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Daily Current Affairs

The Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) experiment — which is investigating the slight differences between matter and antimatter by studying a type of particle called the “beauty quark”, or “b quark” has observed three never-before-seen particles.

Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) experiment

• The Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) experiment specializes in investigating the slight differences between matter and antimatter.
• Instead of surrounding the entire collision point with an enclosed detector as do ATLAS and CMS, the LHCb experiment uses a series of subdetectors to detect mainly forward particles – those thrown forwards by the collision in one direction.
• The first subdetector is mounted close to the collision point, with the others following one behind the other over a length of 20 metres.
• The LHCb experiment is situated at one of the four points around CERN’s Large Hadron Collider where beams of protons are smashed together, producing an array of different particles.
  

How does it work?

• The aim of the LHCb experiment is to record the decay of particles containing b and anti-b quarks, collectively known as ‘B mesons’.
• Rather than flying out in all directions, B mesons formed by the colliding proton beams (and the particles they decay into) stay close to the line of the beam pipe, and this is reflected in the design of the detector.

New Finding:

• The three “exotic” additions, a new kind of “pentaquark” and the first-ever pair of “tetraquarks”, to the growing list of new hadrons found at the LHC will help physicists better understand how quarks bind together into these composite particles.
• The first kind was observed in an analysis of “decays” of negatively charged B mesons.
• It is a pentaquark made up of a charm quark and a charm antiquark, and an up, a down, and a strange quark.
• It is the first pentaquark found to contain a strange quark.
• The second kind is a doubly electrically charged tetraquark.
• It is an open-charm tetraquark composed of a charm quark, a strange antiquark, and an up quark and a down antiquark.
• It was spotted together with its neutral counterpart in a joint analysis of decays of positively charged and neutral B mesons.
  

What are quarks?

• Quarks are elementary particles that come in six “flavours”: up, down, charm, strange, top, and bottom.
• They usually combine together in groups of twos and threes to form hadrons such as the protons and neutrons that make up atomic nuclei.
• But they can also combine into four-quark and five-quark particles, called tetraquarks and pentaquarks.
• These exotic hadrons were predicted by theorists about six decades ago, around the same time as conventional hadrons but they have been observed by LHCb and other experiments only in the past 20 years.
  
  

Ukrainian mathematician Maryna Viazovska was recently named as one of four recipients of the 2022 Fields Medal, an honour that is often described the Nobel Prize in mathematics.

• The other winners were French mathematician Hugo Duminil-Copin of the University of Geneva; Korean-American June Huh of Princeton; and Briton James Maynard of the University of Oxford.

Fields Medal

• The Fields Medal is awarded by the International Mathematical Union (IMU), an international non-governmental and non-profit scientific organisation that aims to promote international cooperation in mathematics.
• The Fields Medal is awarded every four years to one or more mathematicians under the age of 40 in recognition of “outstanding mathematical achievement for existing work and for the promise of future achievement”.
• The honour carries a physical medal of 14K gold, 63.5 mm in diameter and weighing 169 g, and with a unit price of approximately 5,500 Canadian dollars. There is also a cash award of CAD 15,000.
  
  
  

History of the Medal

• The 1924 ICM in Toronto adopted a resolution that at each conference, two gold medals would be awarded to recognise outstanding mathematical achievement.
• The Canadian mathematician Prof J C Fields, who was secretary of the 1924 Congress, later donated funds to establish the medals, which were named in his honour.
• In 1966, it was agreed that, in light of the great expansion of mathematical research, up to four medals could be awarded at each Congress.
• The Fields Medals were first awarded in 1936 in Oslo, Norway. The Fields medals were conceived by John Charles Fields, a Canadian mathematician.
• The winners are announced at the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM), which was supposed to be held in Russia this year, but was moved to Helsinki.

Indian-origin winners

• Among the more than 60 mathematicians who have been awarded the Fields Medal since 1936, there are two of Indian origin —
• Akshay Venkatesh of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, who won in 2018, the last time the honour was announced
• Manjul Bhargava of the Department of Mathematics at Princeton University, in 2014.
• Venkatesh was awarded the Medal “for his synthesis of analytic number theory, homogeneous dynamics, topology, and representation theory, which has resolved long-standing problems in areas such as the equi-distribution of arithmetic objects”.
• Bhargava was honoured for “developing powerful new methods in the geometry of numbers, which he applied to count rings of small rank and to bound the average rank of elliptic curves”.

