Hindu Notes from General Studies-01

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Neanderthals hunted in bands, speared prey up close: study

News

• Neanderthals were capable of sophisticated, collective hunting strategies, according to an analysis of prehistoric animal remains from Germany that contradicts the enduring image of these early humans as knuckle-dragging brutes.

Findings

• The cut marks or “hunting lesions”  on the bones of two 1,20,000-year-old deer provide the earliest “smoking gun” evidence such weapons were used to stalk and kill prey.
• Microscopic imaging and ballistics experiments reproducing the impact of the blows confirmed that at least one was delivered with a wooden spear at low velocity.
• Neanderthals lived in Europe from about 300,000 years ago until they died out 30,000 years ago, overtaken by our species.
• Recent findings have revealed a species with more intelligence and savoir fairethan suspected.
• They buried their dead in ritual fashion, created tools, and painted animal frescos on cave walls at least 64,000 years ago, 20,000 years beforeHomo sapiens arrived in Europe.
• Hominins the term used to describe early human species, as well as our own  most likely started hunting with weapons more than half-a-million years ago.
• 3,00,000-to 4,00,000-year-old wooden staves found in England and Germany are the oldest known spear-like implements likely used for killing prey. But there was no physical evidence as to their use, leaving scientists to speculate.
• Lake shore excavations from the same site since the 1980s have yielded tens of thousands of bones from large mammals, including red and fallow deer, horses and bovids.
• They have also turned up thousands of stone artefacts, attesting to a flourishing Neanderthal presence in what was a forest environment during an interglacial period 135,000 and 115,000 years ago.
• The old deer bones examined for the study were unearthed more than 20 years ago, but new technologies helped unlock their secrets: which injuries were lethal, what kind of weapon was used, and whether the spears were thrown from a distance or thrust from close up.

Things are looking up in Antarctica

News

• Antarctica’s bedrock is rising surprisingly fast as a vast mass of ice melts into the oceans, a trend that might slow an ascent in sea levels caused by global warming.

Beyond News

• The Earth’s crust in West Antarctica is rising by up to 4.1 centimetres (1.61 inches) a year, in a continental-scale version of a foam mattress reforming after someone sitting on it gets up.
• The rate, among the fastest ever recorded, is likely to accelerate and could total 8 metres (26.25 feet) this century, helping to stabilise the ice and brake a rise in sea levels that threatens coasts from Bangladesh to Florida.
• Much of the West Antarctic ice sheet, which has enough ice to raise world sea levels by more than three metres (10 feet) if it ever all melted, rests on the seabed, pinned down by the weight of ice above.
• The fast rise of the bedrock beneath will lift ever more of the ice onto land, reducing the risks of a breakup of the sheet caused by warming ocean water seeping beneath the ice.
• The uplift increases the potential stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet against catastrophic collapse.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

After aid for defense buys, India gifts plane to Seychelles

News

• India gifted a Dornier maritime patrol aircraft to Seychelles, which will increase the island nation’s surveillance capabilities.

Beyond News

• Prime Minister announced a $100 million credit for Seychelles to buy military hardware from India. But confusion continues over the cooperation in the development of Assumption Island.
• The Do-228 aircraft, built by the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), was formally handed over by External Affairs Minister to Seychelles President Danny Faure, who is on an official visit to India.
• The handing over of Do-228 to Seychelles reflects the government of India’s firm commitment to, and continued engagement in, further developing, consolidating and expanding the comprehensive multi-faceted cooperation between India and Seychelles.
• Faure, who received the airworthiness certificate of the aircraft, called it a “historic day” ,the aircraft would help to bolster the coastal surveillance of Seychelles and the policing of its extensive Exclusive Economic Zone.
• The aircraft is expected to be flown at the 42nd Independence Day celebrations of Seychelles on June 29. It will be operated by men of the Seychelles Air Force, who have been trained in its operation and maintenance.

T.N. Assembly says no to Dam Safety Bill

News

• The Assembly unanimously adopted a special resolution urging the Centre to keep the Dam Safety Bill, 2018, in abeyance until the concerns raised over the legislation by Tamil Nadu and other States are addressed.

