Hindu Notes from General Studies-01

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Moving continents created new centipede species

News

• Continental drift (the moving apart of continents) almost 100 million years ago created many species of Ethmostigmus centipedes in the world’s tropics.
• In the Indian peninsula, these centipedes first originated in the southern and central Western Ghats, and then spread across the ranges here.

Findings

• India is home to six, fairly large Ethmostigmuscentipedes: four dwell in the Western Ghats, one in the Eastern Ghats and one in north-east India. Africa, south-east Asia and Australia are also home to other species of Ethmostigmus
• Using genetic data of 398 Ethmostigmus centipedes from published studies, they constructed a species ‘time-tree’ a network that reveals how species are related to each other and when new species emerged of nine species (across peninsular India, Africa, Australia and southeast Asia).
• They used three fossil centipedes to calibrate the DNA tree, which gave them the approximate times that the species originated in the past.
• The results suggest that a single ancestor gave rise to all Ethmostigmuscentipedes in the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana (continents including Australia, Africa and peninsular India comprised this single landmass then).
• The subsequent breakup of Gondwana and the drifting away of different landmasses shaped the early evolutionary history of Ethmostigmus. And the Ethmostigmus in peninsular India are very unique.
• This started around 72 million years ago, in the southern and central Western Ghats. Following this, the Ethmostigmus here dispersed to the Eastern Ghats (now home to  tristis).
• From there, Ethmostigmusdispersed to the southern Western Ghats. Ethmostigmus centipedes also reached the northern Ghats from the south-central Ghats too, and later dispersed back to the central Ghats again from there.
• The formation of wet forests in these areas during this time could have aided this dispersal (for all existing peninsular Indian Ethmostigmuscentipedes now dwell only in wet forests).

Earth may not appear as blue by 2100: MIT study

News

• Owing to climate change surface of the oceans will change colour by end of 21st century leading our blue planet to look visibly altered.

Findings

• The findings showed that climate change has been significantly affecting phytoplankton the tiny sea creatures in the world’s oceans, which will lead to the change in colour, intensifying its blue and green regions.
• The study said the blue regions, such as the subtropics, will turn shades darker, reflecting even less phytoplankton and life in general in those waters.
• Some regions that are greener now, such as near the poles, may turn a deeper hue, as warmer temperatures brew up more diverse phytoplankton.
• Scientists say they have discovered a new species of feathered, bird-like dinosaurs in the the Gobi desert of Mongolia.
• A study, described an incomplete skeleton of an oviraptorosaur from the Late Cretaceous found in the Nemegt Formation of the Gobi desert.
• The Milky Way’s disk of stars is ‘warped’ and twisted, according to scientists who have built the first accurate 3D map of Earth’s home galaxy.
• Researchers have found for the first time that our solar system is anything but stable and flat.
• Instead, it becomes increasingly ‘warped’ and twisted far away from the Milky Way’s centre. From a great distance, our galaxy would look like a thin disk of stars.

The pull of gravity becomes weaker far away from the Milky Way’s inner regions. In the galaxy’s far outer disk, the hydrogen atoms making up most of the Milky Way’s gas disk are no longer confined to a thin plane, but they give the disk an S-like, warped appearance.

60% children adopted in India between 2015 and 2018 are girls

News

• The number of female children placed for in-country adoptions and inter-country adoptions between 2015 and 2018 are relatively higher than male children.

Beyond News

• During this period, about 11,649 children were put up for in-country adoptions; of them 6,962 were girls and 4,687 were boys. Of the 3,011 children that were placed for in-country adoption in 2015-16, as many as 1,855 were female children.
• In the year 2016-17, as many as 3,210 children were placed under in-country adoptions and of them 1,915 were females. The figures for 2017-18 and 2018-19 (till December 2018) were 3,276 and 2,152, of which the numbers of girl children were 1943 and 1249 respectively.
• All the figures put together, female children comprise almost 60% of all in-country adoptions. When it came to inter-country adoptions, the number of female children was even higher: 69%. Of the 2,310 children placed under adoption between the same period, 1,594 were females.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

Indian H1B visa–holders rally outside White House demanding immigration law reforms

News

• A group of mostly Indians on H1B visas held a rally outside the White House, demanding immigration law reforms to benefit those in the country legally.
• The rally, organized by the Republican Hindu Coalition (RHC), which describes itself as an organization that seeks to provide a voice for the Hindu American community.

