of APL girls is 105 lakh while that of the BPL category is 45 lakh. The napkins will be supplied to the below poverty line (BPL) girls at a nominal cost of Re.1 per pack of six while those girls living above poverty line (APL) will have to pay Rs.5 per pack.
• In India, menstruation and menstrual practices are clouded by taboos and socio-cultural restrictions for women as well as adolescent girls. Limited access to safe sanitary products and facilities is believed to be one of the reasons for constrained school attendance, high dropout rates and ill health due to infection.
• Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Bihar, Rajasthan and Puducherry have already taken similar initiatives to promote menstrual hygiene among adolescent girls.
• In the first year, the Centre will procure the napkins and supply these to the States that will in turn send these to Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) in the districts for distribution on a monthly basis or to the schools which will become distribution points for students.

Air India to set up maintenance base in UAE

• The Air India Express crash in Mangalore has hastened a slew of measures to improve the safety and efficiency of Air India flights bound for Gulf destinations.
• The National Aviation Company of India Limited (NACIL), said a fully equipped ground engineering set-up was now being permanently established in the United Arab Emirates to ensure timely and efficient maintenance of aircraft.

Ban imposed on use of carbide gas to ripen fruits

• The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has asked the States and Union Territories to ensure prevention of use of carbide gas for premature ripening of fruits.
• Citing Rule 44-AA that prohibits the use of carbide gas, a circular issued by the Authority to the Commissioners of Food Safety has asked them to keep a strict vigil, and initiate action under the Prevention of Food Adulteration Act, 1955 on any violation.
• The circular was issued following concerns expressed by Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Dinesh Trivedi over the blatant use of carbide gas by traders and retailers to ensure a regular supply of fruits.
• Calcium carbide, popularly known as ‘masala’, has carcinogenic properties and is used in gas welding for steel goods.
• It causes mouth ulcers, gastric irritation and even food poisoning. Other practices include dipping fruits in a solution of ethephon or exposing fruits to ethylene gas, Mr Trivedi said.

India joins multinational telescope project

• India has joined the Thirty Metre Telescope (TMT) project, the next generation astronomical observatory that will be located on Mauna Kea, Hawaii.
• This was announced by Minister of State for Science and Technology Prithviraj Chauhan in California.
• The observatory is scheduled to begin operations in 2018.
• India has been granted observer status on the TMT Board. This is the first step to becoming a full partner in TMT, which will mean participating in the development and scientific use of what will be the world’s most advanced and capable astronomical observatory, according to the TMT project team.
• The proposal to join the TMT project was initiated by three Indian institutes engaged in astronomy: the IUCAA, the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), Bangalore, and the Aryabhata Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), Nainital.
• Originally, there were three international telescope projects to choose from for Indian participation: the 42-m European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) of the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the 24.5 m Grand Magellan Telescope (GMT) and the TMT of the United States. The E-ELT, in fact, has offered observation time on the existing ESO telescopes before it comes into operation.

Unmanned Russian cargo spaceship fails to dock with ISS

• An unmanned Russian cargo spaceship failed to dock with the International Space Station (ISS) due to a glitch in the docking system, fight controllers have said.
• The Progress spacecraft, carrying 2.6 tonnes of fuel, food and other supplies for the ISS, was launched on June 30 and was to dock with the station in automatic mode, but instead sailed past it, said Russia’s space gency Roscosmos.

Image of entire universe released

• The European Space Agency (ESA) has released what it says is the first-ever image of the entire universe which will give scientists new insight into how the stars and galaxies form.
• The all-sky image, produced by space telescope Planck, can also tell how the universe itself came to life after the Big Bang some 13.7 billion years ago.
• The satellite was launched last year by the ESA under a € 600 million project to record the origins of the universe.
• While the satellite was sent nearly a million miles into space, the Planck observatory’s job was to look at the age, contents and evolution of the cosmos by studying the heat left behind by the Big Bang.
• From the closest portions of the Milky Way to the furthest reaches of space and time, the new all-sky image, for which Planck took six months, is an extraordinary treasure chest of new data for astronomers, the scientists said.
• This galactic web is where new stars are being formed, and Planck has found many locations where individual stars are edging toward birth or just beginning their cycle of development, the report said. Less spectacular but perhaps more intriguing is the mottled backdrop at the top and bottom. This is the “cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR),” the scientists said.
• Planck will continue to map the Universe and will produce four all-sky scans till its mission ends in 2012.

Minor planets to be named after Kolkata school students

• Two minor planets discovered by the Lincoln Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States have been renamed after two students of a Kolkata-based school. They had won an award at the Intel International Science and Technology fair.

• The minor planets 2000 AH52 (citation number 25629) and 2000 AT53 (citation number 25630) will be referred to as “Mukherjee” and “Sarkar,” named after the students, Anish Mukherjee and Debarghya Sarkar, from now on.

• A minor planet is an astronomical body that is in direct orbit around the Sun, but is neither a dominant planet nor a comet. The first minor planet discovered was Ceres in 1801.

• According to the website of the Lincoln Laboratory, as of January 2008, orbits have been determined for nearly 4 lakh minor planets of which about 15,000 have been named.

• The “celestial honour” was part of the prize announced by the organisers of the Intel International Science and Technology fair held in Nevada in 2009. Anish and Debarghya had entered their innovation of “tamper-proof clamped bottle cap” in the Electrical and Mechanical Engineering category.

Oldest text found in Jerusalem

• Archaeologists in Jerusalem have uncovered an ancient clay fragment dating back some 3,400 years, the oldest-ever sample of writing found in the Holy City, said Israeli researchers.
• The tiny fragment measures two centimetres by 2.8 cm and is covered with cuneiform script, the earliest known form of writing in the world.
• The clay chip is a key find which indicates the importance of the city in the Bronze Age, around 1,400 BC, said researchers at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University. It was discovered during an excavation in an area just south of the walls of the Old City in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.
• The fragment dates back to the same era as 380 tablets discovered in the Egyptian site of El-Amarna that are believed to be part of Akhenaten’s archives.
• Before now, the oldest sample of text ever discovered in Jerusalem was a tablet found in the Shiloah water tunnel in the same area that dates back to the eight century BC reign of the biblical King Hezekiah.
  118 hospitalised after gas leak in Mumbai
• One hundred and eighteen people, including four firemen and a police constable, were hospitalised after they inhaled chlorine gas that leaked from a cylinder in a Mumbai Port Trust godown in Sewri. Seven of them are in critical condition.

CCMB scientist finds two new bacteria in Arctic

• Two new bacterial species that produce enzymes which could have application for biotech industry have been discovered in the Arctic region by a senior scientist from the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB).
• The bacteria which can grow at 2 degrees Celsius and produce enzymes such as protease and lipase, were found by S. Shivaji, Director-Grade-Scientist of CCMB. He was one of the four Indian scientists who recently returned from an expedition to the Arctic region in May-June to conduct field studies that included climate change and diversity of cyanobacteria (blue green algae).
• Cyanobacteria produce anti-oxidants and unsaturated fatty acids that could be used as nutrient supplements.