Daily Current Affairs for UPSC CSE
Topics Covered
- Water Bear
- D614G Mutation
- National Cybercrime Reporting Portal
- Facts for Prelims
1 . Water Bear
Context : Researchers from The Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, started exploring water bears that are less than 1 millimetre long.
About Water Bear
- Water Bear can live in boiling water or in solid ice.
- It can go 10 years without a drop of water – the tardigrade or water bear.
- They have survived all five mass extinctions
- They can be found on algae and similar vegetation
Details of the Study
- New paper shows that a tardigrade called Paramacrobiotus BLR strain (BLR for Bengaluru) has a protective fluorescent shield which helps it survive harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation.
- The study found that Paramacrobiotus sp. survived beyond 30 days after 15 minutes exposure to germicidal UV radiation (one kilojoule per square metre). At this radiation dose, another species of tardigrade called Hypsibius exemplaris died within a day, and most of the roundworms were found dead within a week.
- When a four times higher radiation was given, about 60% of the Paramacrobiotus sp. survived beyond 30 days.
- To further confirm their findings, the team coated the H. exemplaris and roundworms with the fluorescent extract from Paramacrobiotus sp. Animals with the fluorescent coat were found to survive longer than the control animals without.
- But why does this protective coat show fluorescence? “In addition to the UV protective function, we speculate that the fluorescence might serve as a signal to other organisms around — like an indication: ‘Hey the tardigrade is glowing, there is UV radiation here, let’s get away’. It provides a survival advantage to these tardigrades by reducing competition,” explains Dr. Eswarappa.
- The team writes that Paramacrobiotus could have probably evolved this fluorescence mechanism to counter the high UV radiation of tropical southern India.
- The paper adds, the “small fraction of non-fluorescent variants that co-exist in the same moss habitat may have other mechanisms to escape from UV radiation, for example, living deeper inside the moss where UV radiation cannot reach.
2 . D614G Mutation
Context : While novel coronavirus is undergoing many mutations, one particular mutation called D614G, according to a study, has become the dominant variant in the global COVID-19 pandemic.
What is the D614G mutation?
- When the virus enters an individual’s body, it aims at creating copies of itself. When it makes an error in this copying process, we get a mutation.
- In this case, the virus replaced the aspartic acid (D) in the 614th position of the amino acid with glycine (G). Hence the mutation is called the D614G.
- This mutated form of the virus was first identified in China and then in Europe. Later it spread to other countries like the U.S. and Canada and was eventually reported in India.
How is this mutation different?
- The D614G mutation is situated in the spike protein of the virus. “You can think of the spike protein as a massive ‘trimer’ assembly with three protein chains. Each protein chain has two sub-units (S1 and S2). The sub-unit S1 is the one that attaches to the host cells — Human ACE2 receptor
- The S2 sub-unit mediates the fusion of the viral and human membranes. The D614G mutation is present in the sub-unit S1 of the protein and is also close to the S2 sub-unit. Therefore, it has an impact on the human cell’s interactions with both S1 and S2
- “In simple words, this particular mutation aids the virus in attaching more efficiently with the ACE2 receptor in the human host, thereby making it more successful in entering a human body than its predecessors
What are the effects of the mutation?
- A preprint posted in medRxiv, which has not undergone peer-review, explains the sequenced genomes of 5,085 SARS-CoV-2 strains in Houston. By doing so, it discovered that not only did the D614G show increased infectivity but it also displayed greater ability at attaching itself to the cell walls inside an individual’s nose and throat, increasing the viral load.
- However, the paper could not establish any direct correlation between this particular genetic change in the virus and an increase in the severity of COVID-19 or its impact on a patient’s mortality.
- The patients seem to be exhibiting variable reactions to it depending upon their genetic constitution, age, exposure to other diseases etc. Researchers are still pondering over the effects of this mutation.
How prevalent is it in India?
- The D614G mutation, which is the defining mutation for clade A2 of the virus, is indeed, quite prevalent in India
- A study (a preprint posted on bioRxiv) — which collected SARS-CoV-2-positive samples from the various States like Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh among others — reveals that the D614G was one of the most prevalent spike mutations even during the initial phase of the pandemic.
