DAY – 14 (InstaTest-14): Insta 75 Days Revision Plan-2022: Topic – Science & Technology, Subject-wise Revision of Test 16 & 27, Textbook based Test 26 and December 2021 CA – INSIGHTSIAS

Solution : c

What are induced pluripotent stem cells?

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are adult cells that have been genetically reprogrammed to an embryonic stem cell–like state by being forced to express genes and factors important for maintaining the defining properties of embryonic stem cells.

Although additional research is needed, iPSCs are already useful tools for drug development and modeling of diseases, and scientists hope to use them in transplantation medicine.

What are stem cells, and why are they important?

Stem cells have the remarkable potential to develop into many different cell types in the body during early life and growth. In addition, in many tissues they serve as a sort of internal repair system, dividing essentially without limit to replenish other cells as long as the person or animal is still alive. When a stem cell divides, each new cell has the potential either to remain a stem cell or become another type of cell with a more specialized function, such as a muscle cell, a red blood cell, or a brain cell.

Stem cells are distinguished from other cell types by two important characteristics:

1. First, they are unspecialized cells capable of renewing themselves through cell division, sometimes after long periods of inactivity.
2. Second, under certain physiologic or experimental conditions, they can be induced to become tissue- or organ-specific cells with special functions. In some organs, such as the gut and bone marrow, stem cells regularly divide to repair and replace worn out or damaged tissues. In other organs, however, such as the pancreas and the heart, stem cells only divide under special conditions.

What are the similarities and differences between embryonic and adult stem cells?

One major difference between adult and embryonic stem cells is their different abilities in the number and type of differentiated cell types they can become. Embryonic stem cells can become all cell types of the body because they are pluripotent. Adult stem cells are thought to be limited to differentiating into different cell types of their tissue of origin.

Embryonic stem cells can be grown relatively easily in culture. Adult stem cells are rare in mature tissues, so isolating these cells from an adult tissue is challenging, and methods to expand their numbers in cell culture have not yet been worked out. This is an important distinction, as large numbers of cells are needed for stem cell replacement therapies.

Solution: c

Carbon nanotubes (CNT) are cylindrical molecules consisting of rolled-up sheets of single-layer carbon atoms, namely, graphene. Carbon nanotubes are used in applications that require high strength, electrical conductivity, durability, lightweight properties, and thermal conductivity as compared to the other conventional materials. Rapid demand for CNT in integrated circuits, lithium batteries, fuel cells, drug delivery, solar PV cells, hydrogen storage, and field emission displays is contributing to market growth. They act as antennas for electromagnetic devices and radios. Conductive carbon nanotubes are used in brushes for commercial electric motors as they improve thermal and electrical conductivity. It occurs as they stretch through the plastic matrix of the brush. Rising commercialization, technological advancements to improve the overall product quality, and the development of more advanced products are the key trends driving the market.

Solution: c

Hydrogen fuel is a zero-emission fuel burned with oxygen. It can be used in fuel cells or internal combustion engines. It is also used as a fuel for spacecraft propulsion.  Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. 

The sun and other stars are composed largely of hydrogen.

Benefits of hydrogen fuel

• It is readily available. It doesn’t produce harmful emissions.
• It is environmentally friendly and is a non-toxic substance. It can be used as fuel in rockets.
• Hydrogen is three times as powerful as gasoline and other fossil fuels. It is renewable and can be produced again and again.

Solution: d

The Indian Space Programme has the primary goal of promoting and establishing a vibrant space science, applications and technology programme to assist in the overall development of the nation.

The first Indian satellite, Aryabhata, launched in 1975, carried scientific experiments to investigate X-ray astronomy, solar neutrons and supra-thermal electron density. Since then, several instruments for scientific research have been flown on board high altitude balloons, sounding rockets and satellites. Several ground based facilities have also been set up for conducting research by scientists from universities and research institutions as part of astrophysical, solar and atmospheric research programmes.

