Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 18 September 2017

::National::

Sardar Sarovar Dam

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi, inaugurated the Sardar Sarovar Dam.

• With the project’s completion, Gujarat would see a green revolution as farmers in the parched northern and Saurashtra regions would have their lands irrigated.

• Though the dam has been completed in Narmada district of south Gujarat, the massive and sprawling canal network remains woefully incomplete.

• Its potential benefits to the farmers will, therefore, not be realised for many years, till the canal network is in place.

• So far, 50% of the canal network is yet to be built. The main canal and all branch canals have been built but distributary and field channels will take years to be completed.

• The project was delayed by a strong movement by the Narmada BachaoAndolan, led by social activist MedhaPatkar, who opposed the dam on the ground that it displaced thousands of families in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra where thousands of hectares of forest land was submerged.

• A sustained campaign by the activists had also led to the World Bank’s withdrawal from funding the multi-purpose project, which is often described as the lifeline of drought-prone Gujarat.

• In 1985, the World Bank had agreed to provide $450 million as loan to fund the multi-purpose project and subsequently, a prominent U.S. environmental expert, T. Schudder, was appointed consultant to oversee rehabilitation of project-affected families, mostly tribal communities in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.

NDA issued more visas to Pakistanis

• Delhi issued more papers in the first two years of BJP-led government than in the last two years of Congress-led regime

• India issued more visas to Pakistanis in the first two years of the NDA government than in the last two years of the UPA government, according to figures available in the Home Ministry’s annual report and replies in Parliament.

• During 2014-15, India granted 1,72,536 visas to Pakistanis; the number during 2012-13, when the UPA was in power, stood at 132,590.

• Though the number of visas issued in 2016 was not available, the Ministry’s annual report said 1,04,720 Pakistanis had visited India that year.

• The month-wise break-up was not available, but the number of visas issued a month averaged out at 7,916 during 2014.

• The BJP-led government came to power in May 2014. After deducting the average number of visas issued per month, those issued in the seven months of the NDA government in 2014 came to 132,956, marginally higher than the UPA government’s monthly average of 6,062 during 2013.

• In 2012, India and Pakistan agreed to a new visa agreement to promote people-to-people contact.

• In August 2016, the Home Ministry put in place an electronic visa clearance process for Pakistani citizens.

• The system was initiated after the Indian High Commission in Pakistan flagged a huge backlog of visa applications from Pakistani citizens for want of security clearance.

• The official said that earlier, security agencies were given 40 days to do the checks before a visa was issued to a Pakistani citizen, but the duration was increased to 60 last year.

• For the countries in the restricted category, such as Pakistan, China and Afghanistan, the visa applications have to be cleared by the Home Ministry.

• During 2015, the Ministry issued a notification allowing Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Sikhs from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan, who had fled religious persecution, to stay in India even after the expiry of their documents.

• It also issued an executive order to grant citizenship to members of the minority community who had entered India on or before December 31, 2014.

• The Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2015, which would give constitutional backing to the order is being studied by a joint committee of Parliament.

NGT disappointed for delay in notifying elephant corridor

• The National Green Tribunal has expressed extreme disappointment over the lethargic pace of notifying elephant corridors fixed paths which connect traditional elephant habitats in Odisha.

• Adjudicating the case filed by the Wildlife Society of Orissa, Justice S. P. Wangdi, judicial member, and P. C. Mishra, expert member, of the NGT, Eastern Zone Bench, directed the Odisha government to give a specific timeframe for completion of processes before publication of the notification in respect of the elephant corridors.

• In 2010, the State government had identified 14 corridors, which would not only have helped the elephants move without any disturbances, but also increased chances of exchange of genetic diversity interchange.

• Later, another nine corridors were identified. However, the government has been dilly-dallying in notifying the corridors that would have given legal sanctity for their preservation.

