Hydrogen fuel from seawater using solar power

 

News Flash

National Academy of Sciences, demonstrate a new way of separating hydrogen and oxygen gas from salt water. Further, scientists from Stanford have devised a way to generate hydrogen fuel from seawater using solar power.

 

Uses of Technology

• The technology could also be used for purposes beyond generating energy. Since the process also produces breathable oxygen, divers or submarines could bring devices into the ocean and generate oxygen down below without having to surface for air.
• Hydrogen is an appealing option for fuel because it does not emit carbon dioxide. Burning hydrogen produces only water and should ease worsening climate change problems.

Source: Indian Express

 

 

 

Blood biochemical parameters (BBP)

 

News flash

For the first time, the blood biochemical parameters of Indian adolescents have been measured.

• Since biochemical parameters for Indian adolescents were not available, doctors had to rely on adult normative range.

 

Study conducted by

The study was carried out in accordance with the principles of the Helsinki Declaration and approved by Human Ethics Committee of All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India and CSIR–Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, New Delhi, India.

 

Blood biochemical parameters

• Monitoring the physiological levels of various biochemical measures in ample number of individuals during adolescence can call up for an early intervention in managing metabolic diseases in adulthood.
• Some of the blood biochemical parameters studied are lipid profile (total cholesterol, LDL, HDL and triglycerides), plasma glucose, insulin, HbA1c, urea, and creatinine.
• The present study asserts that age, sex and BMI are the essential contributors to variability in blood biochemistry during adolescence.

 

Outcomes of study

• Boys consistently showed significantly higher levels of fasting plasma glucose than girls across all ages during adolescence.
• Plasma insulin levels were remarkably higher in girls than boys.
• C–peptide were found in girls higher than boys across different ages in adolescence.
• The normative range for fasting plasma glucose for Indian adolescents was found to be slightly lower than Nigerians and Croatians.
• The plasma insulin for Indian adolescents was also found is less than Canadian adolescents.
• The mean plasma glucose and insulin levels were found to be lower of Indian adolescents.

 

Motive of Study

Researchers from the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (CSIR-IGIB) wants to look at the variation in the parameters with respect to gender and age during adolescence.

 

Factor contributes to variation in blood biochemistry

Age is a major factor that contributes to variation in blood biochemistry. Ageing is a continuous dynamic process that leads to physiological, psychological and behavioral changes resulting in biological aberrations, metabolic dysfunction, cellular senescence or decline in function of organ systems. Amongst various life stages–infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age, adolescence is the critical one. It marks the period of transition from childhood to adulthood and is characterized by rapid biological, social and emotional changes that severely impacts future health. This transition is largely governed by gender of an individual that gives rise to difference in hormonal levels among boys and girls at puberty.

 

Role of hormones

• Girls were found to have more insulin but less fasting glucose than boys. The higher insulin resistance in girls is due to the hormones released during puberty. To compensate for this, there is more insulin secreted in girls. And more the insulin, the less is the glucose level.
• Boys produce more testosterone hormone and this cause more haemoglobin production leading to lower HbA1c value. Boys were found to have more urea and creatinine. This is because boys have more muscle mass than girls and so release more protein metabolites — urea and creatinine.

Source: The Hindu

 

 

 

Ending TB in India

News Flash

Tuberculosis (TB) remains the biggest killer disease in India, outnumbering all other infectious diseases put together.

 

Indian Governments ’s Programmes to Control TB 

• National TB Programme (NTP) was launched in 1962. It focussed on mass BCG vaccination.
• In 1978, the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) began, giving BCG to all babies soon after birth and achieving more than 90% coverage.
• In 1993, the Revised National TB Control Programme (RNTCP) was launched, offering free diagnosis and treatment for patients, rescuing them from otherwise sure death.

 

Issues with these programmes

• BCG immunisation does prevent severe multi-organ TB disease in young children, and must be continued but will not control TB.
• In India, with 200-300 cases in a lakh in a year, curing TB is essential to reduce mortality, but is not sufficient to prevent transmission.
• RNTCP was successful in controlling the disease but failed to prevent the infection.
• The time period to completely eliminate TB infection is very long, so the delays in care seeking and diagnosis because of lack of universal primary health care result in more infections.