Technologies developed for those spacecraft systems, which are readily available now at ISRO, can be fully exploited for embarking on planetary missions with well thought out scientific objectives.

Mars Orbiter Mission

Mars Orbiter Mission is ISRO’s first interplanetary mission to planet Mars with an orbiter craft designed to orbit Mars in an elliptical orbit. The primary driving technological objective of the mission is to design and realize a spacecraft with a capability to perform Earth Bound Manoeuvre (EBM), Martian Transfer Trajectory (MTT) and Mars Orbit Insertion (MOI) phases and the related deep space mission planning and communication management at a distance of nearly 400 million Km. Following are the payloads developed by SAC and flown.

Chandrayaan-1

Chandrayaan-1, India’s first mission to Moon, was launched successfully on October 22, 2008 from SDSC SHAR, Sriharikota.

Chandrayaan-1 has indigenously developed four core payload/experiments: TMC, HySI, LLRI and HEX and a Moon Impact Probe (MIP).

• Terrain Mapping stereo Camera (TMC) in the panchromatic band, having 5 m spatial resolution and 20 km swath
• Hyper Spectral Imaging camera (HySI) operating in 0.4-0.95 μm band with a spectral resolution of 15 nm and spatial resolution of 80 m with a swath of 20 km
• Lunar Laser Ranging Instrument (LLRI) with height resolution of less than 5 m
• High Energy X-ray spectrometer (HEX) using Cadmium-Zinc-Telluride (CdZnTe) detector in the 30-270 keV energy region with spatial resolution of 33 km
• Moon Impact Probe (MIP) as piggyback payload on the main orbiterof the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, which will impact on the surface of the Moon

Solution: c

What is space junk?

Space junk, or space debris, is any piece of machinery or debris left by humans in space.

It can refer to big objects such as dead satellites that have failed or been left in orbit at the end of their mission. It can also refer to smaller things, like bits of debris or paint flecks that have fallen off a rocket.

Some human-made junk has been left on the Moon, too.

What is the Kessler syndrome?

This is an idea proposed by NASA scientist Donald Kessler in 1978. He said that if there was too much space junk in orbit, it could result in a chain reaction where more and more objects collide and create new space junk in the process, to the point where Earth’s orbit became unusable.

This situation would be extreme, but some experts worry that a variant of this could be a problem one day, and steps should be taken to avoid it ever happening. This idea was also popularised in the movie Gravity.

Solution: a

Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) is the third generation launch vehicle of India. It is the first Indian launch vehicle to be equipped with liquid stages. After its first successful launch in October 1994, PSLV emerged as the reliable and versatile workhorse launch vehicle of India with 39 consecutively successful missions by June 2017. During 1994-2017 period, the vehicle has launched 48 Indian satellites and 209 satellites for customers from abroad.

Besides, the vehicle successfully launched two spacecraft – Chandrayaan-1 in 2008 and Mars Orbiter Spacecraft in 2013 – that later traveled to Moon and Mars respectively.

PSLV has a four-stage system comprising a combination of solid and liquid-fuelled rocket stages.

The first stage at the very bottom is solid fuelled having six strap-on solid rocket boosters wrapped around it. Second stage is liquid fuelled whereas the third stage has a solid fuelled rocket motor. At the fourth stage, the launcher uses a liquid propellant to boost in the outer space.

Due to its unmatched reliability, PSLV has also been used to launch various satellites into Geosynchronous and Geostationary orbits, like satellites from the IRNSS constellation.

Solution: a

India presently has two research stations at Antarctica namely ‘Maitri’ and ‘Bharati’. Indian Arctic station ‘Himadri’ is located at Ny Alesund, Spitsbergen Island, Norway and serves as a hub of Indian scientific investigations since 2008.. Also we do not have India has ice-breakers for exploration and research in the above places.

Solution: c

National Super Computing Mission (NSM) is boosting high power computing in the country

Launched in 2015 and jointly funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), the seven-year mission aims at establishing supercomputer facilities across 70 national research and academic institutions and connecting them onto a National Knowledge Network (NKN).

