UPSC Quiz – 2023 : IASbaba’s Daily Current Affairs Quiz 20th April 2023

·       It will help in connecting and identifying potential young Start-Ups.

·       The UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) establishes its mandate.

·       Their body shape is similar to a cucumber, but they have small tentacle-like tube feet that are used for locomotion and feeding.

·       They are found in all marine environments throughout the world, from shallow to deep-sea environments. Sea cucumbers are benthic, meaning they live on the ocean floor.

·       Other than the sea around Lakshadweep Islands and Andaman Nicobar Islands, the Gulf of Mannar at the confluence of the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal in Tamil Nadu is also home to sea cucumbers.

Plasma Waves

·       The waves that are emanate from the sun having Low-density, ionized gases are called as plasmas.

·       Plasma is a good electrical conductor with properties that are strongly affected by electric and magnetic fields.

·       Waves in plasmas are an interconnected set of particles and fields which propagate in a periodically repeating fashion.

EMIC waves

·       EMIC waves play an important role in precipitation of killer electrons.

·       Killer Electrons – Electrons having speed close to speed of light, which form the radiation belt of planet Earth.

·       Killer electrons are hazardous to our space-borne technology/instruments.

·       EMIC waves are sensible electromagnetic emissions observed in the Earth’s magnetosphere (the cavity in which the Earth lies and stays protected from the wrath of the Sun).

·       They can resonate with electrons with a wide energy range — from 500 keV to hundreds of MeV.

·       It make the electrons precipitate to high-latitude atmosphere.

·       Short-period modulation of EMIC wave events is common and dependent on EMIC wave frequency.

·       The short period decreases with an increase in the peak frequency of the EMIC wave, and stronger EMIC wave events were likely to have a higher peak frequency.

·       It is important to improve the understanding of EMIC wave modulation and how they interact with energetic particles that impact satellites and their communication.

·       The fungus is destroying South American wheat crops and it is spreading worldwide.

·       The pathogen affects the crop in a disease known as ‘wheat blast’.

·       It infects wild and cultivated grasses, most notably rice and wheat.

·       This fungus has the potential to affect not only wheat but also other major food crops.

·       The pathogen is also resistant to fungicides.

·       Rice blast fungus is a hemiobiotrophic pathogen meaning that initially, the fungus establishes a biotrophic relationship with its host (i.e., invades a few cells, steals nutrients, but does not kill host cells).

·       Eventually, the fungus becomes necrotrophic, destroying plant tissue.

·       Infection starts when three-celled conidia from the pathogen adhere to the host’s surface.

·       Initial attachment of conidia and other fungal structures is mediated by mucilage.

·       Cell to cell movement is achieved through plasmodesmata.

·       After colonization of the host and infection of aerial parts, lesions are formed and sporulation takes place.

·       These are the source of primary inoculum that enables the disease to reinitiate.