Science & Technology Current Affairs Set - 2 2019

Q)The first remote surgery on a human brain using 5G technology was successfully conducted in which city?

USA
Australia
China
Japan

The first remote surgery on a human using 5G technology was successfully conducted in China.
The surgery was a collaboration between tech companies Huawei and China Mobile, and the Chinese PLA General Hospital. Surgeon Ling Zhipei conducted the surgery, although he was physically in South China’s Hainan Province.

Q) A new population of ultraviolet stars has been discovered in which Globular Cluster by Indian astronomers by using the Indian multiwavelength space observatory AstroSat?

NGC 2509
NGC 3789
NGC 2808
NGC 2390

The Indian multi-wavelength space observatory AstroSat, launched in September 2015, continues to yield exciting results. Using this observatory, astronomers from Thiruvananthapuram and Mumbai have identified a new population of ultraviolet stars in the globular cluster NGC 2808. Globular clusters are collections of thousands to millions of stars, moving as one unit.
These stars are tightly held together by gravity of the cluster itself, and are believed to have formed together at roughly the same time. Some globular clusters could be among the oldest objects in our Milky Way, which hosts over 150 of them. NGC 2808 is one of the most massive globular clusters that we know of, and is located at a distance of 47,000 light years from us.

Q)Which country’s Soyuz spacecraft has successfully reached the International Space Station?

Japan
Israel
USA
Russia

Q)Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) has launched which scheme, to fund science projects, on the occasion of National Science Day?

HUNAR
STAR
STRIKE
KAUSHAL

Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) has launched Scheme for Translational and Advanced Research in Science (STARS) to fund science projects.
It was launched on the occasion of National Science Day (NSD) observed every year on 28 February.
Under it, HRD Ministry has approved funds worth Rs 250 crore. These funds will be utilised to sponsor about 500 science projects.
National Technology Day, 2019 was celebrated in India on 11th of May to mark Pokhran nuclear tests anniversary (project shakti) in 1998

Q)Which space agency made its first commercial launch by placing a Saudi satellite in orbit?

JAXA
Boeing
Space X
Orbital

Sciences US space flight company SpaceX carried out its first commercial launch with its Falcon Heavy rocket by placing a Saudi satellite in orbit on April 11, 2019.
The 13,000-pound Saudi Arabian telecommunication satellite is operated by Arabsat and is expected to provide television, internet and mobile phone service to the Middle East, Africa and Europe.

Q)General Electric in association with which IIT has established India’s first ‘Cold Spray’ SMART (Surface Modification and Additive Research Technologies) Laboratory in the institution?

IIT Madras
IIT Delhi
IIT Kharagpur
IIT Bombay

American conglomerate, General Electric in association with IIT-Madras, established India’s first ‘Cold Spray’ SMART (Surface Modification and Additive Research Technologies) Laboratory in the institution thereby IIT-M became the only academic institution with High-Pressure Cold Spray(HPCS) facility in India.
The High-Pressure Cold Spray machinery carried from Plasma Giken, Japan.

Q. The DRDO has successfully test-fired the long-range sub-sonic cruise missile named what?

Nirbhay
Dhruv
Trishul
Vaayu

The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) successfully testfired the long-range sub-sonic cruise missile ‘Nirbhay’ from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur, off the Odisha coast at 11.44 am on April 15, 2019.
The state-of-the-art, all-weather Nirbhay cruise missile is the country’s first indigenously designed and developed long-range cruise missile that can be launched from multiple platforms.

Q) International Day of Human Space Flight was observed on?

April 11
April 12
April 10
April 9

The International Day of Human Space Flight is the celebrated every year on April 12 to mark the anniversary of the first human space flight by Yuri Gagarin in the year 1961.
The day was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly on April 7, 2011

Q) Which astronaut is going to have her mission on the International Space Station (ISS) extended to 328 days, which would set a record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman?

