Science

Students are working on several solutions to the challenges being faced by the country. Along with providing solutions to the problems, it also strengthens India’s aspirations regarding Data, Digitization and Hi-tech Future. Acknowledging that in the fast paced 21st century, India needs to swiftly change itself to continue playing an effective role Such events will … Read more

The first human vaccines against viruses were based using weaker or attenuated viruses to generate immunity. The smallpox vaccine used cowpox, a poxvirus that was similar enough to smallpox to protect against it but usually didn’t cause serious illness. Rabies was the first virus attenuated in a lab to create a vaccine for humans. Egg-Based … Read more

. Today, satellites are launched into orbit by multi-staged satellite launch vehicles that can be used only once (expendable). These launch vehicles carry oxidiser along with the fuel for combustion to produce thrust. Launch vehicles designed for one time use are expensive and their efficiency is low because they can carry only 2-4% of their … Read more

Chemical weapons are specialised weapons that deliver chemicals that inflict death or injury on humans through chemical actions. They are also called poor man’s bomb because they are relatively cheap and easy to produce. Example of chemical weapons are mustard gas, phosgene, chlorine and nerve agents sarin and VX.           Sarin: The UN had confirmed … Read more

The Mission envisages empowering national academic and R&D institutions spread over the country by installing a vast supercomputing grid comprising of more than 70 high-performance computing facilities.  These supercomputers will also be networked on the National Supercomputing grid over the National Knowledge Network (NKN). The NKN is another programme of the government which connects academic … Read more

The Human Genome Project (HGP) was the international, collaborative research program whose goal was the complete mapping and understanding of all the genes of human beings. All our genes together are known as our “genome.” The main goals of the Human Genome Project were first articulated in 1988 by a special committee of the U.S. … Read more

Application of radioactivity: • Health: 1. Found extensive use in diagnosis and therapy eg. Phosphorous-32 is used to identify the cancerous cell. As cancer cell absorb more phosphorous, Iodine 131 is employ to determine cardiac output, plasma volume and fat metabolism and particularly to measure the activity of thyroid gland. 2. To treat cancer cells: … Read more

Micropropagation Ans:  Method of producing thousands of plants through tissue culture is called micropropagation. Each of these plants will be genetically identical to the original plant from which they are grown. They are soma clones. Somatic hybridisation Ans:  In somatic hybridisation cell wall is removed by digesting it with enzyme like pectinase and cellulase. Isolated … Read more

LIDAR is short for Light Detection And Ranging. It’s a more modern (but still pretty old) version of the tried and true radar which is short for Radio Detection And Ranging. Radar uses radio waves to detect objects and determine their range, angle, and/or velocity while lidar does basically the same thing, but with pulsed … Read more