Beyond News

• The resolution contended that certain clauses of the Bill affected the interests of Tamil Nadu and could potentially affect the State’s rights on control and maintenance of dams located in neighbouring States.
• Tamil Nadu had been consistently opposing various clauses of the Bill, and that the inputs of the State government were not sought while drafting it.
• Listing the steps being taken by Tamil Nadu to increase the height of the Mullaperiyar dam to 152 feet from its current height of 142 feet following a Supreme Court judgment, the draft Bill, in the guise of facilitating dam safety, would affect the State’s prospects in controlling the Mullaperiyar, Parambikulam, Thoonakkadavu and Peruvaripallam dams.
• Contending that the proposed National Dam Safety Authority and the National Committee on Dam Safety would not be able to resolve disputes over the operation of dams, the State government had noted that every State already had a designated body for dam safety, which was functioning in line with the guidelines of the Central Water Commission.
• Though the Centre had proposed a Bill on dam safety in 2010 and sought inputs from Tamil Nadu, the State opposed the Bill, and the proposal was eventually dropped.

Air pollution sensors to be certified from September

News

• Beginning September, the government plans on certifying pollution monitoring instruments to improve the measurement and forecast of air pollution episodes.

Beyond News

• This is part of an initiative to boost local manufacturing while anticipating a massive demand for such instruments as part of the government’s National Clean Air Programme (NCAP).
• The NCAP envisions setting up 1,000 manual air-quality-monitoring stations (a 45% increase from the present number) and 268 automatic stations (triple the current 84). It also plans to set up pollution-monitoring stations in rural areas.
• Currently most of the instruments used by organisations such as the Central Pollution Control Board, System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR) and private organisations are imported samplers.
• The National Physical Laboratory, a CSIR lab that’s tasked with certifying the fidelity of these instruments, has previously said that many of them suffered problems of calibration.
• Experts from the Indian Space Research Organisation, and the Department of Science &Technology (DST), deliberated on ways to improve forecasts using satellites and develop an early warning system as well as setting up a system for certification of air quality emission monitoring instruments.
• The DST would take the lead on technology interventions and the CSIR-NPL will be the certification agency for air quality measurement instruments. Certification of PM2.5 and PM10 volume samplers will commence from September, 2018, according to a statement from the Environment Ministry.
• Currently satellite-based air monitoring is becoming popular and effective to monitor particulate matter over a large area.
• However many of the existing machines including the CPCBs  are already certified by the U.S. Environment Protection Agency.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot comes into focus

News

• NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope the most ambitious and complex space observatory ever built  will be used to study Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, shedding new light on the enigmatic storm that has been raging on the planet for over 350 years.

Beyond News

• Jupiter’s iconic storm is on the Webb telescope’s list of targets chosen by guaranteed time observers, scientists who helped develop the incredibly complex telescope and among the first to use it to observe the universe.
• One of the telescope’s science goals is to study planets, including the mysteries still held by the planets in our own solar system from Mars and beyond.
• Researchers to use Webb’s mid-infrared instrument (MIRI) to create multi-spectral maps of the Great Red Spot and analyse its thermal, chemical and cloud structures.
• They will be able to observe infrared wavelengths that could shed light on what causes the spot’s iconic colour, which is often attributed to the Sun’s ultraviolet radiation interacting with nitrogen, sulphur and phosphorus-bearing chemicals that are lifted from Jupiter’s deeper atmosphere by powerful atmospheric currents within the storm.
• Using MIRI to observe in the five to seven micrometre range could be particularly revealing for the Great Red Spot, as no other mission has been able to observe Jupiter in that part of the electromagnetic spectrum, and observations in such wavelengths are not possible from Earth.
• Those wavelengths of light could allow the scientists to see unique chemical by-products of the storm, which would give insight into its composition.

Belize’s reef, an underwater wonder, may be out of risk

News

• The Mesoamerican Reef, an underwater wonder world whose survival was considered to be at risk for years, may now be removed from UNESCO’s list of threatened World Heritage Sites, bold steps to save it by activists and the Belizean government.

Beyond News

• Second in size only to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, the Caribbean reef was named to the prestigious World Heritage List in 1996, but placed on endangered status in 2009 because of Belize’s plans to allow oil exploration nearby.
• The warning also encompassed the mangroves that help protect the reef and serve as a breeding ground for many of the hundreds of fish species that inhabit the area.
• They organised an informal referendum in 2012, in which 96% of Belizeans voted against offshore oil exploration, choosing the reef over the potential economic gains for the country.
• The Belizean government adopted a series of laws to protect the reef. It came just in time for this week’s UNESCO meeting in Manama, Bahrain, where the UN body is due to consider removing the reef from its list of endangered heritage sites.

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