With the infrastructure planned in NSM Phase-I already installed and much of Phase-II in place, the network of supercomputers through the country will soon reach to around 16 Petaflops (PF). Phase-III, to be initiated in January 2021, will take the computing speed to around 45 Petaflops.

NSM is jointly steered by the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) and Department of Science and Technology (DST) and implemented by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Pune and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru.

Param Shivay, the first supercomputer assembled indigenously, was installed in IIT (BHU), followed by Param Shakti and Param Brahma at IIT-Kharagpur and IISER, Pune, respectively.

The three phases will provide access to High-Performance Computing (HPC) Facilities to around 75 institutions and more than thousands of active researchers, academicians working through Nation Knowledge Network (NKN) – the backbone for supercomputing systems.

HPC and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have converged together. A 100 AI PF Artificial Intelligence supercomputing system is being created and installed in C-DAC, which can handle incredibly large-scale AI workloads increasing the speed of computing-related to AI several times.

India has developed an Indigenous server (Rudra), which can meet the HPC requirements of all governments and PSUs. This is the first time that a server system was made in India, along with the full software stack developed by C-DAC.

Solution: c

“Sagar Vani”, a mobile app, was launched recently on the occasion of Foundation Day of Ministry of Earth Sciences.

Solution: d

Geothermal Energy is heat stored in earth crust and being used for electric generation and also for direct heat application.

Geothermal literally means heat generated by earth. Various resource assessment carried out by agencies established the potential 10600 MWth /1000MWe spread over 340 hot springs across seven Geothermal provinces/11 states.

The availability of geothermal power is most environment-friendly power, round the year 24×7 basis, not affected by the severity of climate during 6 to 7 winter months like hydro and like dependence on sun in solar PV.

In India, exploration and study of geothermal fields started in 1970. The GSI (Geological Survey of India) has identified 350 geothermal energy locations in the country. The most promising of these is in Puga valley of Ladakh. The estimated potential for geothermal energy in India is about 10000 MW.

There are seven geothermal provinces in India : the Himalayas, Sohana, West coast, Cambay, Son-Narmada-Tapi (SONATA), Godavari, and Mahanadi.

Solution: a

Justification:  NASA plans to launch an unmanned nuclear-powered drone, Dragonfly as early as 2026 to search for life on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, while navigating its earth- like gravity and aerodynamics in the process.

The mission will succeed NASA’s Cassini probe, which ended its 13-year mission orbiting Saturn in September 2017 by diving into Saturn’s atmosphere.

Dragonfly mission is a part of NASA’s New Frontiers program, which includes a series of space exploration missions, which are being conducted with the purpose of researching several of the Solar System bodies, including the dwarf planet Pluto. 

The New Frontiers programme also includes Pluto probe New Horizons, Jupiter probe Juno and OSIRIS-Rex asteroid mission.

The Dragonfly mission replaces a previously discontinued concept project called Titan Saturn System Mission (TSSM), which required a balloon probe to circumnavigate Titan.

Q Source: AR: Insights modules

Solution: c

Justification:  A maser is the microwave (radio frequency) equivalent of laser. The word stands for “microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation”. Masers are observed using radio telescopes and most of them are observed at centimetre wavelength: they are very compact. A maser flare can be a sign of an extraordinary event such as the formation of a star.

Maser Monitoring Organisation (M2O): After the first detection of an accretion burst, in 2016, astronomers from around the world agreed in 2017 to coordinate their efforts to observe more. This led to the formation of the Maser Monitoring Organisation (M2O). The primary goal of M2O is to make the astronomy community aware of the importance of Maser monitoring. It is also to increase the number of sources monitored, the number of transitions monitored at, and increase cadence of observation.

Q Source: AR: Insights modules

Solution: c

Justification: Technical textiles are defined as textile materials and products manufactured primarily for their technical performance and functional properties rather than aesthetic and decorative characteristics.