Christina Koch
Sandra Magnus
Jessica Meir
Beth Moses

NASA astronaut Christina Koch going to have her mission on the International Space Station (ISS) extended to 328 days, which would set a record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman.
Koch, who arrived at the space station on March 14 is scheduled to remain in orbit until February 2020 will eclipse the record of 288 days set by former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson in 2016-17.

Q) The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has revealed that which planet in the solar system has a massive solid inner core?

Venus
Saturn
Neptune
Mercury

NASA (The National Aeronautics and Space Administration) has revealed that Mercury, the smallest planet in the solar system has a massive solid inner core.
The final trip around Mercury before crash-landing in 2015 was made by NASA’s ‘MESSENGER’. The spacecraft orbited Mercury for around 2011 to 2015 and it was its second mission to Mercury.
According to NASA’s information, both Mercury and the Earth have metallic cores and like Earth, Mercury’s outer core is of liquid metal. But there are indications that Mercury’s innermost core which is nearly 85% of Mercury’s volume is solid and it is nearly of the same size as Earth’s inner core.

Q) The BepiColombo mission is a collaborative project between the European Space Agency (ESA) and Japan Space Exploration Agency (JAXA) for the exploration of which planet?

Venus
Mercury
Mars
Saturn

Europe and Japan are ready to journey to Mercury together. The BepiColombo mission is a collaborative project between the European Space Agency (ESA) and Japan Space Exploration Agency (JAXA), launching in October or November 2018 on an Ariane 5 rocket.
Because it occupies an extreme position close to our Sun, Mercury plays an important role in helping scientists to develop theories of solar system formation.
BepiColombo will continue the global study of Mercury started by Mariner 10 and continued by MESSENGER.

Q) Universe’s first molecule, formed 14 billion years ago, was detected in space recently. Name the molecule?

Helium hydride ion
Terbium hydride Ion
Curium hydride ion
Mercury hydride ion

Universe’s first molecule, formed 14 billion years ago, detected in space Scientists have detected the most ancient type of molecule in our universe in space for the first time ever.
Helium hydride ion (HeH+) was the first molecule that formed when, almost 14 billion years ago, falling temperatures in the young universe allowed recombination of the light elements produced in the Big Bang.
At that time, ionised hydrogen and neutral helium atoms reacted to form HeH+, said researchers from The Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) in Germany.

Q. NASA’s which spacecraft has detected a “marsquake” on the Red Planet?

Voyager 2
Juno
InSight Lander
Pioneer 11

National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA’s) InSight lander spacecraft has detected what’s believed to be a “marsquake” on the Red Planet.
NASA scientists are still working to confirm the source of the faint trembling. Scientists believe the trembling may not be due to wind or movement of the lander’s robotic arm but from below the Martian surface.
If scientists confirm it would become the first seismic activity ever detected on marks

Q) DRDO has successfully conducted the second test firing of which medium range surface to air defence missile system?

Veera-1D
Kailash-1G
Akash-1S
Jal-1H

Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) successfully conducted the second test firing of the medium range Akash-1S surface to air defence missile system in Balasore off the Odisha coast on May 27, 2019. Akash-1S is a new version of the missile fitted with an indigenously developed seeker, capable of striking down enemy fighter jets, air-tosurface missiles as well as ballistic missiles and drones very effectively.

IIT Delhi

Pulkit Sapra, 26, from Delhi and Suman Muralikrishnan, 27, from Chennai, former students and researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi have created a laptop for visually-impaired called “DotBook”.
Claimed to be the first in India, the laptop has an interface in form of dots or Braille instead of a visual one.

IIT Delhi

Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) to the Government of India and Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT Delhi) have inked Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for setting up a Centre of Excellence for Waste to Wealth Technologies in India as a commemoration of 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi on 2 October 2019.