• The State government on January 13, 2017, had categorically stated that the work of assessing habitat viability and ground-truthing of the already identified elephant corridors had been handed over to the Asian Nature

• Conservation Foundation (ANCF). The report in respect of which was expected to be received by early 2017. This has been repeated by the government in the subsequent affidavit filed on February 20,” the order says.

• As per the latest census figure, Odisha had 1976 elephants in 2017, 22 more elephants compared to 2015. During the past five years (since 2013-14), elephants have come out of forests regularly in 26 of the 30 districts.

PDS digitisation- lot to be done

• The Narendra Modi government’s claim to ensure end-to-end digitisation of the Public Distribution System (PDS) is coming to naught even after three years of being in mission mode.

• At least 11 States have not taken the elementary step of digitising fair price shops and nine other States, including Uttar Pradesh, have hardly made any progress.

• The project was launched in 2012 at a cost of Rs. 884 crore to ensure that, at every step from field to fork, the government would be able to track the movement of foodgrains so that they reached the right beneficiaries.

• As part of the effort, all fair price or ration shops were to be digitised. But out of 5.26 lakh ration shops, only 51% have been digitised in three years, it was found at a review meeting chaired by the Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Ram Vilas Paswan.

• The numbers are most stark in the northeast. Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland have cited connectivity issues for their inability to commence the process of digitisation.

• Jammu & Kashmir, Kerala, Punjab and West Bengal fall in this category of non-starters, too.

• Another nine States have made meagre progress. In Bihar, less than 1% of ration shops are digitised; the figure is 1% for Tripura, Delhi and Uttarakhand. Uttar Pradesh fares better with 16% shops digitised.

• The project also calls for automation of the supply chain online monitoring of stock positions in godowns, tracking the movement of the food grains from the godowns to the fair price shops, SMS alerts to beneficiaries, etc.

• Thirteen States are yet to take the first step in this direction.

• The Centre, meanwhile, has sought to present the digitisation of 23.11 crore ration cards as a great success, in the process uncovering 2.48 crore bogus cards, which have been deleted to save the nation a subsidy of Rs. 15,000 crore per annum.

U.S.’s insistence that India to reduce ties with North Korea

• As war clouds gathered over the Korean peninsula following the North Korean missile tests, visiting U.S. officials have asked India to cut down ties with Pyongyang.

• American pressure on the issue has been rising over the last few months even as India joined Japan recently in describing North Korea as a common threat.

• An India-Japan joint statement issued at the end of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit last week called upon North Korea to roll back its nuclear and missile programmes.

• India and Japan pledged to work together to deal with the current serious situation and called on the international community to rigorously and fully implement relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions to maximise pressure on North Korea.

• It was the second time in two months that the U.S. conveyed such a message. The Hinduhad reported in July that a senior U.S. diplomat had visited New Delhi with the same communication.

• The American insistence that India reduce ties with North Korea is an important move as it aims to draw New Delhi more strongly into the East Asian crisis.

• The message also reflects recent Indian arguments about North Korea as stated by a high-level diplomat who recounted Pakistan’s role in arming it with nuclear knowhow as a reason for India’s continued concern.

• India has repeatedly deplored the recent missile and nuclear tests by Pyongyang though bilateral ties with the government of Kim Jong-un have remained more or less undisturbed.

• India played a key role in the resolution of the Korean war during the early 1950s and has maintained diplomatic ties with Pyongyang.

• In April this year, India supported the U.N. in banning trade with North Korea though the Ministry of External Affairs has maintained that Indian trade has consisted of humanitarian ingredients like food items and medicines.

• However, a report in 2016 had revealed that the Dehradun-based Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific (CSSTEAP) was one of the institutes that trained North Korean scientists, in violation of U.N. sanctions.

Since several months six High Courts don’t have regular CJs

• Six High Courts in the country are without regular Chief Justices for the past several months, and at least four Chief Justices of various High Courts will be retiring in 2017.

