GS Analyst
Daily Current Affairs

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers has developed a portable desalination unit that can remove particles and salts to generate drinking water.

About Portable Device:

• The suitcase-sized device requires less power to operate than a cell phone charger.
• It can also be driven by a small, portable solar panel.
• The device automatically generates drinking water that exceeds World Health Organization (WHO) quality standards.
• While other portable desalination units that require water to pass through filters, this device utilises electrical power to remove particles from drinking water.
• Eliminating the need for replacement filters greatly reduces the long-term maintenance requirements. 
  • This could enable the unit to be deployed in remote and severely resource-limited areas.
  • It could also be used to aid refugees fleeing natural disasters or by soldiers carrying out long-term military operations.

How does it work?

• The unit relies on a technique called ion concentration polarisation, which was pioneered by Han’s group more than 10 years ago.
• Rather than filtering water, the process applies an electrical field that causes positively or negatively charged particles — including salt molecules, bacteria, viruses — to be repelled as they flow past.
• The charged particles are funnelled into a second stream of water that is eventually discharged.
• The process removes solids, allowing clean water to pass through the channel.
  
  

About Desalination:

• Desalination is any process that removes excess salts and other minerals from water.
• In most desalination processes, feed water is treated and two streams of water are produced:
• Treated fresh water that has low concentrations of salts and minerals
• Concentrate or brine, which has salt and mineral concentrations higher than that of the feed water
• The feed water for desalination processes can be seawater or brackish water.
• Brackish water contains more salt than does fresh water and less than salt water.
  • It is commonly found in estuaries, which are the lower courses of rivers where they meet the sea, and aquifers, which are stores of water underground.

Desalination technologies:

Two distillation technologies are used primarily around the world for desalination: thermal distillation and membrane distillation.

• Thermal distillation technologies are widely used in the Middle East, primarily because the region’s petroleum reserves keep energy costs low.
  • The three major, large-scale thermal processes are multistage flash distillation (MSF), multi-effect distillation (MED), and vapor compression distillation (VCD).
  • Another thermal method, solar distillation, is typically used for very small production rates.
• Membrane distillation technologies are primarily used in the United States.
  • These systems treat the feed water by using a pressure gradient to force feed the water through membranes.
  • The three major membrane processes are electrodialysis (ED), electrodialysis reversal (EDR), and reverse osmosis (RO).

The Dean of Madurai Medical College was removed recently after a batch of new students were administered an oath in Sanskrit attributed to the ancient Indian sage Maharshi Charaka instead of the traditional Hippocratic Oath in English.

About the controversy:

• The controversy began after the National Medical Commission (NMC), the regulator for medical education and practices (which replaced the Medical Council of India in 2020) suggested to medical colleges that the Hippocratic Oath should be replaced by a “Charak Shapath”.
• Indian Medical Association (IMA) later had “assured that Charak Shapath will be optional and will not be forced to replace the Hippocratic Oath”.
• NMC again issued a circular on “Implementation of new Competency Based Medical Education for Undergraduate Course Curriculum”, in which it said: “Modified ‘Maharshi Charak Shapath’ is recommended when a candidate is introduced to medical education”.

What is the Hippocratic Oath that the Charak Shapath would replace?

• The Hippocratic Oath is attributed to Hippocrates of the island of Kos, a Greek physician of the classical period (4th-5th centuries BC), broadly corresponding to the period from the death of the Buddha (486 BC) to the rise of the Mauryas (321 BC) in India.
• Among the great contemporaries of Hippocrates, the so-called “father of modern medicine”, were the Athenian philosopher Plato and his teacher Socrates, and Plato’s student and a tutor of Alexander the Great,
• The Oath is a charter of ethical principles that physicians over the ages have sworn to uphold in the practice of their profession.
• The earliest available fragments of what is understood to be the original oath date back to the late 3rd century AD, and a millennium-old version is kept in the library of the Holy See.
• To Hippocrates is attributed a collection of 70 books on medicine called ‘The Corpus Hippocraticum’; most scholars, however, agree that the Hippocratic Oath itself may not have been the work of the individual identified as the historical Hippocrates.

Who was Charaka and what is Charak Samhita?

• The new oath of choice is in honour of Maharshi Charaka, considered one of the principal contributors to the ancient science of Ayurveda and the author of the medical treatise, 'Charaka Samhita'.
• The Charak Samhita is a medical pharmacopoeia and collection of commentaries and discussions on medical practices that is dated to the 1st-2nd centuries AD.
• Along with the compendium of Susruta (c. 4th century AD), which is about surgery, the Charak Samhita is considered the foundational text of ancient Indian medicine, which was an evolved system of understanding and treating disease that resembled that of Hippocrates and Galen (2nd century AD), and was in some ways ahead of the Greeks.
• The ancient Indian interest in physiology is understood to have drawn from yoga and mysticism, and to have been enriched by the growth and spread of Buddhism to new lands, the arrival of the first Christian missionaries, and the contact with Hellenic practitioners of medicine.
• In theory and praxis, ayurvedic medicine today remains broadly unchanged from these ancient Indian principles.
  

The medical ethics of Charaka

• The physician was an important and respected member of ancient Indian society, and medical practice followed rules of professional conduct and ethical principles.
• Charaka instructs a physician to preach to his pupils at a ceremony at the end of their apprenticeship.

