UPSC Quiz – 2024 : IASbaba’s Daily Current Affairs Quiz 8th May 2024

·       It covers an area of approximately 436,000 square kilometers (168,000 square miles).

·       Bordering countries: It is bordered by Ukraine to the north, Russia to the northeast, Georgia to the east, Turkey to the south, and Bulgaria and Romania to the west.

·       Russia has the longest coastline on the sea (2,300 km), followed by Turkey (1,329 km) and Ukraine (1,282 km).

·       It is connected with the Aegean Sea (an arm of the Mediterranean Sea) through the Bosporus Strait, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles Strait, and with the Sea of Azov by the Kerch Strait.

·       Created when structural upheavals in Asia Minor split off the Caspian basin from the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea gradually became isolated; salinity is now less than half that of the world’s oceans.

·       It is one of the world’s largest anoxic basins, meaning it has areas with very little dissolved oxygen.

·       It is the largest meromictic basin, which means the movement of water between the lower and upper layers of the Sea is rare.

·       Islands: It contains several islands, with the largest ones being Snake Island (Ukraine), Giresun Island (Turkey), and St. Ivan Island (Bulgaria).

·       The Volga River is considered as the longest European river, flowing for a distance of 2,294 miles. It travels the length of Russia in a southerly direction and empties into the Caspian Sea.

·       They spend more than 90 percent of their waking hours in the trees.

·       There are three species of Orangutans-the Bornean, Sumatran, and Tapanuli.

·       They are one of humankind’s closest relatives. These great apes share 96.4% of our genes and are highly intelligent creatures.

·       Habitat: Habitats range from peat swamp forests near sea level to mountainous forests almost a mile (1.6 kilometers) above sea level.

·       The adult male is typically twice the size of the female and may attain a height of 1.3 metres (4.3 feet) and a weight of 130 kg (285 pounds) in the wild.

·       They have long, sparse orange or reddish hair unequally distributed over their bodies.

·       They are very well adapted to life in the trees, with arms much longer than their legs. They have grasping hands and feet with long curved fingers and toes.

·       Older males develop wide cheek pads, a unique feature among primates.

·       Lifespan: Up to 50 years in the wild.

·       Social Structure: Orangutans live semi-solitary lives in the wild. While they are the most solitary of the great apes, they exhibit social tolerance during times of high fruit abundance when they come together in aggregations known as parties.

·       Conservation status: All three species are classified as ‘Critically Endangered’ under the IUCN Red List.

·       It is used to obtain images of soft tissues within the body. Soft tissue is any tissue that hasn’t become harder through calcification.

·       It is a non-invasive diagnostic procedure widely used to image the brain, the cardiovascular system, the spinal cord and joints, various muscles, the liver, arteries, etc.

·       Its use is particularly important in the observation and treatment of certain cancers, including prostate and rectal cancer, and to track neurological conditions including Alzheimer’s, dementia, epilepsy, and stroke.

·       The MRI technique’s use of strong magnetic fields, individuals with embedded metallic objects (like shrapnel) and metallic implants, including pacemakers, may not be able to undergo MRI scans.

Working

·       An MRI procedure reveals an image of a body part using the hydrogen atoms in that part.

·       It uses the body’s natural magnetic properties to produce detailed images from any part of the body. For imaging purposes the hydrogen nucleus (a single proton) is used because of its abundance in water and fat.

·       The machine includes a superconducting magnet creating a stable magnetic field, aligning hydrogen atom spins. A radiofrequency pulse is emitted, exciting excess atoms.

·       When the pulse stops, these atoms emit energy, detected and converted into signals by a receiver. These signals are processed by a computer to generate detailed 2D or 3D images of the scanned body part.

·       The eastern regions of Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are extremely rich in minerals like tantalum, tin, tungsten (collectively known as the 3Ts) and gold.

·       However, this mineral wealth has fuelled decades of violent conflict, as various rebel groups and militias fight to control and exploit the mines and mineral trade routes.

·       These armed groups use the profits from the illegal mining and smuggling of the 3T minerals and gold to fund their operations and purchase weapons.

·       Blood Minerals is also called as “conflict minerals” because their extraction and sale directly enables armed conflict, human rights atrocities and exploitation of local populations.

·       Companies that use these minerals in their products, often unwittingly through long and opaque supply chains, are accused of indirectly financing and perpetuating the cycle of violence in the region.

·       REEs, also called rare earth metals or rare earth oxides, or lanthanides, are a set of 17 silvery-white soft heavy metals.

·       The 17 rare earth elements are: lanthanum (La), cerium (Ce), praseodymium (Pr), neodymium (Nd), promethium (Pm), samarium (Sm), europium (Eu), gadolinium (Gd), terbium (Tb), dysprosium (Dy), holmium (Ho), erbium (Er), thulium (Tm), ytterbium (Yb), lutetium (Lu), scandium (Sc), and yttrium (Y).

·       It is a chemical compound which is also known as nitro chloroform. It is used both as a warfare agent and pesticide.

·       Appearance: It is a colourless to yellow oily liquid.

·       It is used broadly as a fungicide, herbicide, insecticide, nematicide and antimicrobial.

·       It is an irritant with characteristics of a tear gas. It has an intensely irritating odour, and can be absorbed through inhalation, ingestion, and the skin.

·       It was first made for use as a poison gas in the First World War, by both the Allied and the Central Powers.

Manufacturing

·       It’s manufactured in a chemical reaction involving sodium hypochlorite (which in dilute form is called bleach) and nitromethane (a common industrial solvent).

·       It can also be made by combining chloroform with nitric acid, which yields chloropicrin and water.

Impacts on Health

·       Chloropicrin has documented irritating and tears-inducing effects on humans, and is also known to be highly toxic and carcinogenic and also induce vomiting

Chemical Weapons Convention

·       It is a multilateral treaty that bans chemical weapons and requires their destruction within a specified period of time.

·       It entered into force on April 29, 1997.

·       It requires states-parties to declare in writing to the OPCW their chemical weapons stockpiles, chemical weapons production facilities (CWPFs), relevant chemical industry facilities, and other weapons-related information.

·       It is open to all nations and currently has 193 states-parties.

·       India is a signatory and party to the Chemical Weapons Convention. It has signed the treaty at Paris on 14th day of January 1993.

·       It is pursuant to provisions of the Convention enacted the Chemical Weapons Convention Act, 2000.