Daily Current Affairs MCQ- February 4, 2024 - UPSC MCQ

The National Surveillance Programme for Aquatic Animal Diseases (NSPAAD) project has introduced a mobile app ‘Report Fish Disease’ to track and monitor fish diseases across the country.

• The mobile application intends to empower fish farmers with a convenient and efficient platform to report diseases on their farms.
• Central Institute of Fisheries Technology (CIFT) is one of the collaborative partners of the NSPAAD project of which ICAR-NBFGR is the lead institute, under which this app is developed.
• Features
• Its intuitive and user-friendly interface enables easy accessibility to fish farmers.
• The app offers easy disease reporting format, where farmers can easily report disease outbreaks by providing essential information such as location, species affected, symptoms observed, and images.
• Significance
• Geo-tagging technology facilitates swift response from authorities and the receivers get real-time updates on the status of their reported cases, ensuring transparency and accountability in the disease management process.
• The app also serves as an information hub, providing farmers with valuable resources on disease prevention, treatment, and best aquaculture practices.
• It is to provide a comprehensive package to ensure diagnosis, prevention, control, and treatment of aquatic animal diseases, thereby providing solutions for encouraging the aquaculture farmers.

Hence only statement 2 is correct.

Indian Navy's P8I aircraft landed at Guam, a US island territory in Western Pacific, to participate in Exercise Sea Dragon – 24.

• It is an elite multinational maritime exercise that encourages professional exchanges and teamwork among participating navies.
• Participating countries: India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and the US.
• The exercise seeks to improve skills in a variety of maritime combat domains through a number of aerial and ground-based tasks, including:
• Anti-submarine warfare (ASW): Locating and neutralising enemy submarines hiding beneath the seas.
• Surface warfare: Coordinated attacks on hostile surface vessels using superior weaponry and tactics.
• Air defence: Putting up an impenetrable air barrier to keep friendly forces safe from aerial threats.
• Search and rescue (SAR): Tracking down and saving maritime personnel in need.
• Communication and coordination: Synchronising activities across several platforms and exchanging information in a seamless manner.

Hence option a is the correct answer.

Many academic studies have shown that momentum investing can generate high returns that comfortably beat the benchmark indices.

• It refers to a style of investing wherein investors purchase assets such as stocks or bonds that are consistently rising in price while selling assets whose prices are falling.
• Momentum investors buy assets with rising prices in the hope that the upward price momentum of these assets would continue, thus allowing them to sell these assets at higher prices in the future to make profits.
• It is based on the philosophy that there can be discernible trends in asset prices and that these trends tend to persist over time.
• The persistence of such trends gives investors an opportunity to recognise and participate in them early enough to make significant profits from their investments.
• Similarly, they sell assets that are falling in price expecting the fall in prices to continue for some time.
• Momentum investors generally do not conduct a deep analysis of the fundamental or intrinsic value of the assets in which they invest their money.
• They invest purely based on whether the price of an asset is showing a strong trend, either upward or downward, that they can ride on.
• The “buy high, sell higher” philosophy of momentum investing is in stark contrast to the traditional “buy low, sell high” advice given to investors.

Hence both statements are correct.

A new study revealed that over 100 active permafrost structures identified in Jhelum basin, can cause catastrophic disasters in future.

• A rock glacier is a mass of rock, ice, snow, mud, and water that moves slowly down a mountain under the influence of gravity. 
• Unlike an ice glacier, rock glaciers usually have very little ice visible at the surface. 
• The rock glacier might consist of a mass of ice covered by rock debris, or it might consist of a mass of rock with interstitial ice.
• Formation:
• Rock glaciers typically form in mountainous regions where there is a combination of permafrost, rock debris, and ice.
• One common scenario involves a pre-existing glacier that accumulates debris and rocks as it moves.
• Over time, if the glacier recedes or thaws, the debris-covered ice can transform into a rock glacier.
• These are classified as ‘active’ or ‘relict’ to indicate the status of permafrost within them, identified by the appearance of the rock surfaces. 