- Since then, D614G mutation’s ‘relative abundance’ has increased over time to 70% and above, in most States except Delhi, reports another pre-print in BioRxiv after analysing samples from 10 Indian States.
Can this mutation impact vaccine research?
- A paper in the journal, Nature, after conducting experiments on hamsters, concluded that this particular mutation may not reduce the ability of vaccines in clinical trials to protect against COVID-19 and that the therapeutic antibodies should be tested against the circulating variant of the virus before clinical development.
3 . National Cybercrime Reporting Portal
Context : The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has written to all States to examine and register FIRs based on the complaints received on National Cybercrime Reporting Portal
About the issue
- As per data available with the Ministry, only 2.5% of total complaints registered on the portal are converted into First Information Reports (FIRs).
- Since its launch last year, the portal has received over 2 lakh complaints, but FIRs have been registered only in 5,000 cases.
About the Portal
- Portal is an initiative of Government of India to facilitate victims/ complainants to report cyber crime complaints online.
- Portal caters all types of cyber crime complaints including complaints pertaining to online Child Pornography (CP), Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) or sexually explicit content such as Rape/Gang Rape (CP/RGR) content and other cyber crimes such as mobile crimes, online and social media crimes, online financial frauds, ransomware, hacking, cryptocurrency crimes and online cyber trafficking.
- Portal also provides an option of reporting an anonymous complaint for reporting online Child Pornography (CP) or sexually explicit content such as Rape/Gang Rape (RGR) content.
Cyber Crime Volunteers
- Through the portal, MHA also aims to raise a group of “cybercrime volunteers” to flag “unlawful content” on the Internet.
- Good Samaritans are welcome to register as Cyber Crime Volunteers in the role of Unlawful Content Flaggers for facilitating law enforcement agencies in identifying, reporting and removal of illegal / unlawful online content,” says the website.
- The unlawful content is categorised as content against the sovereignty and integrity of India, against defence of India, against security of the State, against friendly relations with foreign States, content aimed at disturbing public order, disturbing communal harmony and child sex abuse material.
4 . Facts for Prelims
Nyay Kaushal
- It is the first ever e-resource centre and virtual court for traffic and transport to enable speedy justice for litigants, called ‘Nyay Kaushal’, at Nagpur.
- The centre will provide the easiest way of filing court matters by utilising technology.
- It will provide benefits in saving time, avoidance of exertion, travelling long distances, and a saving in costs.
- The virtual court can deal with all traffic challan cases from every corner of Maharashtra online. It will be possible for the litigants to pay the fine and get the traffic challan case disposed of with the click of a button on a smartphone or a computer.
Moon’s Magnetism
- Though the Moon lacks a core dynamo magnetic field unlike the Earth, the lunar crust has a remnant magnetisation. But in some areas on the Moon, the localised surface fields extend to hundreds of kilometre and measure up to hundreds of nanotesla or higher.
- Apollo samples and the lunar crust studies have shown the magnetising field was as high as tens of microtesla before 3.56 billion years ago.
- Researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other institutions have found (Science Advances, October 2020) a possible answer for the long-standing mystery of the origin of the localised magnetic fields on the Moon. Magnetic fields on the moon may be the remnant of an ancient core dynamo. This might be the “only plausible source” of most magnetisation on the Moon, they say.
- Based on computer simulations, the researchers say that the Moon must have had an internal core dynamo in the past. They arrive at this conclusion by ruling out the earlier notion that localised magnetisation was caused by impacts of massive bodies on the Moon surface. While such collisions and ejected material can transiently enhance the field inside the Moon, the resulting fields would be at least three orders of magnitude too weak to explain the localised magnetic field observed on the Moon’s surface.
Roshni Act
- Jammu and Kashmir State Land (Vesting of Ownership to the Occupants) Act, 2001 is also known as the Roshni Act
- The J&K government decided to declare all the actions taken under the act as “null and void”, and has decided to retrieve the land within six months which was distributed
- The J&K government has decided to implement the High Court order, where it declared the Jammu and Kashmir State Land (Vesting of Ownership to the Occupants) Act, 2001 as amended from time to time as unconstitutional, contrary to law and unsustainable,