• The acting Chief Justices in the six High Courts are Justices Nishita Mhatre (Calcutta), Gita Mittal (Delhi), Sanjay Karol (Himachal Pradesh), D.N. Patel (Jharkhand), N. Kotiswar Singh (Manipur) and Ramesh

• Ranganathan in the High Court of Judicature for the States of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

• Acting Chief Justices take over the responsibilities of the top judge of the State judiciary as a temporary arrangement. They are meant to fill the vacuum for a short time till the formalities for the appointment of a regular Chief Justice are completed.

• However, Justice Ranganathan has been the acting Chief Justice of the High Court of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh since July 30, 2016. That is well over a year.

• Justice Mhatre has been the acting Chief Justice since December 1, 2016, Justice Mittal since April 14, 2017, Justice Karol since April 25, 2017, Justice Patel since June 10, 2017, and Justice Singh since July 1, 2017.

• The year will also see four crucial retirements in the State judiciaries. Justice Mhatre is set to retire on September 19.

• This will be followed by the retirement of Karnataka High Court Chief Justice S.K. Mukherjee on October 9. Kerala High Court Chief Justice Navaniti Prasad Singh will retire on November 5. Finally, Bombay High Court Chief Justice Manjula Chellur will retire on December 4.

• Again, the transfer of Justice K.M. Joseph from the Uttarakhand HC to the Hyderabad HC as its Chief Justice is still believed to be under consideration by the government.

• The Supreme Court collegium had recommended the transfer around May 2016. Sources say the government cannot “sit on” a collegium recommendation. It has either to approve or disapprove the recommendation and, in the latter case, send it back to the collegium.

• Normally, the government has to convey its decision on a collegium recommendation in three months. Justice J. Chelameswar, one of the judges in the Supreme Court collegiums, had even sent a strongly worded dissent note for not elevating Justice Joseph to the Supreme Court.

• This is the situation even as the statistics on judicial vacancies in high courts look bleak at 413 out of a total approved strength of 1079 in all the 24 high courts as of September 1, 2017. In some high courts, vacancies are more than the actual number of judges working. In Karnataka HC, there are 35 vacancies compared to 27 working judges.

• In Calcutta HC, there are 41 judicial vacancies to 31 working judges. The same is the case in Manipur, which has three vacancies to two working judges.

SAIL supplied 80% of steel for Sardar Sarovar Project

• The state-owned Steel Authority of India Ltd. said that it had supplied 80% of the steel required for the construction of the Sardar Sarovar Project.

• In a statement, SAIL said it supplied about 85,000 tonnes of steel to Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd. and had partnered in one of the most prestigious and important national projects.

• The company said it was part of the large hydraulic engineering project involving the construction of a series of large irrigation and hydroelectric multi-purpose dams on the Narmada river. Of the 30 dams planned on Narmada river, the Sardar Sarovar is the largest structure to be built.

• The Sardar Sarovar project is the second largest concrete gravity dam (by volume) in the world after the Grand Coulee Dam in the U.S.and has the world’s third largest spillway discharging capacity. A part of the Narmada Valley Project, it will help in irrigation and electrical power supply.

::INTERNATIONAL::

Rohingya issue

• Myanmar’s Army chief has urged the country to unite over the “issue” of the Rohingya, a Muslim group he says has no roots in the country, and which his troops are accused of systematically purging.

• The military says its “clearance operations” in northern Rakhine State are aimed at flushing out Rohingya militants who attacked police posts on August 25. But the violence has engulfed the border region and triggered an exodus of more than 4,00,000 Rohingya to Bangladesh.

• UN leaders have described the campaign as having all the hallmarks of “ethnic cleansing” of the Rohingya, a stateless group that has endured years of persecution and repression.

• Myanmar’s government hinted that it may not take back Rohingya who fled across the border, accusing those refugees of having links to the militants.

• Those who fled the villages made their way to the other country for fear of being arrested as they got involved in the violent attacks. Legal protection will be given to the villages whose residents did not flee.

