Prelim Bits (CA) 3 June 2023
Prelim
Bits (CA) 3 June 2023
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ENVIRONMENT & ECOLOGY| DISASTER
MANAGEMENTS
Environmental Information, Awareness,
Capacity Building and Livelihood Programme (EIACP)
Himalayan Brown Bear (Ursus arctos isabellinus)
The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate
Change (MoEF&CC), envisages to celebrate the World Environment Day 2023
with a thrust on the Mission LiFE.
https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1928367
- The Environmental
Information System (ENVIS) came into
existence as a plan programme in
1983.
- ENVIS has been subsumed within the revamped scheme
of Environment
Education, Awareness, Research and Skill Development.
- ENVIS is renamed as EIACP
- EIACP serves as a one stop platform for dissemination of environmental information, policy formulation on
environment and facilitation of alternate livelihoods through green
skilling.
- The programme is one
of the Central Sector sub-scheme being implemented in alignment with Mission LiFE.
- EIACP Hub on Status of Environment Related
Issues is hosted by the Indian State Level Basic
Environmental Information Database (ISBEID).
- The ISBEID is
a centralised database maintained by
the Ministry of
Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government of
India for all the States.
- EIACP conducts Environmental Awareness Programs to School Children, Colleges and
Universities on Environmental Important Days like, World
Environment Day, World Earth Day, etc.
Encroachment pushes Himalayan brown bears into
Kashmir’s villages.
- The Himalayan brown
bear is the Largest Mammal found in
Kashmir.
- They inhabit
altitudes ranging from 2,000
to 2,500 metres, predominantly above the tree line.
- Brown bears are Distributed
Worldwide and include the
famous Grizzly of North America.
- Himalayan brown
bears are found in various parts of the subcontinent,
including Pakistan,
Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and J&K
- Brown bear goes
into hibernation around October and emerges
around April and May.
- It has been observed
to prefer open valleys and pastures and during summer, it moves as high
as 5,500 metres and returns to the valleys in the autumn.
- In India, brown bears are
present in 23 protected areas
(PA) in the Union Territory of Jammu
and Kashmir, and the states of Himachal
Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
- Their global
number is estimated to be less than 1,000 and possibly half
that in India.
- Food → Insects, small
crustaceans, alpine bulbs, roots of plants, shoots of young grasses,
domestic goats, sheep and voles. They are nocturnal, and their sense
of smell is acutely developed and believed to be their principal means
of finding food.
- Threats → They are
threatened by habitat destruction.
- Protection Status → Critically Endangered | Schedule I (of WLPA) | Appendix I (of
CITES)
Climate change and human intervention threaten the
Myristica swamps of Kerala.
- Myristica swamps are
freshwater swamps predominated by
members of the Myristicaceae family.
- The evergreen
trees have evolved to live
in the waterlogged conditions of the swamps.
- They have two types
of roots, knee roots (pneumatophores) and stilt
root.
- They have evolved
over millions of years and are comprised of old-growth trees.
- Location →
- In India, these
unique habitats occur in the Western
Ghats and a smaller distribution exists in the Andaman
and Nicobar Islands.
- Myristica swamps
are seen next to rivers and help in retaining
water and act as a sponge, ensuring perennial water availability.
- Important Species
- Gymnocranthera
canarica and Myristica fatua — belonging to the primitive Myristicaceae
family.
Threats to Myristica swamps
- Today, many swamps
are in reserve forests or
sacred groves. Myristica swamps have traditionally been
offered some degree of protection from cultural and religious beliefs,
but only some come under the protected area network (in Kerala and Karnataka).
- The threats to Myristica swamps come from the conversion of
land for hydel projects, paddy fields or horticulture
gardens, eucalyptus, teak, and areca nut plantations.
- Diversion of water from the swamps to
the plantations and the building of check dams for potable water is
detrimental to these ecosystems that have otherwise evolved to survive in
perennially flowing water.
- These swamp forests
are also exploited for
non-timber forest products (NTFP) collection and medicinal
plants.