 

Tamil Nadu pilot model

Tamil Nadu is planning to implement this new strategy in one revenue district, Tiruvannamalai. If successful, it will be replicated in all other districts.

• The new model will be in public-private participation mode. The Rotary movement will partner with the State government in the TB control demonstration project.
• The Rotary will ensure the participation of all players (health and non-health) in the private sector. Slowing down the Vicious cycle of infection, progression and transmission is the most important.

 

Focus on Health etiquette

We must reduce chances of transmission by insisting that the TB affected should cover their mouth and nose while coughing and sneezing and not to spit in open spaces. The Rotary will spearhead public education for behaviour modification, starting in all schools and continuing through to adults.

Use of Short-term ‘preventive treatment’. Progression to TB disease from infection can be prevented by giving World Health Organisation-recommended short-term ‘preventive treatment’. Infection is silent, but diagnosable with the tuberculin skin test (TST).

Groups of schoolchildren (5, 10 and 15 years) can be tested and those TST positive given preventive treatment. Three benefits of this practice :

• An infected child gets preventive treatment.
• It can point to adults with undiagnosed TB in the household.
• The annual TST positive rate provides an objective measure of annual infection frequency for plotting the control trajectory.

Source: Indian Express

 

 

 

The draft Indian Forest Act, 2019

 

News Flash

Weeks after the Supreme Court stayed an order that could have led to the eviction of millions of forest-dwellers from their traditional homesteads, the Central government has proposed a new law that could affect the rights of the same group of people.

The draft Indian Forest Act, 2019, which is essentially a set of amendments to the Indian Forest Act, 1927 have following provisions:

• Power to forest officials to unilaterally decide when to relocate people.
• Use of firearms with indemnity.
• Arrest without a warrant those suspected of being involved in crimes.
• State governments will hand out weapons to officials, and set up lock-ups and armouries in wildlife ranges.
• These amendments would give forest officials the power to shoot people without any liability (with the same legal protection as soldiers in disturbed areas under the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act)

 

Criticism of the proposed amendments

Forest-rights activists have criticised these amendments of being undemocratic and they will curtail the rights of forest dwelling communities.

Instead of removing the draconian provisions of the colonial 1927 law — such as collective punishments to villages for setting forest areas on fire — the amendments retain them. The colonial rule was made to profit British timber merchants and furnish their timber needs.

The Central government’s draft has been termed as a war against tribals by civil rights groups and tribal rights groups.

New Definitions Forest Forest is defined to include “any government or private or institutional land recorded or notified as forest/forest land in any government record and the lands managed by government/community as forest and mangroves, and also any land which the central or state government may by notification declare to be forest for the purpose of this Act.” Community The amendment defines community as “a group of persons specified on the basis of government records living in a specific locality and in joint possession and enjoyment of common property resources, without regard to race, religion, caste, language and culture”.

 

New Category

• The amendment introduces a new category of forests namely production forests.
• These will be forests with specific objectives for production of timber, pulp, pulpwood, firewood, non-timber forest produce and medicinal plants.

Forest Policy Before 1865, forest dwellers were completely free to exploit the forest wealth. Then, on 3 August 1865, the British rulers, on the basis of the report of the then-superintendent of forests in Burma, issued a memorandum providing guidelines restricting the rights of forest dwellers to conserve the forests. The sole object with which State forests are administered is the public benefit. In some cases the public to be benefited is the whole body of tax payers; in others the people on the track within which the forest is situated. The National Forest Policy of the Government of India (1952) This policy prescribed that the claims of communities near forests should not override the national interests, that in no event can the forest dwellers use the forest wealth at the cost of wider national interests, and that relinquishment of forest land for agriculture should be permitted only in very exceptional and essential cases.