Afghanistan is considering training and arming 20,000 civilians

• Afghanistan is considering training and arming 20,000 civilians to defend territories where Islamist militants have been driven out, officials say, sparking fears the local forces could become another thuggish militia.

• The proposal for a government-backed armed group that would protect its own communities from the Taliban and the Islamic State (IS) group comes as Afghanistan’s security forces, demoralised by killings and desertions, struggle to beat back a rampant insurgency.

• But the proposal has raised concerns that the local forces could become unruly and turn into another abusive militia terrorising the people it is supposed to defend.

• The Afghan government’s expansion of irregular forces could have enormously dangerous consequences for civilians.

• American and Afghan officials said the fighters would come under the command of the Afghan Army and be better trained than the Afghan Local Police — a village-level force set up by the U.S. in 2010 and accused of human rights violations.

Evolution to be taught for the last time in Turkish schools

• Students in Turkey are returning to school where they will be taught evolution for the last time in their biology classes. Next fall, evolution and Charles Darwin will be scrapped from their textbooks.

• Turkey has announced an overhaul of more than 170 topics in the country’s school curriculum, including removing all direct references to evolution from high school biology classes.

• The upcoming changes have caused uproar, with critics calling them a reshaping of education along the conservative, Islam-oriented government’s line.

• Education Minister IsmetYilmaz said the new “value-based” programme had simplified topics in “harmonisation with students’ development.” He said evolutionary biology, which his Ministry deemed was too advanced for high school, would still be taught in universities.

• Other changes include teaching about jihad in religion classes as the “love of homeland”, and a lessened emphasis on Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish republic . Atatürk instituted the separation of state and religion, but President RecepTayyipErdoğan’s party has challenged that strict split with a more religious approach.

• Turkey’s education system is already reeling from the trauma of the failed July 15, 2016 coup attempt and the new scholastic programme highlights that government victory as “a legendary, heroic story”.

• More than 33,000 of the nation’s teachers about 4% of them have been purged in a government crackdown after the coup, nearly 5,600 academics have been dismissed and some 880 schools shuttered for alleged links to terror groups.

• The belief in creationism that life originated and changed through divine creation is widespread in Turkey. Many educators are worried because Turkish students are already globally ranked “below average” in science, mathematics and reading compared to their peers across the world.

• The new curriculum will be rolled out in steps and assessed. This year, students in first, fifth and ninth grades will use the updated programme. Other classes, including the changed biology programme, will be fully integrated next fall.

::ECONOMY::

Shell companies

• The Centre has initiated action against more than two lakh shell companies as part of Operation Clean Money. Separately, the market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India has identified 331 companies and initiated action against them.

• The Companies Act, 2013 has not defined what a ‘shell company’ is and as to what kind of activities would lead to a company being termed a ‘shell’.

• Shell companies are typically corporate entities which do not have any active business operations or significant assets in their possession. The government views them with suspicion as some of them could be used for money laundering, tax evasion and other illegal activities.

• In India, there is no specific law relating to “shell companies.” However, some laws help, to an extent, in curbing illegal activities such as money laundering and can indirectly be used to target shell companies — Benami Transaction (Prohibition) Amendment Act 2016; The Prevention of Money Laundering Act 2002 and The Companies Act, 2013.

• Companies can be removed from the rolls of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs by two means: strike off by Registrar of Companies (RoC) — (Section 248 (1) of the Companies Act, 2013) and voluntary strike off — (Section 248 (2) of the Companies Act, 2013). Voluntary closure can be done with the approval of the board and shareholders and the firm should have nil liabilities.

• The strike off happens in case of companies which have failed to commence business within a year of incorporation.

• Also, in case of companies that are not carrying on any business or operation for a period of two immediately preceding financial years and have not made any application within such period for obtaining the status of a ‘dormant company’ under Section 455 of the Companies Act can be struck off by the RoC unless cause is shown to the contrary.

• The RoC issues a show-cause notice to such companies and their directors seeking their response within 30 days. If the response is not satisfactory, the company’s name would be removed from the register.

