Current Affairs Questions & Answers - Sep 23, 2016

ANSWER: Space Launch System

Explanation:
US Space Agency NSA is building the world’s largest and most powerful rocket in Michoud Assembly Facility in the United States. Called SLS or Space Launch System, the rocket will carry 2.3 million pounds of liquid, oxygen and liquid to fuel engines.

• It is being prepared for moon missions in 2018 and other Mars and deep space explorations in the 2030s
• To power the Mars rocket, core stage carried 2.3 million pounds of liquid hydrogen and oxygen to fuel the 4 RS-25 engines
• Engineers just completed welding the largest part of the core stage
• The 130 foot tall liquid hydrogen tank will provide fuel for the first SLS flight in 2018
• SLS rocket has been designed to support missions to the moon in 2018 and house large hardware like landers, habitats, and supplies needed to travel extensive distances to explore places like Mars and other deep space destinations.
• Michoud’s Vertical Assembly Centre is welding many of the main elements of the core stage including the forward skirt, the liquid oxygen tank, liquid hydrogen tank and the engine section. Core stage’s fifth element, the interbank which is bolted is also being constructed here
• Following this, each element within the rocket will undergo extensive testing
• The wet structures including elements that hold fuel or liquid oxygen and hydrogen will be put through proof tests to ensure manufacturing quality. Hydrostatically tested and filled with water, the liquid oxygen tank will undergo pneumatical testing.
• Once tested, all the structural elements are constructed to enable engineers to assemble the “brains” rocket, as it is called
• In the SLS’s core stage, 45 miles of wire cabling carry power and data in every element powering flight computers, cameras, sensors, avionics and other electronics housed in the dry structures.
• NASA’s thermal protection system provides the rocket its signature orange colour, but more importantly, it protects the core stage from the extreme temperatures encountered during launch and maintains the fuels’ extremely low temperatures.
• The liquid hydrogen is frozen to minus 423 degrees Fahrenheit and the liquid oxygen is chilled to minus 297 degrees.
• Once testing is finished, the core stage will head to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, for its first flight with Orion.

ANSWER: Head

Explanation:
Dr. Sergio Canavero is planning the world’s first head transplant by reanimating human corpses. In what is being called Frankenstein surgery, the Italian neurosurgeon is operating on Valery Spiridonov, a 30 year old Russian.

• Surgery’s name has an interesting story behind it- In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a man named Victor Frankenstein creates a monster using body parts from the morgue and electricity
• Dr Canavero is director of the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group and his collaborators have framed plans to test if the spinal cord of the head can be connected to another body.
• They further framed plans to check if the experiment will stimulate nervous system in fresh corpses with electrical pulses.
• Surgery aims to cut the spinal cord of the head and then repair it after which magnetic or electrical stimulation will be used to activate and reanimate the nerves leading to further movements in the corpse
• The announcement follows an experiment where Dr. Canavero and his team conduced a surgery were they successfully reconnected the spinal cord of an injured dog
• A series of research papers explain how the dog was able to walk and wag its tail in three weeks after paralysis from the neck down
• The technique called GEMINI spinal cord fusion also works in humans to fuse the endings of the spinal cord together.

ANSWER: 10th Annual Clinton Global Citizen Award

Explanation:
Chairman of Mumbai based Godrej Group, Adi Godrej was honoured with the 10th Annual Clinton Global Citizen Award for leadership in business and philanthropy on 19th Sept.

• Award recognises his leadership in business and philanthropy and the use of Inclusive, sustainable business strategies at Godrej Group
• Some of the other awardees for 2016 included Jon Bon Jovi for the Jon Bon Jovi Soul Foundation in the US, Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos and Somalia’s Hawa Abdi.
• Adi Burjorji Godrej is the 405th richest person in the world with net worth of USD 4 billion
• Clinton Global Citizen Awards was established in 2007.
• It embodies the former US President’s call to action by honouring outstanding individuals who exemplify global citizenship through vision and leadership.
• Past recipients of the award include Denis O’Brien, Carlis Slim, Suraya Pakzad and other illustrious figures.

ANSWER: Curtis Hanson

Explanation:
Oscar winning writer and director of LA Confidential, Curtis Hanson died at the age of 71 on 22nd Sept 2016. He had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease

• He is known for acclaimed films such as Wonder Boys and 8 Mile
• His adaptation of Jame Ellroy noir novel also won him accolades
• Hanson went on to direct the 1994 movie The River Wild with Meryl Streep and Kevin Bacon which won him success
• But it was LA Confidential which had Oscar winner Kim Basinger along Guy Pearce, Russell Crowe and Kevin Spacey that won him critical acclaim
• Hanson won the Oscar for screenplay with Brian Helgeland
• Hanson drew inspiration from films by Stanley Kubrick, Robert Aldrich and Nicholas Ray in which LA played a key role. Ray’s 150 film In a Lonely Place also inspired Hanson
• LA Confidential introduced Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce into American Cinema
• LA Confidential was one of 24 pictures registered by the Library of Congress in 2015 as worthy of preservation in the National Film Industry
• Hanson started small, with a horror film called “The Arousers” in the early 1970s. In 1983, his film “Losin’ It” gave Tom Cruise his first lead role.
• “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle,” a thriller about a revenge-seeking nanny starring Annabella Sciorra and Rebecca De Mornay, was Mr. Hanson’s breakout hit, released in 1992.
• In 1999, Mr. Hanson became the first chairman of the U.C.L.A. Film & Television Archive, granting him easy access to decades of his favourite films.