- For example, Myristica
fragrans are commercially cultivated and their seed and mace
are commonly used as a spice and in traditional medicine.
- Loss of Myristica
swamps directly threatens species adapted to live in these swamps with
extinction while losing out on important ecosystem services provided by
these swamps.
- Petcoke, is a final carbon-rich
solid material that derives from oil refining, and is one type of
the group of fuels referred to as cokes.
- Petcoke is the coke
that, in particular, derives from a final
cracking process → a thermo-based chemical engineering
process that splits long
chain hydrocarbons of petroleum into shorter
chains
- Petcoke is also produced in the production of synthetic crude oil (syncrude) from bitumen extracted from
Canada’s tar sands and from Venezuela's Orinoco oil sands.
- This coke can
either be fuel
grade (high in sulfur and metals) or anode
grade (low in sulfur and metals).
- The raw coke directly out of the
coker is often referred to as green
coke.
- In this context, "green"
means unprocessed.
- The further
processing of green coke by calcining in a rotary kiln removes
residual volatile hydrocarbons from the coke.
- The calcined
petroleum coke can be further processed in an anode
baking oven to produce anode coke of the desired
shape and physical properties.
- The anodes are mainly used
in the aluminium and steel industry.
- Petcoke is over 80%
carbon and emits 5% to 10% more carbon dioxide (CO2) than coal on a
per-unit-of-energy basis when it is burned.
- As petcoke has a higher energy
content, petcoke emits between 30%
and 80% more CO2 than coal per unit of weight.
- The difference
between coal and coke in
CO2 production per unit of energy produced depends
upon the moisture in the coal, which increases the CO2 per unit of
energy – heat of combustion – and on the volatile hydrocarbons in coal
and coke, which decrease the CO2 per unit of energy.
Applications
- It is used as a feed
stock or for fuels and is used in making cement,
lime kilns, gasification units, and industrial
boilers.
- It is used as a carbon
source in Electrodes for electrometallurgical industries, Synthetic
Graphite, Aluminium Anodes, TiO2 pigments, Carbon Raiser.
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/smart-bandage-improves-wound-healing-mice
- The skin has a
remarkable capacity to regenerate itself after injury. This complicated
process starts with inflammation and ends with the formation of new skin
and scar tissue.
- But wounds can
get infected. And some diseases and conditions, such as
diabetes and immunosuppression, may interfere with wound healing.
- In a new study, scientists
have designed a Smart
Bandage to actively assist the healing process.
- The smart bandage
consists of an extremely thin,
flexible printed circuit. A small, coiled
antenna draws power wirelessly from a nearby source. This allows the
bandage to provide electrical stimulation to injured tissue. Such
stimulation has been shown to boost wound healing.
- The wireless power
also allows the bandage to monitor
the skin underneath for signs of healing or infection. It does this by measuring
temperature and how easily an electrical current passes through the area.
https://www.techexplorist.com/new-details-cellular-process-prevents-spread-cancer/61202/
- Apoptosis is a form of Programmed
Cell Death that occurs in multicellular organisms. Biochemical events lead to characteristic cell changes (morphology) and death.
- These changes include blebbing, cell shrinkage, nuclear
fragmentation, chromatin condensation, DNA fragmentation,
and mRNA decay.
- The average
adult human loses between 50 and 70 billion
cells each day due to apoptosis.
- For an average
human child between eight and fourteen years old, approximately twenty to
thirty billion cells die per day.
- In contrast to Necrosis, which is a form of traumatic cell
death that results
from acute cellular injury, apoptosis
is a highly regulated and controlled process that confers advantages
during an organism's life cycle.
- For example, the separation of fingers and toes in a developing human
embryo occurs because cells between the digits
undergo apoptosis.
- Because apoptosis cannot
stop once
it has begun, it is a highly regulated process.
- Apoptosis can be initiated
through one of two pathways →
- In the intrinsic
pathway the cell kills itself because it senses cell stress,
- extrinsic pathway the cell kills
itself because of signals from other cells.
- Both pathways
induce cell death by activating caspases,
which are proteases, or enzymes that degrade proteins.
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