• As per Section 455 of the Companies Act, 2013, a company that does not have significant financial activity or has been inactive can apply to the RoC and obtain the status of a dormant company.

• The company shall be a dormant company on the rolls of the RoC until it follows all the provisions of Section 455. If it fails to do so, the RoC shall have powers to strike of their names from the Register of Companies.

• A dormant company gets its title in two ways: it has chosen to get a ‘dormant’ status from the RoC by way of an application and is in compliance of the requirements of Section 455.

• Further, in case a company has not filed financial statements or annual returns for two financial years consecutively, the RoC shall issue notice and include it in the register of ‘dormant’ companies. But a shell company is one which is typically suspected of illegal activities.

Festive season to push demand for Gold

• The country’s gold imports recorded a three-fold jump to $15.24 billion during the April-August period of the current fiscal, Commerce Ministry data showed.

• Gold imports, which has a bearing on the country’s current account deficit (CAD), stood at Rs. 5.08 billion in April-August 2016-17.

• In August this year, imports of the precious metal rose to Rs. 1.88 billion from Rs. 1.11 billion in the same month of the previous fiscal.

• Surge in gold imports last month contributed to the widening of trade deficit to $11.64 billion as against $7.7 billion in August 2016.

• The imports are expected to increase on account of the forthcoming festival season, which will start from the end of this month.

• Increase in inbound shipments of gold is also one of the reasons for higher CAD.

• CAD rose sharply to $14.3 billion or 2.4% of GDP at the end of first quarter of 2017-18. In general terms, CAD refers to the difference between inflow and outflow of foreign exchange that has an impact on exchange rate.

• Worried over surge in gold imports from South Korea, with which India has a free trade agreement, the government has restricted inbound shipments of the precious metal.

Rapid rise in gold imports from Asian nation causes alarm; ‘criminal’ angle comes under lens

• India is looking to plug loopholes in its Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with South Korea following concerns over a recent sudden surge in imports of gold and related articles from that country.

• Authorities are also learnt to be probing a possible ‘criminal angle’ behind the recent rapid rise in imports of the yellow metal from South Korea.

• The rise has happened due to certain firms, ‘owned and operated by some Indians’, allegedly misusing the India-South Korea FTA that allows duty-free import of the precious metal and its articles.

• Gold imports from South Korea had shot up to about $340 million in the period July 1-August 3, 2017, compared with about $71 million for all of FY17. The implementation of the Good and Services Tax (GST) from July 1 led to the import surge.

• Pre-GST, gold imports through the non-FTA channel attracted a 10% basic customs duty (BCD) and an additional 12.5% countervailing duty (CVD), while those from the FTA route were levied a 12.5% CVD (as the FTA eliminated the customs duty on gold imports) which discouraged such gold imports. Under the new tax regime, a 3% GST replaced the CVD.

• This meant gold imports from the non-FTA route attracted 10% BCD and 3% GST, while those from the (S. Korea) FTA channel paid only 3% GST, which could be later claimed as input tax credit. What has raised eyebrows is that South Korea is not among the world’s leading producers or exporters of gold and related items.

• Significantly, the authorities are examining a possible criminal angle in such transactions as those entities were allegedly sending gold medallion directly from Dubai to South Korea and then exporting to India, violating FTA norms. Under the FTA, duty-free import of gold medallion into India is currently allowed only if it has met the norm of ‘Change in Tariff Heading’ under the Harmonised System Code.

• This means one could send gold bars and rods from a third country to South Korea, convert them into medallion there, export to India and avail the zero-duty benefit. Though the Centre had last month ‘restricted’ imports of jewellery, precious metal and related items from South Korea, official sources said it was only a temporary measure.

• In an upcoming trade meeting with South Korea, India will push for inclusion of tighter norms in the FTA on imports of gold and its items to prevent misuse.

• India will insist on a clause in the FTA specifying the criteria of (at least 35%) ‘value addition’ as well as ‘Change in Tariff Sub-Heading’ to ensure that the item has undergone substantial transformation in South Korea, and not been just routed through that country to take advantage of duty-free norms.

