DRDO’s Igniter Complex at HEMRL, Pune
Why in news?
- Raksha Rajya Mantri Shripad Naik inaugurated the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) Igniter Complex at High Energy MaterialsResearch Laboratory (HEMRL) in Pune.
Important highlights:
- Ignition is a crucial and highly critical phenomenon in the ignitionchain of Rocket motor. HEMRL has developed various fuel /oxidizer based ignitercompositions using organic binders.
- The laboratory has developed severalignition systems to ensure reliable initiation of rocket motors of various tacticalas well as strategic missiles.
- Ignition system for Agni, Prithvi, Akash, Nag, Pinaka, Long RangeSurface-to-Air Missile (LRSAM), etc. have been designed and developed in HEMRL.Technology for AKASH, Nag missiles and Pinaka Mk-I Rocket has been transferredto Ordnance Factory, Dehu Road, Pune and private industries.
The Tham Luang cave
- Thailand has reopened the Tham Luang cave where 12 young footballers and their coach were trapped last year in a rescue saga that captivated the world.
About
- Tham Luang Nang Non is a karstic cave system. It winds through 10.3 kilometres (6.4 mi) of limestone strata and has many deep recesses, narrow tunnels, boulder chokes, collapses and sumps. Stalactites and Stalactites are common in the cave.
- It is located in the Tham Luang Forest Park, near the village of Pong Pha, in northern Thailand. It lies beneath Doi Nang Non, a mountain range on the border with Myanmar.
- The name translates into English as ‘Great Cave of the Sleeping Lady’.
- The Tham Luang cave had been closed to visitors since the Wild Boars football team were rescued after nearly three weeks inside the grotto’s waterlogged corridors.
What is the Danakil Depression?
- Extremophile microbes can adapt to environmental conditions that are too extreme for everything else. New research, however, has pointed that Danakil Depression is an exception as microorganisms cant survive here.
Details:
- The Danakil Depression — bubbling pools of water and mounds of salt covering its landscape — in northeastern Ethiopia is one of the world’s hottest places, as well as one of its lowest, at 100 metres below sea level.
- At the northern end of the Great Rift Valley, and separated by live volcanoes from the Red Sea, the plain was formed by the evaporation of an inland water body.
- All the water entering Danakil evaporates, and no streams flow out from its extreme environment. It is covered with more than 10 lakh tonnes of salt.
- Now, a new study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, says that active and naturally occurring life cannot be sustained at Danakil. It identifies two barriers: magnesium-dominated brines that cause cells to break down; and an environment having simultaneously very low pH and high salt, a combination that makes adaptation highly difficult.
Ethanol from B-heavy molasses
- The Union Minister for Environment has declared that no separate environmental clearance is required to produce additional ethanol from B-heavy molasses as it does not contribute to the pollution load.
About:
- With this, sugar mills are expected to undertake production of ethanol from B-heavy Molasses and other by-products/products.
- It has been clarified that all such proposals intended to undertake additional production of ethanol from B-heavy Molasses/Sugar cane juice/ Sugar syrup/ Sugar, may be considered under the provisions of 7 (ii) (a) of EIA Notification, 2006 by the concerned Expert Appraisal Committee for grant of environmental clearance.
- Molasses is a viscous product resulting from refining sugarcane or sugar beets into sugar. Molasses varies by amount of sugar, method of extraction, and age of plant.
Bengal tree frog
Why in news?
- A new frog species named Polypedates bengalensis has been found in a residential area of West Bengal.
- The discovery has now been recognised by Zootaxa, a peer-reviewed international journal.
Crucial highlights:
- The Polypedates bengalensis frog is also known as the Brown Blotched Bengal Tree Frog.
- It was found in two places in West Bengal – Badu, North 24 Parganas District and Khordanahala, South 24 Parganas District.
- It is named Brown Blotched Bengal Tree Frog from the series of six to nine dark brown blotches that extend laterally from behind the frog’s eye to the vent. The frog’s body colour is yellowish-brown to greenish-brown.
- It belongs to the genus Polypedates. There are 25 other Polypedates species (Polypedates bengalensis is the 26th) around the world.