 

Indian Forest Act, 1927

The Act basically does two things

• Grants legal recognition to the rights of traditional forest dwelling communities, partially correcting the injustice caused by the forest laws, and
• Makes a beginning towards giving communities and the public a voice in forest and wildlife conservation.

The law recognises three types of rights

• Land Rights: Land rights are given to people, who have been cultivating land prior to December, 13, 2005.
• Use Rights: The law provides for rights to use and/or collect the minor forest produce things like tendu patta, herbs, medicinal plants etc “that has been traditionally collected, use of grazing grounds and water bodies and use of traditional areas by nomadic or pastoralist communities i.e. communities that move with their herds, as opposed to practicing settled agriculture.
• Right to Protect and Conserve: The law gives rights to protect and manage the forests to people of village communities.

 

Source: Down to earth

 

 

 

Images documenting the birth of a giant storm on Neptune

 

News flash

In a first, the Hubble Space Telescope has beamed back images documenting the birth of a giant storm on Neptune, a finding that may reveal insights on the inner workings of the poorly-understood ice giant planets.

Neptune’s Great Dark Spots are storms that form from areas of high atmospheric pressure. In contrast, storms on Earth form around areas of low pressure.

Scientists have seen a total of six dark spots on Neptune over the years. Voyager 2 identified two storms in 1989. Since Hubble launched in 1990, it has viewed four more of these storms, NASA said in a statement.

Hubble, the observatory, is the first major optical telescope to be placed in space. Above the distortion of the atmosphere, far above rain clouds and light pollution, Hubble has an unobstructed view of the universe. Scientists have used Hubble to observe the most distant stars and galaxies as well as the planets in our solar system. Hubble’s launch and deployment in April 1990 marked the most significant advance in astronomy.

 

 

The Udupi saris from Karnataka

 

News Flash

The Kadike Trust, Karkala, and the Charaka Women’s Cooperative Society, Bheemanakone, have joined hands to popularise the Udupi handloom sari, which obtained the Geographical Indication (GI) tag in 2016.

The trust is encouraging use if natural dyes instead of chemical dies.The trust had already started giving preliminary training to eight youth in weaving these saris and they were working as support staff at the society.

 

Udupi Weaving facing Tough time : Why?

• Declining demand.
• Hard work and low returns.
• No. of weavers engaged are very few, and most of them are old.

The speciality of a Udupi handloom sari is that it is made of pure cotton, has art silk design on its border and ‘pallu’, and is very durable.

 

 

ATTENTION

 

Mankading

 

During a match against Rajasthan Royals at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur, Kings XI Punjab captain and bowler Ravichandran Ashwin dismissed Jos Buttler in a run out popularly called ‘Mankading’.

Named after legendary Indian bowler Vinoo Mankad, ‘Mankading’ is a method of run out where a bowler dismisses a non-striker by hitting the bails before bowling when the latter is outside the crease.

 

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) sticker

 

• This technology could improve vehicle identification and combat number plate thefts and misuse.
• The sticker on a vehicle’s front windscreen will act as a third number plate.
• The sticker would self-destruct when removed, enabling police to identify vehicles that are suspected to have a stolen or cloned number plate.

Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC)

 

It is a digital technology that can communicate with road infrastructure and could also be used to identify automated vehicles in the future.

 

Chandrayaan 2 will carry NASA’s laser instruments

 

India’s lunar mission Chandrayaan 2, scheduled to launch next month, will carry NASA’s laser instruments that help scientists to make precise measurements of the distance to the Moon, according to the U.S. space agency.

NASA has confirmed that Chandrayaan 2 and Israeli lander Beresheet, due to touch down on April 11, will each carry NASA-owned laser retroreflector arrays.

 

Diksha Dagar

 

She became only the second Indian woman golfer to win on the Ladies European Tour after pipping Lee-Anne Pace by one shot at the South African Open here on Saturday.

Diksha, 18, follows Aditi Ashok, who became the first Indian to win on the LET in 2016. Aditi added two more LET wins and now plays on the LPGA. Diksha also has ambitions of getting to the LPGA, which on current form looks a strong possibility.