“…You must strive with all your soul for the health of the sick. You must not betray your patients, even at the cost of your own life… You must not get drunk, or commit evil, or have evil companions… You must be pleasant of speech…and thoughtful, always striving to improve your knowledge.

“When you go to the home of a patient you should direct your words, mind, intellect, and senses nowhere but to your patient and his treatment… Nothing that happens in the house of the sick man must be told outside, nor must the patient’s condition be told to anyone who might do harm by that knowledge to the patient or to another.”

• This ethical code is universal, and remains just as relevant and applicable today.

From two Tokyo Oly mpians being banned to Noida Police seizing fake drugs and supplements worth Rs 2 crore, anabolic steroids have often been in news.

What are anabolic steroids?

• Anabolic steroids are essentially lab-made versions of the male hormone testosterone and have a similar effect of increasing muscle mass as the natural hormone does.
• It also increases male characteristics in a person, such as facial hair and a deeper voice.
• These are, however, very different from the steroids that are prescribed by doctors for inflammations, several autoimmune diseases, or to suppress the body’s immune system during a Covid-19 infection.
• These medicines are called corticosteroids and are lab-made molecules that mimic the action of the hormone called cortisol that controls the body’s stress response, metabolism, and inflammation.
• Unlike corticosteroids, anabolic steroids have limited medical use. “Anabolic steroids are mainly misused by athletes and sportspersons nowadays.
• Years ago, it was rampantly used by bodybuilders and was given to them in pudiyas.
• Although this practice is fading away, people still take it following the advice of their gym trainers. 

What are they prescribed for?

• The anabolic steroids have a very limited medical role and are mainly used by doctors to help patients gain weight after a severe illness or injury.
• It could also be prescribed in small doses to the elderly to build muscle mass and in some cases also helps to treat anaemia.
• Doctors may also prescribe the medicine to men who have low levels of natural testosterone.

What are the health impacts?

• Use of anabolic steroids in the short-term can cause acne and hairfall. Extended misuse of the substance can also lead to gynaecomastia (growth of breasts in men) and erectile dysfunction.
• In women, it can lead to growth of facial hair.
• It may also cause extreme anger, paranoia, and impaired judgement.
• Long-term use can lead to kidney disease and even failure, liver damage and tumours, enlarged heart, and high blood pressure.
• It can also lead to stunted growth in teenagers.
  

A scientist from the Centre of Excellence (CoE) for Bio-resources and Sustainable Development at Kimin in Papumpare district of Arunachal Pradesh has been granted two Indian patents for developing 'Polyherbal formulation for the treatment of painful Diabetic Neuropathy' and 'hybrid cotton patch and a method for its fabrication'.

• Dr Sanjeeb Kalita, the scientist of the centre below the Arunachal Pradesh State Council for Science and Technology (APSCS&T) carried out elementary analysis and growth for each the innovations at Guwahati-based Institute of Advanced Studies in Science and Technology.
• Both the inventions will have a far-reaching impact on the management of painful diabetic neuropathy and broad-spectrum uses as advanced bandage materials respectively

What is a center of excellence?

• A COE (Center of Excellence) is a centralized unit of dedicated people with a mission to streamline access to scarce, high-demand capabilities for rapid execution across the business. 
• A center of excellence (COE) brings together people from different disciplines and provides shared facilities/resources. 
• It is sometimes called a “competency center” or “capability center” in academia.

Centre of Excellence for Bioresources and Sustainable Development:

• It has been established within a record period of 3 years, with the unstinted support and grant of Rs 49 crores by Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Ministry of Science & Technology, and Government of India.
• It is the first-of-its-kind “Centre of Excellence” in the Northeast India.
• The Centre facilitate development of biodiversity and related sectors like horticulture and agriculture.
• The CoE is working on developing a framework for protecting community rights over traditional knowledge, aiming to provide benefits at the community level.
• The centre is working on developing valuable inventions by translational research and development on sustainable utilization of the rich bio-resources of the State.

The Tata Power Community Development Trust (TPCDT) has partnered with the Center for Autism and other Disabilities Rehabilitation Research and Education (CADRRE) to launch ‘Pay Autention - A different mind is a gifted mind’, India’s first bridgital autism support network.  

About the initiative:

• To create awareness about autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and help people understand, accept and support individuals with autism and their parents and caregivers
• The initiative shall pave the way for small towns and rural India to access specialised care and support and help create an auxiliary network of champions for the differently abled.
• This platform shall also enable mentoring, skilling and meaningful livelihoods for people with autism.
• In the first phase, the initiative will primarily focus on supporting children with autism, and subsequently, in the second stage, it will focus on young adults, empowering them with life skills and career readiness.
• It will create a network of grassroot champions, enable early identification, first-level care, teach social skills, ways to ease activities of daily living, hold workshops for sensory and motor development – art and craft, dance, music therapy, physical and mental fitness, communication skills and enable support for academics.
• In addition to this, a toll-free autism support helpline is also launched at 1800 2099 488 to provide interactive support and much-needed professional aid for families in need.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD)

• Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a developmental disability that can cause significant social, communication and behavioral challenges. 
• It can involve a wide range of symptoms and skills.
• ASD can be a minor problem or a disability that needs full-time care in a special facility.
• People with autism have trouble with communication.
• They have trouble understanding what other people think and feel.
• This makes it hard for them to express themselves, either with words or through gestures, facial expressions, and touch.