Hence both statements are correct.

China recently sent a new astronomical satellite called the Einstein Probe into space to observe mysterious transient phenomena in the universe that flicker like fireworks.

About Einstein Probe (EP):

• The EP is a mission of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) dedicated to time-domain high-energy astrophysics.
• The primary scientific goal of the EP is to explore the transient and variable X-ray sky, capturing powerful bursts of high-energy light emanating from objects such as merging neutron stars and black holes.
• It was successfully launched on January 9, 2024, from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in China with a "Long March-2C" rocket.
• It is equipped with state-of-the-art X-ray mirrors and detectors.
• Unlike conventional X-ray telescopes, Einstein Probe’s unique design allows it to monitor almost a tenth of the sky simultaneously, discovering new sources as they light up in X-rays and enabling in-depth studies of known and new celestial phenomena over extended periods.
• It will also detect light from gamma-ray bursts, supernovae, flares from other stars,and events within the Solar System, such as emissions from comets.
• The satellite has a weight of ～1450 kg and an average power of ～1212 W in total.

Hence option d is the correct answer.

Paleontologists in Argentina recently found fossil fragments of a new species of dinosaur named Sidersaura marae.

About Sidersaura marae:

• It is a new species of sauropod dinosaur.
• It lived during the Cenomanian age of the Late Cretaceous epoch, between 96 and 93 million years ago, in today’s Patagonian region.
• It belongs to the Rebbachisauridae, a large family of sauropod dinosaurs known from fragmentary fossil remains from South America, Africa, North America, Europe, and Asia.
• These dinosaurs are distinguished from other sauropods by their distinctive teeth.  Some species had tooth batteries similar to those of hadrosaurs and ceratopsian dinosaurs.
• Rebbachisaurids were very important dinosaurs in Cretaceous ecosystems and disappeared in the middle of this period in an extinction event that took place 90 million years ago.
• It is one of the last rebbachisaurids.
• Features of Sidersaura marae:
• It was up to 20 m in length, had an estimated mass of 15 tons, and had a very long tail.
• One of the characteristics that distinguishes Sidersaura marae from other dinosaurs is the star-shaped shape of the hemal arches (tail bones).
• Its skull bones are robust, unlike those of the rest of its closest relatives.
• Another cranial feature that differentiates Sidersaura marae from other rebbachisaurids is its frontoparietal foramen, which is basically a hole in the roof of the skull.

Hence option c is the correct answer.

India recently flagged concerns relating to sensitive and confidential trade data of its exporters getting compromised while complying with the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM).

About Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM):

• What is it? It is a proposed European Union (EU) tariff on carbon-intensive products.
• Purpose: To put a fair price on the carbon emitted during the production of carbon intensive goods that are entering the EU and to encourage cleaner industrial production in non-EU countries.
• It was adopted on May 17, 2023, and the CBAM transitional period started October 1, 2023.
• It is designed to counter the risk of carbon leakage and operates by imposing a charge on the embedded carbon content of certain imports that is equal to the carbon price of domestic production.
• How does it Work? 
• If implemented as planned, EU importers will have to buy carbon certificates corresponding to the carbon price that would have been paid in the EU if the goods had been produced locally.
• The price of the certificates would be calculated according to the auction prices in the EU carbon credit market.
• The amount of certificates required would be defined yearly by the quantity of goods and the embedded emissions in those goods imported into the EU.
• Companies in countries with a domestic carbon pricing regime equivalent to the EU’s will be able to export to the EU without buying CBAM certificates.
• The CBAM will initially affect goods imported from non-EU countries that are particularly carbon-intensive, namely specified goods within the cement, electricity, fertilisers, aluminium, iron, steel, and hydrogen sectors, as well as some upstream and downstream products (mainly iron, steel, and aluminium). 
• Transition Period:
• In the transitional phase of the implementation of the CBAM, from October 1, 2023, to December 31, 2025, affected companies are subject to a reporting obligation without financial obligations.
• During this period, importers must determine and document direct and indirect emissions that occur in the course of the production process of the imported goods.
• In addition, affected EU importers are obliged to prepare a quarterly CBAM report that provides information on the imported quantity of CBAM goods, the direct and indirect embedded emissions contained therein (reporting on indirect embedded emissions is initially only for cement, electric power, and fertiliser), as well as any carbon taxes effectively paid in the country of production.
• With the start of certificate trading from January 1, 2026, importers are obliged to purchase sufficient emission allowances for imported embedded emissions during the year.