IIT Delhi

‘Sanfe’, an IIT Delhi incubated startup has launched a stand and pee device for women.
Sanfe, has been launched with a #StandUpForYourself campaign under which 100,000 free samples of the product to be distributed to women across the country. This affordable product provides women the freedom to stand and urinate at the cost of Rs.10.
The trial and testing of the product was done by the AIIMS Delhi.

IIT Hyderabad

Indian Institute of Technology-Hyderabad (IIT-H) has announced the launch of a full-fledged bachelor’s programme in Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, a first for the country and only the third globally.

IIT Hyderabad

India’s first Centre of Excellence for drone development will come up at IIT Hyderabad.
The initiative comes as a part of a tripartite agreement signed between IIT-H and Japan-based Terra Drone Corporation and its associate Terra Drone India.
Researchers at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Hyderabad, have develop smartphone-based system to detect adulteration in milk.
The detector system measures acidity in milk using an indicator paper that changes colour according to acidity.
They have also developed algorithms that can be incorporated on to a smartphone to accurately detect the colour change.

IIT Roorkee

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Roorkee, Uttarakhand has signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to set up an ISROIITR Space Technology Cell (STC) at IIT Roorkee.
STC will cater to the specific needs of future technological and programmatic needs of Indian space programme.

IIT Roorkee

The Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee has identified a new method to detect breast and ovarian cancer.
They identified certain proteins present in the saliva that could act as salivary biomarkers in the diagnosis of breast and ovarian cancers

IIT Kanpur

India’s chief national badminton coach Pullela Gopichand added yet another feather to his cap as he was bestowed an honorary doctorate by IIT Kanpur on the occasion of their 52nd convocation

IIT Ropar

The, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Ropar has developed an app Roshni that would help the Visually Impaired to recognise currency notes.
The app can recognise both old and new notes and gives audio information as to which note you are holding in your hands.
This app was launched in Chandigarh. Roshni is the first Android app, which recognise INR currency notes.

IIT BHU

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated ‘Param Shivay’ Supercomputer of 833 teraflop capacity built at the cost of Rs 32.5 crore under the National Super Computing Mission at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Banaras Hindu University (BHU).

IIT Guwahati

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Guwahati has signed an MoU with The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to set up an IITG-ISRO Space Technology Cell (STC) at the institute
IITG-ISRO STC would be first of its kind in the North-east region to augment research and capacity building processes in the field of space technology

IIT Bhubaneswar

The Prime Minister has dedicated the new campus of IIT-Bhubaneswar at Aragul and will launch a slew of projects related to higher education, health, road and highways and culture
PM Modi also released a commemorative coin and a postage stamp in memory of Paika Rebellion at a function in IIT Bhubaneswar.

IIT Madras

The Robert Bosch Centre for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (RBC-DSAI) was inaugurated at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT M)
Bosch will invest 20 crores (2.5 million euros) over five years in the centre.
The mission of the new center is to create societal impact through multidisciplinary interactions with government, academic, research and industrial collaborators on core challenges in Data Science (DS) and Artificial Intelligence (AI)

IIT Madras

To develop a device that can generate potable water from atmospheric air Indian Institute of Technology-Madras will collaborate with Teerthaa, a sustainable technology company, to develop a device that can generate potable water from air.
Called ‘NERO,’ the ‘optimised desiccant solar-still device’ will produce 4-5 litres of potable water daily.

IIT Madras

Indian Institute of Technology Madras has partnered with ESPNcricinfo to launch Superstats which is a next level artificial intelligence to analyse cricket statistics through machine learning and forecast.
Superstats is developed by a team headed by the IIT Madras research scholars Raghunathan, Rengaswamy, Mahesh Panchagnula along with the ESPN team.