Technical textiles include textiles for automotive applications, medical textiles (e.g., implants), geotextiles (reinforcement of embankments), agrotextiles (textiles for crop protection), and protective clothing (e.g., heat and radiation protection for fire fighter clothing, molten metal protection for welders, stab protection and bulletproof vests, and spacesuits).

Significance and potential applications:

Technical Textiles are being used globally for last several decades. These materials have provided innovative engineering solutions for several applications in civil and geotechnical engineering, for infrastructure water resources projects.

Even while Technical Textiles have been extensively used in developed as well as many developing countries, India has yet to capitalise the technical, economical and environmental benefits on large scale.

Various parts of India are subjected to floods and environmental degradation. In some of the terrains, the flood management and control can rely on Technical Textiles tubes, containers and bags. Technical Textiles have been found to perform better than concrete as water protection component because of permeability, flexibility and ease of underwater placement

Q Source: AR: Insights modules

Solution: c

Justification:  Unlike CNG, using methanol as a transportation fuel would require minimal alteration in the vehicles. Methanol is a clean-burning fuel that produces fewer smog causing emissions — such as sulphur oxides (SOx), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulate matter — and can improve air quality and related human health issues. Methanol is most commonly produced on a commercial scale from natural gas. It can also be produced from renewable sources such as biomass and recycled carbon dioxide. 

As a high-octane vehicle fuel, methanol offers excellent acceleration and power. It also improves vehicle efficiency.

Advantages of methanol: o Methanol is a clean burning drop in fuel which can replace both petrol & diesel in transportation &LPG, Wood, Kerosene in cooking fuel. It can also replace diesel in Railways, Marine Sector, Gensets, Power Generation and Methanol based reformers could be an ideal complement to Hybrid and Electric Mobility. Methanol is a scalable and sustainable fuel, that can be produced from a variety of feedstocks like Natural Gas, Coal (Indian High Ash Coal), Bio-mass, Municipal Solid waste and most importantly from CO2

Q Source: AR: Insights modules

Solution: d

Justification:  Science and Engineering Research Board is a statutory body under the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, established by an Act of the Parliament of India in 2009 ( SERB ACT,2008).

The Board is chaired by the Secretary to the Government of India in the Department of Science and Technology and shall have other senior government officials and eminent scientists as members.

The Board was set up for promoting basic research in science and engineering and to provide financial assistance to scientists, academic institutions, R&D laboratories, industrial concerns and other agencies for such research.

Q Source: Major bodies promoting Sci and Tech in India

Solution : c

Belle II, the first super B-Factory experiment, is designed to make precise measurements of weak interaction parameters and find NP (New Physics) beyond the Standard Model of particle physics.

Solution : c

China’s “artificial sun” has set a new world record after superheating a loop of plasma to temperatures five times hotter than the sun for more than 17 minutes, state media reported.

The EAST (Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak) nuclear fusion reactor maintained a temperature of 158 million degrees Fahrenheit (70 million degrees Celsius) for 1,056 seconds. The achievement brings scientists a small yet significant step closer to the creation of a source of near-unlimited clean energy.

Solution : c

Matua Mahasangha is a religious reformation movement that originated, around 1860 AD, in modern-day Bangladesh, with a considerable number of adherents both in Bangladesh and in West Bengal of India. Matua is a sect of depressed class Hindus who are Namasudras, a Scheduled Caste group. The movement was launched as a reformation by the followers of Harichand Thakur. Thakur attained atmadarshan at an early age and would subsequently preach his Darshan in Twelve Commandments. The teachings of Thakur establish education as preeminently important for the adherent and the upliftment of the population the adherent’s duty, while also providing a formula for ending social conflict.[2]

Matua-mahasangha believe in Swayam-Dikshiti (“Self-Realisation”) through the chanting of Harinaam, i.e., chanting the Holy name of God Hari. Harichand stressed the congressional chanting of Lord’s name kirtan as the sole means to Mukti. His followers in 19th century were enchanted by congregational chanting of Lord Hari, which in Bengali called ‘hariname matuara’ giving the sect current name ‘Matua’. So anyone who has faith in the Darshan or Philosophy of God Harichand belongs to the Matua-mahasangha

Solution : a

To Mobilize a medium – long term debt finances facility for investment in viable projects for post-harvest management Infrastructure and community farming assets through incentives and financial support in order to improve agriculture infrastructure in the country. This financing facility will have numerous objective for all the stakeholders in the agriculture eco-system.