Fields Medal 2022 Awardee:

• Maryna Viazovska, Ukraine:
• The IMU recognised Viazovska’s work on the sphere-packing problem in 8 and 24 dimensions. Previously, the problem had been solved for only three dimensions or fewer.
• She is only the second female Fields Medalist, after the Iranian Maryam Mirzakhani in 2014.
• Briton James Maynard of the University of Oxford: Maynard’s work involved understanding the gaps between prime numbers.
• Hugo Duminil-Copi, France: His contribution was in the theory of phase transitions – such as water turning to ice, or evaporating into steam – in statistical physics.
• Korean-American June Huh: He is recognised for a range of work including the innovative use of geometry in the field of combinatorics, the mathematics of counting and arranging.

Several killed in crackdown on protests in Uzbekistan’s autonomous province of Karakalpakstan. The protests had broken out in response to the government’s plan to restrict the region’s long-held autonomy.

Who are the Karakalpaks?

• The name Karakalpakstan is derived from the Karakalpak people, an ethnic minority group of around 2 million.
• Karakalpak translates to ‘black hat’, referring to their traditional headgear.
• The Karakalpaks consider themselves to be a distinct cultural group in Uzbekistan.
• Their Turkic language – Karakalpak – is closely related to Kazak and is one of the 7 languages of instruction in Uzbekistan’s public schools.
• Their separate language is a crucial aspect of their cultural identity.
  
  
• In their genealogical narrative, the Karakalpaks claim to share a common point of origin with the neighbouring Kazakhs, Uzbeks and Turkmen.
• The Karakalpaks, who live south of the Aral Sea also face serious health problems, such as increased rates of throat cancer, kidney problems and the highest infant mortality rate in the world.
• This is because the fertilisers and pesticides that were used for cotton farming saturated the surrounding land and were carried across the region by wind blowing across the exposed seabed.

What is the region’s history?

• The Karakalpak people settled around the Amu Darya (a river that feeds into the Aral Sea) in the 18th century. 
• Karakalpakstan was formally recognized as an autonomous republic in Uzbekistan’s constitution of 1992, and has the right to secede from on the basis of a nation-wide referendum.
• Violent protests broke out in the impoverished Karakalpakstan after President Shavkat Mirziyoev, who has been in power since 2016, published a draft amendment to the Uzbek constitution recently, which removed the region’s right to secede Uzbekistan by a referendum.
  

Around 100 students of an engineering college in East Sikkim have reported skin infections after coming in contact with Nairobi flies.

What are Nairobi flies?

• Nairobi flies, also called Kenyan flies or dragon bugs, are small, beetle-like insects that belong to two species, Paederus eximius and Paederus sabaeus.
• They are orange and black in colour, and thrive in areas with high rainfall, as has been witnessed in Sikkim in the past few weeks.
• Like most insects, the beetles are attracted by bright light.
  
  

Affecting Humans:

• These flies do not bite, but if disturbed while sitting on anyone’s skin, they release a potent acidic substance that causes burns.
• This substance is called pederin, and can cause irritation if it comes in contact with the skin, leading to lesions or unusual marks or colouring on the skin.
• The skin begins to heal in a week or two, but some secondary infections can occur, especially if the victim scratches the irritated skin.

Preventative measures:

• The main preventative measures to reduce contact with Paederus rove beetles include the use of bed nets, long-sleeve clothing and avoiding sitting under lights at night.
• If a beetle does land on your skin it should be blown or gently brushed off and not crushed. If your skin does come into contact with juices from the beetles, wash the affected area with soap and water.
• If they are squelched and end up leaving toxic fluids on the skin, care should be taken that unwashed hands do not touch any other part of the body, particularly the eyes.

India and Australia decided to strengthen their partnership in the field of projects and supply chains for critical minerals.

• Australia will commit $5.8 million to the three-year India-Australia Critical Minerals Investment Partnership.

What are critical minerals?

• Critical minerals are elements that are the building blocks of essential modern-day technologies, and are at risk of supply chain disruptions.
• These minerals are now used everywhere from making mobile phones, computers to batteries, electric vehicles and green technologies like solar panels and wind turbines.
• Based on their individual needs and strategic considerations, different countries create their own lists.
• However, such lists mostly include graphite, lithium and cobalt, which are used for making EV batteries; rare earths that are used for making magnets and silicon which is a key mineral for making computer chips and solar panels.
• Aerospace, communications and defence industries also rely on several such minerals as they are used in manufacturing fighter jets, drones, radio sets and other critical equipment.
  
  

Why is this resource critical?

• As countries around the world scale up their transition towards clean energy and digital economy, these critical resources are key to the ecosystem that fuels this change.
• Any supply shock can severely imperil the economy and strategic autonomy of a country over-dependent on others to procure critical minerals.
• They are critical as the world is fast shifting from a fossil fuel-intensive to a mineral-intensive energy system.