Hence only statement 2 is correct.

The Hubble Space Telescope recently captured an image of the spiral galaxy, MCG-01-24-014, revealing the enigmatic beauty of what is known as 'forbidden' light.

About Spiral Galaxy:

• Spiral galaxies are twisted collections of stars and gas that often have beautiful shapes and are made up of hot, young stars. 
• Most of the galaxies that scientists have discovered so far are spiral galaxies, as opposed to the other two main categories of galaxy shapes—elliptical and irregular.
• Approximately 60% of all galaxies are thought to be spiral galaxies.
• The Milky Way, the galaxy that includes Earth and our solar system, is an example of a spiral galaxy.
• Structure:
• Most spiral galaxies contain a central bulge surrounded by a flat, rotating disk of stars. 
• The bulge in the center is made up of older, dimmer stars and is thought to contain a supermassive black hole. 
• Approximately two-thirds of spiral galaxies also contain a bar structure through their center, as does the Milky Way. 
• The disk of stars orbiting the bulge separates into arms that circle the galaxy.
• These spiral arms contain a wealth of gas and dust and younger stars that shine brightly before their quick demise.
• Spiral galaxies are thought to evolve into elliptical galaxies as the spirals get older. 

Hence only statement 1 is correct.

Roughly 19 million years old fossil jaw bone of a baleen whale estimated to be around nine metres in length found recently.

• These are any cetacean possessing unique epidermal modifications of the mouth called baleen, which is used to filter food from water.
• Most mammals have teeth in their mouth. Baleen whales are a strange exception.
• Baleen is a large rack of fine, hair-like keratin used to filter out small krill from the water.
• This structure enabled baleen whales to feed efficiently on enormous shoals of tiny zooplankton in productive parts of the ocean, which facilitated the evolution of larger and larger body sizes.
• There are 14 species of baleen whale including the blue, bowhead, right, humpback, minke and gray whale.
• Baleen whales are generally larger than toothed whales except for the sperm whale which is very big and has teeth.
• Many baleen whales migrate annually, travelling long distances between cold water feeding areas and warm water breeding areas.
• The large whale fossils from Australasia and South America seem to suggest that for most of the evolutionary history of baleen whales, whenever a large baleen whale shows up in the fossil record, it is in the Southern Hemisphere.
• Baleen whales are ecosystem engineers, their huge bodies consuming tremendous amounts of energy.
• Upon death, these whales provide an abundance of nutrients to deep-sea ecosystems.

Hence both statements are correct.

Recently, the President of India presented the National Sports and Adventure Awards 2023 at a function in Rashtrapati Bhavan.

• National Sports Awards are given every year to recognize and reward excellence in sports.
• Categories of National Sports Award
• Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award: It is considered India’s highest sporting honour, the Khel Ratna was established in 1991-92.
• The award is named after the Indian hockey legend, Major Dhyan Chand
• The award is given for outstanding performances in sports spanning over a period of four years and the Khel Ratna winners receive a medallion, certificate and a cash prize.
• Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Trophy (MAKA): It was instituted in 1956–1957. It is given to an institution or university for top performance in inter-university tournaments over the last one year.

Hence only statement 1 is correct.