• Only those furnishing the required certificate, stating the criteria have been met, will be allowed FTA benefits. Else, such imports from South Korea will attract 10% duty. Since gold is a sensitive item for India, the other plan is to shift gold and articles to the negative list in the FTA. Work is also on to impose safeguard duty (12.5%) on gold imports from South Korea.

::SPORTS::

Dhoni completes the coveted landmark of 100 international half-centuries

• M.S. Dhoni completed the coveted landmark of 100 international half-centuries across all three formats during his knock of 79 against Australia in the first one-dayer.

• Dhoni, 36, is the 13th player in history to complete a century of half-centuries.

• He is the fourth Indian after Sachin Tendulkar (164), Rahul Dravid (146), and Sourav Ganguly (107).

• It was Dhoni’s 66th ODI half-century in his 302nd ODI. He has 33 knocks of 50 and above in 90 Tests and the one in 78 T20Is.

Hamilton wins Singapore Grand Prix

• Lewis Hamilton won a chaotic and rain-hit Singapore Grand Prix to seize control of the Formula One World championship as his title rival Sebastian Vettel crashed out on the first lap.

• Ferrari’s Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen, and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen all went out just after the start of the first wet race in Singapore, which saw three safety cars and finished with only 12 drivers.

• It all played perfectly into the hands of Mercedes driver Hamilton, who went from fifth on the grid to first and held off Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo to clinch his third win in a row.

• With his 60th race victory and seventh this season, Hamilton who had said he needed a “miracle” after struggling in qualifying stands 28 points ahead of Vettel with six Grands Prix left this year.

Sindhu wins Korean Open Super Series

• India’s Olympic and World silver medallist shuttler P.V. Sindhu exacted sweet revenge of her World Championship heart-break as she defeated NozomiOkuhara of Japan in a thrilling summit clash to clinch the women’s singles title at the Korea Open Super Series.

• Fifth-seeded Sindhu overcame the eighth-seeded Okuhara 22-20, 11-21, 20-18 in yet another energy-sapping contest that lasted an hour and 23 minutes to win the $600,000 tournament. It was the 22-year-old’s third Super Series title of her career.

• Meanwhile, unseeded Indonesian Anthony SinisukaGinting defeated compatriot Jonatan Christie for the men’s title.

::SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY::

Magnetic therapy to treat phobias

• Stimulating the brain with magnetic fields can help people overcome anxiety disorder and irrational phobias such as fear of heights or spiders, a study has found.

• Anxiety disorders and fears can sometimes affect people to a point that they are unable to follow a normal daily routine.

• “Cognitive behavioural therapy is an excellent treatment option,” said Martin J. Herrmann, from the Wurzburg University Hospital in Germany. This form of therapy exposes anxiety patients to the situations they feel threatened by — under the individual psychological supervision of an expert. But studies have shown that this type of intervention does not benefit all persons equally.

• University of Wurzburg researchers have been looking for ways to improve the patients’ response to cognitive behavioural therapy — by using the transcranial magnetic stimulation. In fact, a positive effect was found on the study participants treated with this method.

• “We knew from previous studies that a specific region in the frontal lobe of the human brain is important for unlearning anxiety,” said Mr. Herrmann.

• Initial studies have shown that magnetically stimulating this brain region can improve the effectiveness of unlearning anxiety responses in the laboratory.

• Virtual reality test

• The team investigated whether the method works for treating a fear of heights.

• For the study, 39 participants with a pronounced fear of heights were taken to dizzying heights during two sessions — however not in real life but using virtual reality. The scientists stimulated the frontal lobe of some of the anxiety patients for about 20 minutes before entering the virtual world; the other group was only administered a pseudo stimulation.

• “The findings demonstrate that all participants benefit from the therapy in virtual reality and the positive effects of the intervention are still clearly visible even after three months,” Mr. Herrmann said.

