Daily Quiz: UPSC Prelims Marathon (Science & Technology)–October 15th,2020

: Submarines are essentially of two types: conventional and nuclear.
•Conventional submarines use a diesel-electric engine, and must surface daily for oxygen for fuel combustion.
•If fitted with an Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) system, the submarine needs to take in oxygen only once a week.
•The state-of-the-art “air independent propulsion” (AIP) system that the Defence R&D Organisation (DRDO) is indigenously developing will be ready to drive the Indian Navy’s submarines from 2024 onwards.
•Consequently, this AIP will not power the six new submarines that the navy is tendering in a Rs 45,000crore programme called Project 75-I.
•Instead, those six boats (as the navy traditionally refers to submarines) will have AIP systems that the foreign vendor must offer.
Source: Indian Express

Vyommitra.
•Recently, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) unveiled its first ‘woman’ astronaut, named Vyom Mitra who will ride to space in the first test flight of the human space mission, Gaganyaan.
•She is half-humanoid and her body stops at the torso and has no legs. She is capable of switching panel operations, performing Environment Control and Life Support Systems (ECLSS) functions, conversations with the astronauts, recognising them and solving their queries.
Source: The Hindu

Very Large Telescope array (VLT) .
•The Very Large Telescope array (VLT) is the flagship facility for European ground-based astronomy at the beginning of the third Millennium.
•It is the world’s most advanced optical instrument, consisting of four Unit Telescopes with main mirrors of 8.2m diameter and four movable 1.8m diameter Auxiliary Telescopes.
•The telescopes can work together, to form a giant ‘interferometer’, the ESO Very Large Telescope Interferometer, allowing astronomers to see details up to 25 times finer than with the individual telescopes.
•The large telescopes are named Antu, Kueyen, Melipal and Yepun.
Source: National Geographic Channel

: Aditya – L1 First Indian mission to study the Sun.
•The Aditya-1 mission was conceived as a 400kg class satellite carrying one payload, the Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC) and was planned to launch in a 800 km low earth orbit.
•Satellite will be placed in the halo orbit around the Lagrangian point 1 (L1) of the Sun-Earth system has the major advantage of continuously viewing the Sun without any occultation/ eclipses.
•Therefore, the Aditya-1 mission has now been revised to “Aditya-L1 mission” and will be inserted in a halo orbit around the L1, which is 1.5 million km from the Earth.
•The satellite carries additional six payloads with enhanced science scope and objectives.
•The project is approved and the satellite will be launched during 2019 – 2020 timeframe by PSLV-XL from Sriharikota.
•Aditya-1 was meant to observe only the solar corona. The outer layers of the Sun, extending to thousands of km above the disc (photosphere) is termed as the corona.
•It has a temperature of more than a million degree Kelvin which is much higher than the solar disc temperature of around 6000K.
•How the corona gets heated to such high temperatures is still an unanswered question in solar physics.
Source: ISRO

Quantum Computers work by harnessing the properties of quantum mechanics.
•As the reality of a quantum computer comes closer, it is useful for us to understand both how one functions and how it’s different from a traditional computer. The first thing to bear in mind is that they use different basic units of data: ‘bits’ and ‘qubits’.
•Every element of a classical computer is written in binary code (1s and 0s) and is translated into electricity: high voltage is represented by 1, and low voltage by 0. In quantum computing, qubits are the basic unit and their value can be 1, 0, or 1 and 0 simultaneously, overlapping (superposition) and intertwining (entanglement) according to the laws of physics.
•This means that qubits, as opposed to bits, can take on various values at one time and can perform calculations that a conventional computer cannot.
•The classical computer, if there is interference with the system; the system can correct itself and continue running. For the time being, this is not the case with quantum computers.
•“External disturbances force the system to define itself as 1 or 0, causing it to lose its quantum coherence.
•To avoid this kind of external ‘noise,’ the system has to be completely isolated: the atoms have to be very quiet, ensuring nothing makes them collide or interact with the surroundings.
•Quantum computers have to be at a temperature of -273 °C (-459 °F) with hardly any atmospheric pressure and isolated from Earth’s magnetic field.
Source: The Hindu

: Gas hydrates.
•Gas hydrates are formed when a gas such as methane gets trapped in well-defined cages of water molecules forming crystalline solids.
•In terrestrial conditions, gas hydrates are formed naturally under the sea bed and glaciers under high pressure, low temperature conditions. Methane hydrate is a potential source of natural gas.
•Researchers at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras have experimentally shown that methane and carbon dioxide (CO2) can exist as gas hydrates at temperatures and pressures seen in interstellar atmosphere.
•The methane and CO2 hydrates were produced in the lab at very low pressures (ten thousand billionth of atmospheric pressure) and temperature (as low as -263 degree C) to simulate the conditions of deep space.
Source: Indian Express

Botulinum is a natural toxin produced by a bacterium known as Clostridium botulin. It produces the toxin when it starts reproducing.
•The bacterium is commonly found in the soil, river, and sea water.
•There are around eight types — A, B, C1, C2, D, E, F, and G — of botulinum toxin and they are distinguishable when diagnosed. But all types of toxins attack the neurons, which leads to muscle paralysis.
•Botulinum affects both humans and animals but the type of the toxin varies — botulinum C in birds and A, B and E in humans. The toxin has been recognised as a major cause of mortality in wild birds since the 1900s.
•Avian botulism killed over 18,000 birds in and around Rajasthan’s Sambhar Lake.
Source: The Hindu

Gluten.
•Gluten is a family of storage proteins — formally known as prolamins — that are naturally found in certain cereal grains, such as wheat, barley, and rye.
•Gluten offers a variety of functional culinary benefits and is responsible for the soft, chewy texture that is characteristic of many gluten-containing, grain-based foods.
•Because of these unique physical properties, gluten is also frequently used as an additive to improve texture and promote moisture retention in a variety of processed foods.
Gluten may be found in a variety of whole and processed foods, including:
•Grains: whole wheat, wheat bran, barley, rye, triticale, spelt, kamut, couscous, farro, semolina, bulgur, farina, einkorn, durum, wheat germ, cracked wheat, matzo, mir (a cross between wheat and rye)
•Processed grain-based products: crackers, bread, breadcrumbs, pasta, seitan, wheat-containing soba noodles, some veggie burgers, cookies, pastries
•Other foods and beverages: barley malt, malt vinegar, soy sauce, certain salad dressings, sauces or gravies thickened with flour, bouillon and some broths, certain spice blends, flavored chips, beer, certain kinds of wine.
Source: The Hindu

India’s first e-waste clinic has been inaugurated in Bhopal and will enable segregation, processing and disposal of electronic waste from both household and commercial units.
•It was set up by the Bhopal Municipal Corporation and the Central Pollution Control Board.
•The e-waste clinic is developed on the bases of a three-month pilot project and, if successful, more clinics will be built throughout the country.
•The clinic is set up in accordance with the Solid Waste Management Rules adopted in 2016.
Source: The Hindu

IndiGen programme aims to undertake whole genome sequencing of a thousand Indian individuals representing diverse ethnic groups from India.
•The objective is to create a pilot dataset to enable genetic epidemiology of carrier genetic diseases towards enabling affordable carrier screening approaches in India.
•We also hope to mine allele frequencies for genetic variants for estimating population scale prevalence for diverse clinical applications.
•The human genome data sets would also be utilized for prioritizing Pharmacogenomics variants specific for Indian population for optimizing therapy and minimizing adverse events.
•IndiGen is funded by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
Source: CSIR