IIT Madras

Scientists from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras have successfully converted petroleum waste-product toluene into benzoic acid.
It uses environment friendly conversion process by using green catalyst and water instead of organic acid as solvent.
Benzoic acid is used as food preservative (E210) and medicine for fungal and bacterial infection.
IIT Madras The Indian Institute of Technology Madras has topped the list of higher education institutes released by the Ministry of Human Resource Development.
The Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, is at the second spot; while IIT Delhi is at the third spot.
The ranking of the institutions across the country is based on the methodology outlined by the National Institutional Ranking Framework or the NIRF, approved by the education ministry. The first list, based on this framework, was published in 2016
IIT Madras American conglomerate, General Electric in association with IIT-Madras, established India’s first ‘Cold Spray’ SMART (Surface Modification and Additive Research Technologies) Laboratory in the institution thereby IIT-M became the only academic institution with High-Pressure Cold Spray(HPCS) facility in India.
The High-Pressure Cold Spray machinery carried from Plasma Giken, Japan. IIT Madras IIT Madras researchers have developed a method for reading documents in Bharati script using a multi-lingual optical character recognition (OCR) scheme.
The team has also created a finger-spelling method that can be used to generate a sign language for hearing-impaired persons.
The scripts that have been integrated include Devnagari, Bengali, Gurmukhi, Gujarati, Oriya, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Tamil.

IIT Madras

Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M) has developed a portable solar-powered cold storage device for storing vegetables, fruits, etc.
It has a capacity of 500 kg. It will help farmers store their produce for sufficient time.
The first unit of the device has been deployed at a farm in Madurantakam in Kancheepuram district, near Chennai.
It has storage facility with temperature in the range of 4 to 10 degree Celsius.

IIT Madras

Researchers at Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IITM) have designed and booted up India’s first microprocessor, Shakti,
which could be used in mobile computing and other devices

IIT Bombay

The Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-Bombay), has emerged as the best institution of India in the 2020 QS World University Ranking.
It is ranked 152 globally. No institute of India is in top 100.
The World-class Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has topped the latest QS World University Rankings for the eighth consecutive year

IIT Bombay

India’s seven bluechip oil firms including IOC and ONGC have signed an agreement with the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay to set up a Centre of Excellence in Oil, Gas and Energy.

IIT Bombay

Engineers from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay) have developed a microprocessor called AJIT which could reduce the country’s dependence on imports.
Powai Labs, a Mumbai-based company, has invested in the venture. It will own, market and support the product.
India’s electronics market is expected to reach $400 billion by 2020.
Graduates of Indian Institute of Technology – Bombay (IIT-B) who are Co-founders of a start-up called Emotix have launched India’s first advanced personal robot Miko 2 for Kids.
Miko 2 is India’s first advanced robot that can see, hear, sense, express, talk, recognize faces, remember names, Identify moods and initiate a conversation.
It learn from its own environment to develop a bond with the child.

IIT Kharagpur

Researchers at IIT Kharagpur have built a smartphone-based application to detect fake currency and also provided solutions for industrial operations ranging from thermal power plants to nuclear radiation tracking.
The image processing application which can detect fake currency can be installed on smartphones and thus be used by people at various points to reduce the chances of fraud.
IIT Kharagpur IIT Kharagpur has signed an MoU with Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) to set up a 1.3 Petaflop high-performance computing facility and data centre funded under the National Supercomputing Mission.
The new supercomputing system would be used for specific challenge domains like cryptography, chemistry, molecular dynamics, drug discovery, artificial intelligence and data sciences where the new system would be utilized.

IIT Kharagpur

IT services major Wipro has partnered with Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur to collaborate on industry-focused applied research in the areas of 5G and artificial intelligence (AI).

IIT Kharagpur

The Ministry of Shipping has signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with IIT Kharagpur for setting up the Centre for Inland and Coastal Maritime Technology (CICMT) at IIT Kharagpur.
The state-of-the-art centre is being set up the under the flagship Sagarmala Programme.

IIT-Kharagpur

IIT-Kharagpur was named the national coordinating institute of the Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration (SPARC) under the Ministry of Human Resource Development
This scheme aims to improve the research ecosystem of India’s higher educational institutions.