Scientists to return from Mars like habitat in Hawaii

• Six Nasa scientists, who were living in isolation on a Mars-like habitat in Hawaii since January to determine astronauts’ psychology and requirements during manned space missions, will return to civilization.

• The crew of four men and two women were quarantined on a vast plain below the summit of the giant volcano Mauna Loa one of Hawaii’s five volcanoes as well as the world’s largest.

• They remained there for an eight-month simulation activity to gain a better understanding and to get a bit of a feel for how astronauts would respond mentally, physically, and most important, psychologically to a long-term on a manned space mission as well as in an inhospitable environment.

The night side of Venus

• Scientists have characterised wind and cloud patterns of the night side of planet Venus for the first time, and found that it behaves very differently from the part facing the Sun.

• The night side exhibits unexpected and previously-unseen cloud types, morphologies, and dynamics — some of which appear to be connected to features on the planet’s surface.

• Venus’ atmosphere is dominated by strong winds that whirl around the planet far faster than Venus itself rotates. This phenomenon, known as ‘super-rotation’, sees Venusian winds rotating up to 60 times faster than the planet below, pushing and dragging along clouds within the atmosphere as they go.

• These clouds travel fastest at the upper cloud level, some 65 to 72 km above the surface.

• They focussed on the night side because it had been poorly explored; we can see the upper clouds on the planet’s night side via their thermal emission, however, it’s been difficult to observe them properly because the contrast in our infrared images was too low to pick up enough detail.

• The team used the Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer on European Space Agency’s Venus Express spacecraft to observe the clouds in the infrared.

• Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer enabled us to see these clouds properly for the first time, allowing us to explore what previous teams could not, and we discovered unexpected and surprising results.

Al system can accurately identify signs of Alzheimer’s

• Scientists have developed an artificial intelligence system that can accurately identify signs of Alzheimer’s disease almost 10 years before clinical symptoms appear.

• Researchers from the University of Bari in Italy developed a machine-learning algorithm to discern structural changes in the brain caused by Alzheimer’s disease.

• Using MRI scans, the system detected early signs with 84% accuracy by identifying changes in how regions of the brain are connected. They trained the algorithm using 67 MRI scans, 38 of which were from people who had Alzheimer’s and 29 from healthy controls, the New Scientist reported. The idea was to teach the algorithm to correctly classify and discriminate between diseased and healthy brains, researchers said.

• The team then tested the algorithm on a second set of scans from 148 subjects. Of these, 52 were healthy, 48 had Alzheimer’s disease and 48 had mild cognitive impairment (MCI) but were known to have developed Alzheimer’s disease 2.5 to nine years later.

• The system distinguished between a healthy brain and one with Alzheimer’s with an accuracy of 86%. Crucially, it could also tell the difference between healthy brains and those with MCI with an accuracy of 84%.

• This shows that the algorithm could identify changes in the brain that lead to Alzheimer’s almost a decade before clinical symptoms appear.

• Cerebrospinal fluid analyses and imaging using radioactive tracers can tell us to what extent the brain is covered with plaques and tangles, and are able to predict relatively accurately who is at high risk of developing Alzheimer’s 10 years later.

Thirdhand smoke can damage liver, brain tissues

• Exposure to thirdhand-smoke (THS) can significantly harm your liver and brain tissues within a month with the effect worsening over time, scientists have warned.

• Thirdhand-smoke results when exhaled smoke and smoke emanating from the tip of burning cigarettes gets on surfaces such as clothing, hair, homes, and cars. THS can cause hyperactivity, liver and lung damage, type 2 diabetes and wound-healing complications in mice.

• Researchers investigated the effects of THS exposure on biological molecular markers or “biomarkers” found in serum, and in liver and brain tissues.

• THS exposure as early as one month resulted in liver damage. THS exposure for two months resulted in further molecular damage, and at four to six months caused even more such damage

• The mice showed insulin resistance after long—term THS exposure.

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