Hindu Notes from General Studies-01

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Earth’s heat loss melts Greenland’s ice sheet

News

Researchers have found that the loss of heat that comes up from the interior of the Earth melts the Greenland’s ice sheet from below and triggers the sliding of glaciers towards the sea.

Beyond News

• Greenland’s ice sheet is becoming smaller and smaller.
• The melting is taking place with an increased strength and at a speed that no models have previously predicted.
• As a result, the deep bottom water of the north-eastern Greenland’s fjords is also warming up, the research showed.
• North-East Greenland has several hot springs where the water becomes up to 60 degrees warm and, like Iceland, the area has abundant underground geothermal activity.

Findings in a Study

• In the study, appearing in the journal Scientific Reports , the team focused on an isolated basin in the fjord with a depth range between 200 and 340 metre and measured how the deep water is heated over a 10-year period.
• Based on the data, researchers estimated that the loss of heat from the Earth’s interior to the fjord is about 100 MW m-2 (milli Watt per square metre).
• This corresponds to a 2 megawatt wind turbine sending electricity to a large heater at the bottom of the fjord all year round.
• If the Earth releases heat to a fjord, heat also seeps up to the bottom part of the glaciers.
• The researchers said that,this means that the glaciers melt from below and thus slide more easily over the terrain on which they sit when moving to the sea.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

PM calls protectionism as dangerous as terrorism

Sending out a strong message against protectionism and inward-focused economic policies, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that, such tendencies can be as dangerous as terrorism and climate change as he pitched for creating a “heaven of freedom.”

• Mr. Modi, became the first Indian Prime Minister to address the World Economic Forum’s annual summit in two decades.
• He talked about grave concerns facing the world, including terrorism and climate change.

Asserting that India is proud of its democracy and diversity, he said that. the country has always contributed to global peace as well as promoted values of integration and unity.

He also emphasised that a predictable, stable, transparent and progressive India is good news in an otherwise uncertain global environment.

U.S. asks Pakistan to expel Taliban leaders

News: 

The United States has asked Pakistan to immediately arrest or expel Taliban leaders who are carrying out terror attacks across the border in Afghanistan, days after the militant group attacked a landmark hotel in Kabul that left 22 people dead.

Beyond News:

• The terse White House statement came after the Taliban claimed responsibility for a major terror attack at the Inter-Continental Hotel in Kabul on Saturday that killed at least 22 people, including 14 foreigners and eight Afghans.
• Pakistan is facing mounting pressure from the U.S. to take action against terror groups and dismantle their safe havens.
• A spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry said that after the deadly siege ended on Sunday, security forces also defused a vehicle full of explosives near the site of the attack.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

Moss that can remove lead from water identified

News:

Scientists have identified a type of moss that can efficiently absorb a large amount of lead, providing a green alternative for decontaminating polluted water and soil.

Beyond News:

•  Lead-contaminated water is a serious environmental concern that has recently proved to be disastrous when left untreated.
• Compounding the problem, the typical way to remove lead or other heavy metals from water requires fossil fuels and a tremendous amount of energy.
• As an alternative to these typical processes, phytoremediation is a method that uses photosynthesising organisms to clean up soil or water contamination.

 Phytoremediation-based removal method

Researchers from RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science (CSRS) in Japan began their search for a phytoremediation-based removal method by looking at a moss(Funaria hygrometrica) that is known to grow well in sites contaminated with metals like copper, zinc, and lead.

After 22 hours of exposure to different concentrations of metals, mass-spectrometer analysis showed that the moss cells had absorbed lead up to 74 per cent of their dry weight, which is quite high and much higher than any of the other metals.

 Analysis showed that within the moss protonema cells, more that 85 per cent of the lead had accumulated in the cell walls, with smaller amounts being found in organelle membranes and inside the chloroplasts where photosynthesis occurs.

This means that there is something special about the cell walls of this species of moss that allows them to thrive in environments that are toxic to other plants.

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