Solution : a

Ministry of finance will decide ,if to accept recommendations or not

Countervailing duty is a customs duty on goods that have received government subsidies

Directorate General of Trade Remedies :It is the apex national authority under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry for administering all trade remedial measures including anti-dumping, countervailing duties and safeguard measures.

Anti-dumping duty is imposed to rectify the situation arising out of the dumping of goods and its trade distortive effect.

According to global trade norms, including the World Trade Organization (WTO) regime, a country is allowed to impose tariffs on such dumped products to provide a level-playing field to domestic manufacturers.

Solution : a

(EPI) was launched in August 2020 and developed by NITI Aayog in partnership with the Institute for Competitiveness. EPI ranks all States and Union Territories based on their export readiness and performance. EPI 2020 is based on four pillars: export policy; business environment; export infrastructure; and export performance. It can be used by States and UTs to benchmark their performance against their peers and analyze the potential challenges to develop better policy mechanisms to foster export-led growth at the subnational level.

Solution : a

UDYAM SAKHI, a Ministry of Micro,Small & Medium Enterprises initiative, is a network for nurturing social entrepreneurship creating business models revolving around low-cost products and services to resolve social inequities.

Solution : b

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor inaugurated the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub (RBIH) in Bengaluru which is intended to encourage and nurture financial innovation in a sustainable manner through an institutional set-up.

It has been set up as a Section 8 company under the Companies Act, 2013 with an initial capital contribution of Rs. 100 crore.

It is a wholly owned subsidiary of the RBI

Solution : a

Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha evem Utthan Mahabhiyan / (PM KUSUM) Scheme:

The Scheme is an initiative of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE).

It is a scheme for farmers for installation of solar pumps and grid connected solar and other renewable power plants in the country.

Approved in February 2019, the objective of the scheme is to provide financial and water security.

The scheme aims to add solar and other renewable capacity of 25,750 MW by 2022.

Solution : c

The passage talks about strengthening the capacities of ecological system.

Solution : b

Given, M1 = 20

M2 = 20 +x

W1 = (1/3), W2 = 1-(1/3) = (2/3)

D1 = 20 and D2 = 25

According to the formula, M1 D1 W2 = M2 D2 W1

20 ×20 ×(2/3) = (20 + x ) × 25 ×(1/3)

20× 20× (2/3) = (20 + x)× (25/3)

16 × 2 = 20 + x

∴X = 32 – 20 = 12

Solution : b

Here, order is important then the number of ways in which 12 different then can be divided between two boys who receives 5 and 7 balls respectively, is
= (12!)/(5!7!) ×2! = 1584

Solution : b

Given information may be represented by following Venn diagram.

Let the sets G V and F represent the persons who can play guitar, violin and flute, respectively.

Now,

n(G ᴗ V ᴗ F)=120

n(GᴖVᴖF) = 5% of 120

                     = 6

Let us decompose the sets into various distinct regions and label them using numbers I to 7 as above. So,

n(7) = 6

And  n ( 4 ᴗ 5ᴗ6) = 30

And   n (1) = 40

We need to determine n (2ᴗ3).

Since,     120 = n (1)+n(2)+n(3) +n(4ᴗ5ᴗ6)+n(7)

120 = 40 +n(2ᴗ3)+30+6

n(2ᴗ3) = 44

So, number of musicians who can play violin alone or flute alone

Solution : c