ANSWER: 31

Explanation:
Paris Agreement on climate change has moved closer to enter into force this year as 31 more countries on 21st Sept joined at a special event hosted by the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in New York.

• Number of countries which joined the Paris Agreement, has now reached 60- 5 more than the threshold of 55 nations required for bringing the agreement into force.
• Paris Agreement will enter into force 30 days after 55 countries, representing 55% of the global emissions, deposit their instruments of ratification, acceptance or accession with the UN Secretary General
• As the 60 countries that joined the agreement so far account for as much as 47.62 percent of the global emission, global deal needs to cover remaining 7.5 percent before it enters into force
• Magic figure is 55 percent and the climate deal is now set to enter into force in 2016
• Adopted by 195 parties to the UNFCCC last December in Paris, the Paris Agreement calls on nations to combat climate change and intensify the actions and investments for a sustainable low carbon future and adapt to the increasing impacts of climate change
• Early entry into force of the Paris Agreement will trigger operational provisions of the agreement and accelerate efforts to limit global temperature rise to below 2 degree C and agree to build climate resilience.
• Paris agreement mandates regular meetings every 5 years, starting in 2018 to review progress and consider how to strengthen the level of ambition as countries recognised the present level of climate actions will not suffice
• The two biggest polluters, China and the United States have joined the agreement early this month and the third biggest polluter in the world accounting for 4.1 percent of the global emission, will ratify it next year.
• Countries that deposited their instruments of ratification at NY included Albania, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Bangladesh, Belarus, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Dominica, Ghana, Guinea, Honduras, Iceland, Kiribati, Madagascar, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Namibia, Niger, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Senegal, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Thailand, Tonga, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, and Vanuatu.

ANSWER: Titan

Explanation:
This ice cloud goes against everything that is known about the way clouds form on Titan.

• Located in Titan's stratosphere, the cloud is made of a compound of carbon and nitrogen known as dicyanoacetylene
• This is an ingredient in the chemical cocktail that colours the giant moon's hazy, brownish-orange atmosphere.
• What has puzzled scientists ever since is that they detected less than one percent of the dicyanoacetylene gas needed for the cloud to condense.
• Researchers found a large, high-altitude cloud made of the same frozen chemical. and when it comes to the vapour form of this chemical, CIRS reported that Titan's stratosphere is as dry as a desert.
• The puzzling appearance of the ice cloud seemingly out of thin air prompted the scientists to suggest that a different process than previously thought -- possibly similar to one seen over Earth's poles could be forming clouds on Saturn's moon Titan.
• Clouds made of chlorine bearing chemicals on earth called polar stratosphere clouds have a similar mechanism by which they work

ANSWER: 8.4 crore

Explanation:
Census 2011 data has revealed two alarming facts: as many as 78 lakh Indian children are forced to earn a livelihood even as they attend schools while 8.4 crore children don't go to school at all.

• Although the share of working students is low, compared to the whole student population, the numbers are sufficiently big to show how much importance is placed on education by families and the children themselves.
• They also point to the increasing cost of education, which should ideally be free for the age group of 5 to 17 years.
• Among students who work, 57 per cent are boys, the remaining 43 per cent are girls.
• Of working students, some of them as young as six years old, 68 per cent are into marginal work.
• The other shocking dimension is that 8.4 crore children don't go to school at all -that's nearly 20 per cent of the age group covered under the Right to Education Act.
• Boys and girls make up nearly the same proportion of the out-of-school segment. But, contrary to popular perception that children don't go to school because they are forced to work, the Census data shows that just 19 per cent of them are working somewhere.

ANSWER: 30

Explanation:
Bar Council of India has restored the limit for legal education in 3 and 5 year programmes following an order by the Madras HC.

• The council's letter mentions that they will have to comply with clause 28 of the Legal Education Rules 2008, which restricts the maximum age for seeking admission in the five-year integrated programme to 20 years and for the three-year one at 30.
• The council has, however, failed to consider earlier orders of the Bombay and Punjab & Haryana HC that had struck down the age limit provision as being unconstitutional say legal experts
• Many students admitted in the three-year programme now do not meet the age criteria
• Earlier BCI had left the decision on the age criteria on the state.
• The state did not implement the criteria as they had not mentioned it in their admission rules for the common entrance test, said an official.
• BCI has not relaxed the age norms, paving the way for hurdles for older students pursuing law.