Steps taken by India:

• India has set up KABIL or the Khanij Bidesh India Limited, a joint venture of three public sector companies, to “ensure a consistent supply of critical and strategic minerals to the Indian domestic market”.
• While KABIL would ensure mineral security of the nation, it would also help in realizing the overall objective of import substitution.
• Australia’s Critical Minerals Facilitation Office (CMFO) and KABIL had recently signed an MoU aimed at ensuring reliable supply of critical minerals to India.

In a significant development, researchers have discovered a novel material called single-crystalline Scandium Nitride that can emit, detect, and modulate infrared light with high efficiencies making it useful for solar and thermal energy harvesting and for optical communication devices. 

• Electromagnetic waves are a renewable energy source used for electricity generation, telecommunication, defence and security technologies, sensors, and healthcare services.
• Scientists use high-tech methods to manipulate such waves precisely -- in dimensions that are thousands of times smaller than the human hair, using specialised materials. 
• Infrared light is difficult to detect and modulate.
• For infrared light applications, intelligent and cutting-edge materials are required which can enable excitation, modulation, and detection at desired spectral range with high efficiencies.
• Only a few existing materials can serve as hosts for light-matter interactions in the infrared spectral range
  

About the new Research:

• Researchers have utilised a scientific phenomenon called polariton excitations that occur in tailored materials when light couples with either the collective free electron oscillations or polar lattice vibrations.
• They have carefully controlled material properties to excite polaritons (a quasi-particle) and achieve strong light-matter interactions in single-crystalline scandium nitride (ScN) using infrared light.
• These exotic polaritons in the ScN can be utilised for solar and thermal energy harvesting.
• Also belonging to the same family of materials as gallium nitride (GaN), scandium nitride is compatible with modern complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) or Si-chip technology and, therefore, could be easily integrated for on-chip optical communication devices.

Xiaomi recently unveiled the ‘Cyberdog’, a robotic quadruped resembling an actual dog.

• According to Xiaomi, the CyberDog will be on show in Mi Homes in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, and Ahmedabad.

About Xiaomi’s CyberDog:

• It is an experimental, open-source machine that developers can build upon.
• Powered by: CyberDog, Xiaomi's entry into the limitless field of quadruped robots, is equipped with 128GB of SSD storage and is powered by Nvidia's Jetson Xavier NX AI Supercomputer for Embedded Edge Systems.
• Sensors: The CyberDog is quick and adapts well to difficult terrain.
  • It is the ideal companion for an assisted living since it has 11 high-precision sensors that provide quick input to direct its movements.
  • CyberDog's capacity to detect its surroundings has improved thanks to Xiaomi's smartphone photography technology.
  • It has a variety of camera sensors, including AI interactive cameras, fisheye binocular cameras, and an Intel RealSenseTM D450 depth module, and its computer vision algorithm can be taught.
• Skills:
  • The CyberDog has the ability to develop navigational maps, calculate its course, evaluate its surroundings in real-time, and avoid impediments.
  • When combined with tracking of facial recognition and human posture, CyberDog is able to build navigational maps in real-time while avoiding obstacles.
  • By establishing a wake word, users may utilize voice assistants to command and manage CyberDog, as well as the companion remote and smartphone app.
  • It can be used for even the most unusual jobs, and the interactions with it have limitless potential.
  • With three USB Type-C ports and an HDMI connector, the robot may be further customized by developers to investigate and include a variety of cutting-edge and imaginative hardware add-ons or software systems, like a searchlight, panoramic camera, motion camera, LiDAR, and more.
    
    

The European Intelligence Unit (EUI) recently released the Global Liveability Index 2022.

• It ranked 173 cities on the basis of their liveability or living conditions, which was determined by five factors — stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure.
• When ranking, out of the five factors, the EUI attaches the highest weightage to stability and culture and environment, which account for 25% each.
• It is followed by healthcare and infrastructure with 20% each and education with 10%.  
• The list, for the first time, included five Indian cities; Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Ahmedabad, and Bangalore. 
• Rank of Indian Cities: All five scored poorly, ranked between 140 and 146. 
• Delhi: 140
• Mumbai: 141
• Chennai: 142
• Ahmedabad: 143
• Bangalore: 146

It is in contrast, since the silicon valley of India topped the ‘Ease of Living Index 2020’, which was released by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.

• The most livable city according to the index is Vienna.
• The Syrian capital, Damascus is the least livable city in the world.

Key observations:

• Bangalore received a score of 46.4, out of 100, in infrastructure. 
• Pakistan’s largest city Karachi was one of the five least livable cities in the world in the index, but it has still scored better than Bangalore in terms of infrastructure. 
• The infrastructure score is based on the quality of roads, public transportation system, international links, energy provision, telecommunications, water, and availability of good quality housing.