Daily Quiz: UPSC Prelims Marathon – December 13, 2018

Air is a homogeneous mixture. However, the Earth’s atmosphere as a whole is a heterogeneous mixture.

Clouds are mixture of air and water molecules. That’s evidence the composition is not uniform. Alloys are made when two or more metals are mixed together. They usually are homogeneous mixtures. Examples include brass, bronze, steel, and sterling silver. Sometimes multiple phases exist in alloys. In these cases, they are heterogeneous mixtures. The two types of mixtures are distinguished by the size of the crystals that are present. A homogeneous mixture can be a component of a heterogeneous mixture. For example, bitumen (a homogeneous mixture) is a component of asphalt (a heterogeneous mixture).

IRNSS is an Independent regional navigation satellite system being developed by India. IRNSS provide two types of services, namely, Standard Positioning Service (SPS) which is provided to all the users and Restricted Service (RS), which is an encrypted service provided only to the authorized users.

Applications of IRNSS are:

Terrestrial, Aerial and Marine Navigation Disaster Management Vehicle tracking and fleet management

Integration with mobile phones Precise Timing  Mapping and Geodetic data capture Terrestrial navigation aid for hikers and travelers Visual and voice navigation for drivers

Dengue fever, Amoebiasis, Ascariasis are some communicable diseases

• Dengue fever ( break bone fever) caused by a virus
• Transmission: by the bite of a female mosquito Aedes.
• Amoebiasis caused by: Entamoeba histolytica a protozoan parasite infecting large intestine Transmission: by air; by house fly and cockroaches that may carry the pathogen from the infected persons stool to food/water and thereby contaminate it.
• Ascariasis caused by: Ascaris lumbricoides (round worm). That resides in the small intestine. Transmission: Eggs of the parasite come out along with the faeces of the infected person and contaminate soil, water, plants etc. A healthy person gets infected in the same manner as he/she gets infected for amoebiasis. Diabetes is a non communicable disease In the fast-paced life that many of us live today, there is a lot of conflict, unhealthy competition, and pressure to make quick money and gain power. This kind of lifestyle generates a lot of stress that leads to anger and frustration. In trying to gain mileage in mindless competition, people are likely to neglect their health and suffer from ailments like high blood pressure (also known as hypertension), increased blood sugar (known as diabetes) and many others. Although these diseases have a genetic predisposition, they have started affecting younger age groups due to undisciplined life style. These are known as life style disorders.

Statement 1 is correct Graphene is a carbon material that is one atom thick. It is the worlds strongest and lightest known material derived from carbon. It has high conductivity and excellent electronic, mechanical, thermal and optical properties.

Statement 2 is incorrect It is a good conductor of heat and electricity. But there is no selfblowing property to grapheme. It is widely used in solar panel. As these have low viscousity, these can be used as lubricant anywhere.

Statement 3 is correct The GraphAir technology grows graphene film in ambient air with a natural precursor, making its production faster and simpler. GraphAir transforms soybean oil – a renewable, natural material – into graphene films in a single step.Our GraphAir technology results in good and transformable grapheme properties, comparable to graphene made by conventional methods.

The Thor experiment aims to investigate electrical activity from thunderstorms. Between 10 and 100 kilometres in the atmosphere, the interaction between charged particles produces a variety of dazzling electric phenomena from blue jets to red sprites. The Thor experiment will look at them with a thundercloud imaging system from the vantage point of the International Space Station. The key aims of the study include understanding how these discharges influence water vapour levels, cloud formation, and eventually changes in climate.

All the statements are correct. Ballistic missiles follow an arc-like trajectory and are launched from the land or sea. They usually carry a nuclear warhead and are very heavy. They rely on Earth’s gravity to fly down once launched. They have much larger range. Cruise missiles can also be launched from air and fly within Earth’s atmosphere They have their own engines and wings to strike the target. They can be supersonic or sub-sonic and are highly accurate. They usually carry conventional warheads although some cruise missiles can also be equipped with nuclear warheads.

Statement 1 is incorrect. Plants have two different types of tissues transports the minerals, water and food from the roots to the leaves. These tissues are called vascular tissues namely Xylem and Phloem used for transportation. These tissues are from vascular bundles and work together as a unit.

Statement 2 and 3 are correct. The xylem and phloem tissues work efficiently to transport food, minerals, nutrients and water. However, the movement of xylem is unidirectional, which means from roots to upper parts of the plan. While, the movement of phloem is bidirectional, which is the inverse to the xylem. Phloem is also important as the xylem tissues for vascular system of plants. The main activity of this tissue is to transport nutrients and food from leaves to other growing parts of plants.