Daily Quiz: UPSC Prelims Marathon – September 6, 2018

Coliforms can be found in the aquatic environment, in soil and on vegetation; they are universally present in large numbers in the faeces of warm blooded animals. While Coliforms themselves are not normally causes of serious illness, they are easy to culture, and their presence is used to indicate that other pathogenic organisms of faecal origin may be present. E. coli), a rod-shaped member of the coliform group. Most strains of E. coli are harmless, but some can cause serious illness in humans. Infection symptoms and signs include bloody diarrhoea, stomach cramps, vomiting and occasionally, fever.

Statement 1 is correct

SOHUM, an indigenously developed low-cost hearing screening device for newborns. The Sohum aims to make this battery-operated non-invasive screening device available across the country to  minimise or reverse the hearing loss damage.

Statement 2 is correct:

It has been one of the key contributions to the ‘Make in India’ campaign of the Government of India.

Statement 3 is incorrect

It is developed by the Stanford India Biodesign (SIB) programme’s start-up M/s Sohum Innovation Labs India Pvt. Ltd under Department of Bio-Technology

Statement 1 is correct:

India unveiled Pratyush, an array of computers that will be used for weather and climate research  Pratyush is the fourth fastest supercomputer in the world dedicated to weather and climate research and follows machines in Japan, USA and the United Kingdom  It will also move an Indian supercomputer from the 300s to the 30s in the Top500 list, a respected international tracker of the world’s fastest supercomputers

Statement 2 is correct

A key function of the machine’s computing power would be monsoon forecasting using a dynamical model This requires simulating the weather for a given month — say March — and letting a custom-built model calculate how the actual weather will play out over June, July, August and September

The Ballistic Missile Defence programme aims to provide an effective missile shield against incoming enemy ballistic and nuclear missiles. A hostile missile needs to be intercepted at boost (launch) point, mid-course (flight through space), or terminal phase (during atmospheric descent). The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO)began developing a two- tier BMD system in late-1990s. An interceptor missile was first tested in 2006. Since then, interceptor missiles have been tested around 10 times. At least three such tests are known to have failed. The BMD system is designed to track and destroy hostile missiles both inside (endo) and outside (exo) the earth's atmosphere. However, it has not yet been tested in integrated mode, with both exo and endo interceptor missiles together Phase-I of BMD system is geared towards tackling enemy missiles with a 2,000-km range. Phase-II will enable interception of missiles in 5,000-km range

Statement 1 is correct:

The main cause of perishability of fruits and vegetables are their high water content. To increase the shelf life of these fruits and vegetables many methods or combination of methods had been tried. Osmotic dehydration is one of the best and suitable method to increase the shelf life of fruits and vegetables.  In osmotic dehydration the solutes used are generally sugar syrup with fruit slices or cubes and salt (sodium chloride) or brine with vegetables. This is multicomponent diffusion process. In this process water flow from fruits or vegetables to solution and along with water some components of fruits and vegetables such as minerals, vitamins, fruit acids etc. also move towards solution. The sugar and salt migrate towards the fruits and vegetables.

Statement 2 is correct:

Saltiness of the soil in which the earthworm lives is an important factor which decides it survival because earthworms are highly sensitive to salt stress. The salinity may reduce their growth at low salt concentrations or cause mortality at high salt concentrations. They are unable to tolerate high ionic strength, because high salt concentration destroy their sensitive skin, the earthworms cannot have the control over the osmotic regulation. In addition, the neurosecretory cells in earthworms play a vital role in water balance as well as ionic and osmotic regulation.

Statement 3 is correct:

Soap solution is very concentrated-Hypertonic solution. So water moves out of finger cells by osmosis

• The material used for fuse elements must be of :
• low melting point,
• low ohmic loss,
• high conductivity (or low resistivity),
• low cost and free from detraction.
• The material used for making fuse element has a low melting point such as tin, lead, or zinc.
• A low melting point is, however, available with a high specific resistance metal shown in the table below

Both the statement is incorrect:

Endoplasmic reticulum (ER), in biology, a continuous membrane system that forms a series of flattened sacs within the cytoplasm of eukaryotic cells and serves multiple functions, being important particularly in the synthesis, folding, modification, and transport of proteins . All eukaryotic cells contain an endoplasmic reticulum (ER). In animal cells, the ER usually constitutes more than half of the membranous content of the cell. Differences in certain physical and functional characteristics distinguish the two types of ER, known as rough ER and smooth ER. There are two types of endoplasmic reticulum: rough endoplasmic reticulum (rough ER) and smooth endoplasmic reticulum (smooth ER). Both types are present in plant and animal cells. The two types of ER often appear as if separate, but they are sub-compartments of the same organelle. Cells specialising in the production of proteins will tend to have a larger amount of rough ER whilst cells producing lipids (fats) and steroid hormones will have a greater amount of smooth ER.