Science And Technology - MCQ Online Test (6) UPSC General MCQs & solutions

The major pollutant from automobile exhaust is Carbon monoxide (CO).

Ans: a

Explanation: SMAP (Soil Moisture Active Passive) Satellite is a three-year mission which will measure the amount of moisture in soil. It will help to monitor drought, predict floods, assist crop productivity, weather forecasting and linking water, energy and carbon cycles.

Ans: c

Explanation: Idukki district of Kerala has become first district in India to have high speed Rural Broadband Network i.e. National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) Internet connectivity. NOFN is the largest rural connectivity project of its kind in the world.

Ans: a

Explanation: Contactless cards launched by ICICI Bank can be used to make electronic payments by waving the cards near the merchant terminal instead of dipping or swiping. These cards are based on Near Field Communication technology.

 Ans: c

Explanation: Neutrino is electrically neutral and weakly interacting subatomic particle.

 

Ans: d

Explanation: The 102^nd session of Indian National Congress was held at Mumbai University. The theme was "Science and Technology for Human Development”.

Ans: b

Explanation: Lukosin is a herbal drug developed by Defense Research Development Organisation(DRDO) for treatment of Lucoderma( White patches on skin).

Ans: c

Explanation: Graphene is a 2-dimensional single layer of carbon atoms. It is characterized by its flexibility, elasticity, lightweight, and strength.

Ans: a

Explanation: In the wake of large number of deaths due to viral disease Ebola, the use of drug ZMapp was approved to combat the disease.

Answer: (d)

Explanation: It is a respiratory disease caused by virus that is endemic in pigs. The symptoms are the same as the seasonal flu -- cough, sore throat, and body aches. Swine flu is transmitted from person to person by inhalation or ingestion of droplets containing virus from people sneezing or coughing; it is not transmitted by eating cooked pork products. The recent outbreak of swine flu in India is due to influenza virus H1N1.

Answer: (c)

Explanation: Thai Sacbrood is a viral disease affecting honey bee colonies. The disease kills bees when they are larvae and hence there is no multiplication of bee colonies.

Answer: (d)

Explanation: Union Home Minister Shri Rajnath Singh has decided to launch a web portal ‘MySecurity.in’ that will be a platform for innovation in the field of security related web applications. Any individual, company, student, NGO etc can develop and deploy on this portal such security applications which may be useful to the people. It will enable the general public to get access to a large number of security related applications. 

The main objective of launching the web portal ‘MySecurity.in’ is to promote innovation in developing security related applications as well as offer to the people safe and trusted applications for their security needs. People will have options to choose the applications best suited for their requirements. Application developers, meeting the basic screening criteria, will be allowed hardware and middleware resources in a cloud based environment to deploy their applications. An expert group constituted by MHA will also evaluate the application on parameters like usefulness, innovation, public acceptance, technology used, maintenance, updation, feedback mechanism etc. 

 Answer: (a)

Explanation: IRNSS is an Independent regional navigation satellite system being developed by India.  It is designed to provide accurate position information service to users in India as well as the region extending up to 1500 Km from its boundary, which is its primary service area. IRNSS will provide two types of services, namely, Standard Positioning Service (SPS) which is provided to all the users and Restricted Service (RS), which is an encrypted service provided only to the authorized users.  The IRNSS System is expected to provide a position accuracy of better than 20 metres in the primary service area. The IRNSS space segment consists of seven satellites, with three satellites in geostationary orbit and four satellites in inclined geosynchronous orbit.  Thus, IRNSS satellites revolve round the earth at the height of about 36,000 km from the earth's surface. Applications of IRNSS include land, sea and air navigation, disaster management, vehicle tracking and fleet management, integration with mobile phones, provision of precise time, mapping and navigation aid for hikers and travelers, visual and voice navigation for drivers. It can track people or vehicles and can be of immense use in disaster situations like the recent one in Uttarakhand. Even the Railways may find it useful to track its wagons. Apart from India, its benefits would extend to a range of 1500 km in the region.

Answer: (c)
Explanation:  NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission will be launched in 2020. Its purpose is to measure the changes on earth’s land surface, ice surface, glaciers, earthquakes and volcanoes. The data will be used to understand climate change and predict natural disasters. NISAR will be the first satellite mission to use two different radar frequencies (L-band and S-band). Hence it can capture resolution even less than a centimeter of earth’s surface.
 

Answer: (a)
Explanation:  GSLV Mk-3 is the latest version of GSLV. It can carry up to 4500 to 5000 kg satellites. Until now, India relied on EU’s Arianespace launch vehicle to send those INSAT-4 satellites. It will consist of 3 stages. 1st stage will have solid propellant, 2nd stage will have liquid propellant and 3rd stage will be cryogenic engine. GSLV MK-3 will make ISRO a competitive player in commercial launches of foreign satellites.
 

Answer: d
Explanation: The Kessler syndrome (also called the Kessler effect, proposed by the NASA scientist Donald J. Kessler in 1978, is a scenario in which the density of objects in low Earth orbit (LEO) is high enough that collisions between objects could cause a cascade—each collision generating space debris which increases the likelihood of further collisions. One implication is that the distribution of debris in orbit could render space exploration, and even the use of satellites, unfeasible for many generations