10 PM Current Affairs Quiz : May 8, 2018

Alang in Gujarat is the world’s biggest ship breaking yard with hundreds of ships getting scrapped each year. With increase in the yard’s popularity around the world, there has also been a steep increase in the number of threats posed by the ship breaking yard to the marine environment and laborers working there.Over the last year, with the dip in oil prices, and the increase in the price of iron, not only ships but also oil rigs from all over the world are being dismantled in the shipyard.

Central Wakf Council is a statutory body set up in 1964 under the Wakf Act,1954. It is under the administrative control of the Ministry of Minority Affairs. It is an advisory body to the Government of India. It advises the government on matters concerning the working of the Wakf board.Wakf is a permanent dedication of movable or immovable properties for religious, pious or charitable purposes as recognized by Muslim Law, given by philanthropists. The grant is known as mushrut-ul-khidmat, while a person making such dedication is known as Wakf.

At present the Sikkim house has 32 seats. The recent proposal aims to increase it to 40.This move would require an amendment to the Second Schedule to the Representation of People Act, 1950. Increase in seats would benefit the Limboo and Tamang communities which are notified as Scheduled Tribes.

Bagalkot Mudhol dogs are known for their hunting and guarding skills. The dogs are fast, with excellent stamina and agility, and have sharp vision and a keen sense of smell.It is for these qualities that a batch of puppies of this breed was taken into the training centre of the Indian Army’s Remount and Veterinary Corps (RVC) in Meerut in February 2016. This was the first time that an indigenous breed was trained at the RVC Centre — which has a long history of training foreign breeds such as Labrador and German Shepherd — for possible induction into service with the Army. “These dogs have been trained for explosives detection only. They have not been trained for guard duties, search and rescue or for tracking duties.The only drawback that has been observed with the Mudhol hounds is that their performance dips in cold environments, which could be because the species is native to an area with a warmer climate.

Glycerol Monooleate(GMO) is a lipid compound that is naturally occurring and found in sunflower oil.It is a wax like solid and is usually used as a food emulsifier. It is edible, bio-compatible and food grade. The interesting thing about its structure is that one end of the compound is hydrophilic while the other end is hydrophilic.

Deoxyribonucleic acid is a thread-like chain of nucleotides carrying the genetic instructions used in the growth, development, functioning and reproduction of all known living organisms and many viruses.Each nucleotide contains a phosphate group, a sugar group and a nitrogen base. The four types of nitrogen bases are adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G) and cytosine (C). The order of these bases is what determines DNA’s instructions, or genetic code.The nucleotides are joined to one another in a chain by covalent bonds between the sugar of one nucleotide and the phosphate of the next, resulting in an alternating sugar-phosphate backbone.

The two strands of DNA run in opposite directions to each other and are thus antiparallel.