Science & technology

A video of a group of men performing the traditional dance of Indian ‘garba’ under the stunning northern lights in Alaska has gone viral. What are ‘Auroras’? Auroras are a natural phenomenon caused by magnetic storms initiated by the Sun’s activity such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections. They are visible as bright lights in the sky and are …

Context: The Indian Space Research Organisation and its partners successfully demonstrated a precise landing experiment for a Reusable Launch Vehicle at the Aeronautical Test Range (ATR), Chitradurga, Karnataka. Key details: The Reusable Launch Vehicle Autonomous Landing Mission (RLV LEX) test was the second of five tests that are a part of ISRO’s efforts …

ISRO releases images of Earth captured by its EOS-06 satellite EOS-6 is the third-generation satellite in the Oceansat series. This is to provide continuity services of Oceansat-2 spacecraft with enhanced payload specifications as well as application areas. Payloads Ocean Color Monitor (OCM-3) Sea Surface Temperature Monitor (SSTM) Ku-Band Scatterometer (SCAT-3) ARGOS Mission Objectives To ensure the data continuity of Ocean colour …

The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-in) may soon be exempt from responding to queries under the Right to Information Act.  Key details: A proposal was reviewed to include CERT-in in the Second Schedule to the RTI Act, which deals with exempted organisations like the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Border Security Force. The exemption would allow CERT-in …

ISRO releases images of Earth captured by its EOS-06 satellite EOS-6 is the third-generation satellite in the Oceansat series. This is to provide continuity services of Oceansat-2 spacecraft with enhanced payload specifications as well as application areas. Payloads Ocean Color Monitor (OCM-3) Sea Surface Temperature Monitor (SSTM) Ku-Band Scatterometer (SCAT-3) ARGOS Mission Objectives To ensure the data continuity of Ocean colour …

Quality Control Orders (QCO) have been issued for fibres — cotton, polyester and viscose — that constitute the basic raw materials for majority of the Indian textile and clothing industry. While the standards were available earlier too, these are now revised and made mandatory for a few, and yet to be finalised for others. International …

For the first time, scientists have reported evidence of the piezoelectric effect in liquids. The effect has been known for 143 years and in this time has been observed only in solids. The effect was found in ionic liquids (liquids which are made of ions instead of molecules) at room temperature. What is …

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has signed three contracts recently. The first contract with Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) pertains to the procurement of the Automated Air Defence Control & Reporting System ‘Project Akashteer’ for the Indian Army. The second contract with BEL relates to the acquisition of Sarang Electronic Support Measure (ESM) systems. The contract with NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), a Central Public …

Waste management in the solar photovoltaic (PV) sector still lacks clear directives. What is PV waste? Globally, India has the world’s fourth highest solar PV deployment. The installed solar capacity was nearly 62GW in 2022. According to a 2016 report by the International Renewable Energy Agency, India could generate 50,000-3,25,000 tonnes of PV waste by 2030 and more than four million tonnes by 2050. …

The Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that he intends to deploy tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus What are tactical nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons can be categorised into two types — strategic and tactical. Strategic weapons refer to weapons that have bigger objectives, such as destroying cities or larger targets with larger war-waging objectives in mind. Strategic …

The Defence Minister informed the  Parliament about IDEX scheme. The iDEX initiative was launched in 2018. iDEX aims to achieve self – reliance and foster innovation and technology development in Defence and Aerospace by engaging Industries including MSMEs, start-ups, individual innovators, R&D institutes and academia. iDEX has launched challenges on frontier technologies/ domains to ensure that the Services enjoy a technological edge over their adversaries. SOURCE: THE HINDU, …

A U.K.-based startup claims to have developed biotransformation technology that can alter the state of plastics and make them biodegradable without leaving behind any microplastics. What is biotransformation technology? Biotransformation technology is a novel approach to ensure plastics that escape refuse streams are processed efficiently and broken down. Plastics made using this technology are given …

With a roaring sound, LVM3, the heaviest payload rocket of the Indian Space Research Organisation carrying 36 OneWeb satellites on board, took off at 9.20 a.m. on Sunday from the second launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre here. The satellites separated successfully from the rocket and were dispensed …

North Korea claimed on Friday it had tested an underwater nuclear attack drone able to unleash a “radioactive tsunami”, as it blamed recent U.S.-South Korea exercises for a deteriorating regional security situation. Pyongyang carried out military drills of its own in response this week, the Korean Central News Agency said, including test-firing …

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has released the country’s first ‘Ethical Guidelines for Application of Artificial Intelligence in Biomedical Research and Healthcare’, aimed at creating “an ethics framework which can assist in the development, deployment, and adoption of AI-based solutions” in the fields specified. Through this, they hope to …

The Union Minister of Coal, Mines and Parliamentary Affairs informed Lok Sabha about coal bed methane extraction in India. At present, Coal Bed Methane (CBM) is not produced from any working/ operational coal mines in the country. Government of India had formulated a policy in 1997 to extract Coal Bed Methane (CBM) from coal-bearing areas prior to the …

The Abel Prize for mathematics was awarded to Argentine-American Luis Caffarelli. He is an expert in “partial differential equations” which can explain phenomena ranging from how water flows to population growth. This type of equation models how several variables change with respect to each other, and play a prominent role in engineering, physics, economics and biology. About the Abel Prize: The Abel …

Prime Minister Narendra of India has unveiled a vision document for rollout of 6G communications technology in India by 2030. What is 6G? Technically, 6G does not exist today. It has been conceived as a far superior technology promising internet speeds up to 100 times faster than 5G. As opposed to 5G, which at its peak can …

What are recombinants? Co-infection of multiple lineages of a virus could result in recombinations between genomes which can give rise to chimeric genomes, otherwise called recombinants. While most recombinations may not give rise to viable viruses, there is a rare possibility that recombination could result in the creation of a …

In the never-ending debate about the origin of the virus that set off the COVID-19 pandemic, there is now fresh grist for the mill for those who have held out for the zoonotic angle — that the infection skipped from animals to humans. Undisclosed genetic data from a food market …