Beyond News

• Among the demands of the group was that the Green Card backlog be cleared with a period of 1-5 years. The wait time, at present, can run into decades for employment based Green Cards for Indians.
• The group is also pushing for legal childhood arrivals (LCAs) to receive any benefits that individuals brought illegally to the U.S. as minors (a group often referred to as “Dreamers”) might receive. Nearly 700,000 such individuals have been protected by a Obama-era program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
• The Trump administration has sought to end this program, and the issue is currently in court. The status of Dreamers, has, in parallel, also been part of the discussions to re-open parts of the federal government following the shutdown and to keep it open past February 15.
• H1B visa–holders, whose children and spouses get H4-dependent visas, are asking that H4 children be given Green Cards straight away, so they can remain in the U.S. after they turn 21 without having to switch to another visa category, such as a student visa or an H1B visa or having to self-deport.
• The third demand of those rallying was to remove the country caps for Green Card allotments. Currently no country may be allocated more than 7% (around 9,800) of the total number of Green Cards granted each year.
• India, which sends a relatively large number of skilled workers to the U.S. each year – over 70% of all H1B visas in fiscal year 2018 went to Indians – inevitably uses up all the Green Cards allocated to it.
• China, Vietnam and the Philippines are other examples, though the excess demand for immigrant visas is far less in these countries. Just under 307,000 Indians (compared to some 67,000 Chinese citizens) were waiting for Green Cards in May 2018, according to US Citizenship and Information Services (USCIS) data.

Bill to counter exploitation by NRI spouses

News

• In a bid to counter growing incidents of exploitation of Indian women by NRI (Non Resident Indian) spouses, External Affairs Minister introduced a Bill in the Rajya Sabha.

Beyond News

• The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) stated that the Bill will create accountability and protect those who are trapped in fraudulent marriages and are abandoned by their spouses.
• According to the new Bill, a marriagebetween an NRI and an Indian citizen will have to be registered within 30 days from the date of marriage. Necessary legal provisions have been created in the criminal code and the Passports Act, 1967, to initiate action against erring NRI spouses.
• The Bill, which has been championed by the MEA, the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MoWCD), Ministry of Home Affairs (MoEA) and Ministry of Law and Justice (MoLJ) is aimed at prevent victimisation of Indian nationals in fraudulent marriages.
• It is expected that the Bill will serve as a deterrent for NRI spouses, who use marriages as a tool of exploitation.

Abu Dhabi adds Hindi as third language in courts

News

• The Abu Dhabi Judicial Department has added Hindi as the third official language of the city’s courts, alongside Arabic and English.
• According to ADJD, the step is aimed at helping foreigners to learn about litigation procedures, their rights and duties without a language barrier, in addition to facilitating registration procedures via unified forms.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

IGIB: TB bacteria use a new way to subvert host defence

 News

• Researchers have for the first time found that TB bacteria actively manipulate an organelle other than those involved in the degradative pathways.

Findings

• They found that protein composition of lipid droplets is actively manipulated by TB bacteria.
• Lipid droplets are storehouses of lipids inside the host cells but can be decorated with specific proteins. Previous studies have shown how the composition of proteins in lipid droplets gets altered during different physiological conditions.
• So understanding how the protein composition of macrophage lipid droplets changes in response to TB infection may help in shedding light about a new mechanism through which the TB bacteria subvert the host defences.
• The lipid droplets in macrophages infected with live TB bacteria altered the composition of 86 proteins. While there was increased abundance of 57 proteins, the abundance reduced in the case of 29 other proteins.
• By knowing which proteins’ abundance are altered, it is possible to predict which pathways are being affected.
• Based on the increased abundance of certain proteins, the team has found that protein synthesis pathway and vesicular trafficking pathway have an unprecedented link with lipid metabolism in the context of infection.

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