Over 6,000 birds culled in Kerala''s Kottayam after bird flue outbreak

• Avian influenza or bird flu is a highly contagious viral disease caused by Influenza Type A viruses which generally affects poultry birds such as chickens and turkeys.
• There are many strains of the virus – some of them are mild and may merely cause a low egg production or other mild symptoms among chickens, while others are severe and lethal.
• Wild aquatic birds such as ducks and geese are the natural reservoir of Influenza A viruses and the central players in the ecology of these viruses.

History of bird flu

• It was in 1997 when humans are first known to have contracted bird flu following an outbreak in a live bird market of Hong Kong. It was the H5N1 strain of the virus.
• Subsequently, several other strains of the virus such as H5N2 and H9N2 spread from animals to humans, thus becoming a global public health concern.
• No, it does not. Generally, people coming in close contact with infected alive or dead birds have contracted the H5N1 bird flu, and it does not usually spread from person to person.
• There is also no evidence, that the disease can be spread to people through properly prepared and cooked poultry food.
• The virus is sensitive to heat, and dies in cooking temperatures.

Rise in group A streptococcal infections in England

• Group A Streptococcus (GAS), also known as Strep A, are bacteria commonly found on the skin or in the throat.
• Occasionally, this can lead to a condition called scarlet fever, which typically affects young schoolchildren and is characterized by a sore throat, high fever and rough skin rash.
• Even it can cause severe diseases such as sepsis, streptococcal toxic shock syndrome and necrotizing fasciitis.
• According to British Health Security Agency (UKHSA), in children under 10 years, the rate of GAS infection is higher than levels reported in the years preceding the COVID-19 pandemic but substantially higher than in the past two years, according to UKHSA.

Consumer Affairs Minister Goyal unveils ‘right to repair’ portal

• On this portal manufacturer will share the manual of product details with customers so that they can either repair it by themselves, or by third parties, rather than depend on the original manufacturers.
• Initially, mobile phones, electronics, consumer durables, automobiles and farming equipment will be covered.
• It allows consumers to repair and modify their consumer products against the manufacturer requiring them to use their services either by restricting access to tools and components or putting in place software barriers.
• From now on India will be joining a clutch of countries like the US and the UK that offer this facility.
• It will save consumers money and contribute to circular economy objectives by improving the life span, maintenance, re-use, upgrade, recyclability, and waste handling of appliances.

Organic solar cells can convert a steel roof into an energy-producing device

• An organic solar cell consisting of a combination of an organic polymer and PCBM (an organic semiconductor) developed on steel substrates can potentially convert a steel roof into an energy-producing device.
• The devices consist of a blend of organic polymer PTB7 as a donor and PCBM as an acceptor.
• The devices were fabricated on opaque steel substrates with a MoO3/Au/MoO3top electrode. These electrodes offer higher optical transmission as compared to only metallic electrodes.
• The devices with multilayer electrodes showed a clear improvement in the photovoltaic performance by 1.5 times, as compared with those obtained with single-layer top metal electrodes of gold.

What is the DST-RCUK APEX project?

• It is a jointly developed programme of the Department of Science and Technology (Under the ministry of Science and Technology) and the Research Councils United Kingdom (RCUK) focussing on reducing energy demand in the built environment.

Ban by coastal States on purse seine fishing not justified, Centre tells SC

• A purse seine is made of a long wall of netting framed with floating and leadline (usually, of equal or longer length than the former) and having purse rings hanging from the lower edge of the gear, through which runs a purse line made from steel wire or rope which allow the pursing of the net.
• Why it is banned?
  • Because this fishing method uses a wide net to draw in not only the targeted fish but also at-risk varieties, including turtles.
  • The ban on purse seine fishing is implemented in the territorial waters of Tamil NaduKerala, Puducherry, Odisha, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands up to 12 nautical miles.
• Fishing is a State subjectand the management plan for marine fisheries in territorial waters is the job of the states (Under the Seventh Scheduled of the Indian constitution).

Advantages 

• Purse-seine fishing in open water is generally considered to be an efficient form of fishing.
• It has no contact with the seabed and can have low levels of by catch.
• It can also be used to catch fish congregating around fish aggregating devices
• It is used in the open ocean to target dense schools of single-species pelagic (midwater) fish like tuna and mackerel.

New Artificial Nanostructures for Infrared Absorption Technologies can be useful in Defense, Imaging & Sensing

Gallium Nitride (GaN) Nanostructures:

• Blue light emission from GaN has been known for some time, and it is used in LEDs, this is the first time that infrared light-matter interactions are demonstrated in GaN.
• For this demonstration, they have utilized a scientific phenomenon called surface polariton excitations.

Surface polariton

• These are special modes of electromagnetic waves travelling at the interface of a conductor and an insulator such as air.
• These are quasi-particles which have both light and matter characteristics.
• By altering the morphology and shape of the nanostructures, they are also able to excite plasmon polaritons in GaN, which results in extending the light-matter coupling to further reaches of the electromagnetic spectrum.

GaN

• It is a very hard and mechanically stable wide band gap (WBG) semiconductor, as it has a hexagonal crystal structure.
• The critical factors of gallium nitride: Its reliability, compact size, high efficiency, fast switching speed, low on-resistance, and high thermal conductivity.

Applications of the GaN nanostructure

• It can be helpful in highly efficient infrared absorbers, emitters, and modulators that are useful in defence technologies, energy technologies, imaging, sensing.