Fields Medal, the ''Mathematics Nobel''

• The other winners were French mathematician Hugo Duminil-Copin of the University of Geneva; Korean-American June Huh of Princeton; and Briton James Maynard of the University of Oxford.
• Viazovska, 37, is only the second female Fields Medalist, after the Iranian Maryam Mirzakhani in 2014.

Fields Medal

• The Fields Medal is awarded by the International Mathematical Union (IMU), an international non-governmental and non-profit scientific organisation that aims to promote international cooperation in mathematics.
• The Fields Medal is awarded every four years to one or more mathematicians under the age of 40 in recognition of “outstanding mathematical achievement for existing work and for the promise of future achievement”.
• The honour carries a physical medal of 14K gold. There is also a cash award of CAD 15,000.
• Indian-origin winners: Among the more than 60 mathematicians who have been awarded the Fields Medal since 1936, there are two of Indian origin — Akshay Venkatesh of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, who won in 2018, the last time the honour was announced, and Manjul Bhargava of the Department of Mathematics at Princeton University, in 2014.

Uzbekistan says 18 killed in Karakalpakstan unrest

• The name Karakalpakstan is derived from the Karakalpak people, an ethnic minority group of around 2 million. Karakalpak translates to ‘black hat’, referring to their traditional headgear.
• The Karakalpaks consider themselves to be a distinct cultural group in Uzbekistan. Their Turkic language – Karakalpak – is closely related to Kazak. Their separate language is a crucial aspect of their cultural identity.
• In their genealogical narrative, the Karakalpaks claim to share a common point of origin with the neighbouring Kazakhs, Uzbeks and Turkmen, but believe that over time they diverged from the others. This narrative marks the Karakalpaks as culturally separate from their neighbouring groups.
• When Uzbekistan declared its independence from the Soviet Union in August 1991, Karakalpakstan was formally recognized as an autonomous republic in Uzbekistan’s constitution of 1992, and has the right to secede from on the basis of a nation-wide referendum.

India-Australia Critical Minerals Investment Partnership

• Critical minerals are elements that are the building blocks of essential modern-day technologies, and are at risk of supply chain disruptions.
• These minerals are now used everywhere from making mobile phones, computers to batteries, electric vehicles and green technologies like solar panels and wind turbines. Based on their individual needs and strategic considerations, different countries create their own lists.
• However, such lists mostly include graphite, lithium and cobalt, which are used for making EV batteries; rare earths that are used for making magnets and silicon which is a key mineral for making computer chips and solar panels.
• Aerospace, communications and defence industries also rely on several such minerals as they are used in manufacturing fighter jets, drones, radio sets and other critical equipment.
• As countries around the world scale up their transition towards clean energy and digital economy, these critical resources are key to the ecosystem that fuels this change.

The three new ‘exotic’ sub-atomic particles discovered at CERN

• The three “exotic” additions — a new kind of “pentaquark” and the first-ever pair of “tetraquarks” — to the growing list of new hadrons found at the LHC will help physicists better understand how quarks bind together into these composite particles.
• CERN — Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire — is the original name of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, which runs the particle accelerator complex that houses the LHC, the world’s largest and most complex collider.
• The LHC, re-ignited after three years in April, was cranked up to unprecedented levels of energy on July 5, and has begun smashing together protons at almost the speed of light, which could throw up “new” physics beyond the Standard Model.

Quarks

• Quarks are elementary particles that come in six “flavours”: up, down, charm, strange, top, and bottom. They usually combine together in groups of twos and threes to form hadrons such as the protons and neutrons that make up atomic nuclei.
• But they can also combine into four-quark and five-quark particles, called tetraquarks and pentaquarks. These exotic hadrons were predicted by theorists about six decades ago — around the same time as conventional hadrons — but they have been observed by LHCb and other experiments only in the past 20 years.

PM to inaugurate Golden Jubilee celebrations of Agradoot group

• Agradoot was started as an Assamese bi-weekly.
• It was established by Kanak Sen Deka, senior journalist of Assam.
• In 1995, Dainik Agradoot, a daily newspaper, was started and it has developed as a trusted and influential voice of Assam.

Nairobi flies, which are causing disease in Sikkim

• Nairobi flies, also called Kenyan flies or dragon bugs, are small, beetle-like insects that belong to two species, Paederus eximius and Paederus sabaeus.
• They are orange and black in colour, and thrive in areas with high rainfall, as has been witnessed in Sikkim in the past few weeks. Like most insects, the beetles are attracted by bright light.
• Usually, the insects attack pests that consume crops and are beneficial for humans — but at times, they come in contact with humans directly are cause harm.
• These flies do not bite, but if disturbed while sitting on anyone’s skin, they release a potent acidic substance that causes burns.
• This substance is called pederin, and can cause irritation if it comes in contact with the skin, leading to lesions or unusual marks or colouring on the skin. The skin begins to heal in a week or two, but some secondary infections can occur, especially if the victim scratches the irritated skin.
• Nairobi flies is a species of insect native to East Africa. Major outbreaks have happened in Kenya and other parts of eastern Africa. Outside Africa, outbreaks have happened in India, Japan, Israel, and Paraguay in the past.