BLAWG

• Lucy is a NASA space probe on a twelve-year voyage to eight distinct asteroids, including two main belt asteroids and six Jupiter Trojans, which orbit either ahead of or behind Jupiter. All interactions with
  targets will be flybys.
• The solar-powered mission is expected to last more than 12 years, during which time the spacecraft will visit eight asteroids spanning a distance of around 6.3 billion kilometres in order to gain a better knowledge of the “young solar system”.

• BharOS is a home-grown mobile operating system (OS), similar to Android or iOS.
• These technologies enable smartphone users to engage with their devices and utilize their capabilities while also assuring their safety.
• BharOS, in particular, is intended to contribute to the concept of a self-sufficient India, or ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat,’ by providing a safe operating system environment for India-based users.
• It’s being created by an IIT Madras-incubated start-up JandK Operations Pvt Ltd.
• BharOS is seen as an Android competitor. It has the No Default Apps (NDA) feature, which means users are not required to store or utilize pre-installed apps in this mobile operating system.

• NTDs are a category of illnesses that are particularly widespread in marginalized groups in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Pathogens that cause them include viruses, bacteria, protozoa, and parasitic worms.
• NTDs are more prevalent in tropical locations where people lack access to clean water and adequate disposal of human waste.
• Snakebite envenomation, scabies, yaws, trachoma, Leishmaniasis, and Chagas disease are all examples of NTDs.
• London Declaration on NTDs– It was adopted on 30th January, 2012 to recognise the global burden of NTDs.
• January 30: World Neglected Tropical Diseases Day

• Trans fatty acids (TFAs), often known as trans fats, are the most dangerous kind of fats that can affect a person’s health more than any other nutrient.
• A new report from the World Health Organization (WHO) has found that 5 billion people globally remain unprotected from harmful Trans fats, increasing their risk of heart disease and death.
• WHO first called for the global elimination of industrially produced Trans fats in 2018, with an elimination target set for 2023.
• REPLACE Trans-fat: An action package of WHO to eliminate industrially-produced trans-fat from the world food supply and replacing them with healthier oils

• Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence technology that can produce various types of content, including text, imagery, audio and synthetic data.
• The recent buzz around generative AI has been driven by the simplicity of new user interfaces for creating high-quality text, graphics, and videos in a matter of seconds.
• The technology, it should be noted, is not brand-new. Generative AI was introduced in the 1960s in chatbots. Generative AI has been around for years, arguably since ELIZA, a chatbot that simulates talking to a therapist, was developed at MIT in 1966.
• But it was not until 2014, with the introduction of generative adversarial networks, or GA.

• On January 11, 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that Uganda had successfully declared the end of the Ebola disease outbreak caused by Sudan Ebola virus.
• This was Uganda’s first Sudan Ebola Virus outbreak in a decade and its fifth overall.
• There are five subtypes of Ebola viruses: Zaire, Sudan, Bundibugyo, Tai Forest (formerly known as Côte d’Ivoire), and Reston, each named after the location in which it was first identified.
• The first three subtypes have been associated with large EVD outbreaks in Africa. The Reston subtype is found in the USA and although it is highly pathogenic in nonhuman primates, it is not known to cause illness in humans.
• In addition to Ebola virus, there is one other member of the Filovirus family, known as Marburg virus (named after the city in Germany in which it was first discovered), that also causes hemorrhagic fever.

• The BAIDU is a Chinese-based technology company. It offers a popular search engine in
  China called BAIDU. The company works on artificial intelligence and internet-related
  products. The headquarters of the company is in Beijing. The company is one of the
  largest AI companies in the world. The TECH giant is now planning to develop a chatbot
  similar to that of ChatGPT.

Other AI Chatbots

• Google- BARD
• Meta- Llama
• Microsoft- ChatGPT (OpenAI)
• IRCTC- AskDISHA

Features

• BAIDU’s chatbot is to be built on the Ernie system.
• ERNIE stands for Electronic Random Number Indicator Equipment. It is a hardware
  random number generator.
• It was invented to be used in lotteries and casinos.

• There are different methods of vaccine administration- Oral, Intradermal, subcutaneous, and intramuscular. But the Bharat Biotech recently launched an intranasal vaccine to treat COVID-19. It is called iNCOVACC. Intra-nasal means the vaccine is administered through nose. India has approved the vaccine and it is to be administered as a booster dose.

About iNCOVACC

• Two doses have been advised. The doses are to be administered within a time gap of 28 days
• Adeno Virus is the carrier of iNCOVACC, meaning, the antigen from Coronavirus is isolated and injected into the Adeno virus. This is done to increase the immunity power of the human body. The vaccines injected into the human body teach the immune system to fight against the virus. The carrier viruses aid in increases this fighting levels
• iNCOVACC is easy to deliver. Because; no needles or syringes are used in administering the vaccine
• Vaccine administration requires no skilled professionals.

• The Indian Space Research Organization is working on Aditya L1 space project that will study the sun.
• The Aditya spacecraft will study solar magnetic storms and the impact of the solar atmosphere on the earth.
• About Aditya L1: The spacecraft is to study the following:

1. Solar Winds: These winds are created due to the expansion of the sun’s plasma
2. Photosphere and Chromosphere– Layers of the sun
3. Corona of the sun
4. Energetic particles of the sun
5. Coronal heating: The coronal heating problem in solar physics relates to the question of why the temperature of the Sun’s corona is millions of kelvins versus the thousands of kelvins of the surface. The Aditya L-1 spacecraft will help Indian space scientists find solutions to the coronal heating problem.

Lagrange Points

• Lagrange Points are positions in space where the gravitational forces of a two-body system like the Sun and Earth produce enhanced regions of attraction and repulsion.
• These can be used by spacecraft as “parking spots” in space to remain in a fixed position with minimal fuel consumption. In simple terms, Lagrange points are positions in space where objects sent there tend to stay put.
• At Lagrange points, the gravitational pull of two large masses precisely equals the centripetal force required for a small object to move with them.
• Name and discovery– Lagrange points (L1, L2, L3) were discovered by the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler around 1750, a decade before the Italian-born Joseph-Louis Lagrange discovered the remaining two. In 1772, Lagrange published an “Essay on the three-body problem”.

• The European Union is set to launch the JUICE Spacecraft to explore the moons of Jupiter.
  Specifically, the mission is to study the three major moons of Jupiter namely Ganymede,
  Europa, and Callisto.
• Out of the 80 moons of the planet, these three were selected for their large oceans. The
  satellite is to be launched from French Guiana. Ariane 5 will carry the satellite.
• JUICE is the first satellite from the earth to enter the orbit of Ganymede.

About JUICE

• JUICE stands for Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer. The satellite was developed by Germany and tested by France.
• The main objective of the mission is to study the microbial life on the icy moons of the
  planet
• It will also study the polar regions and the magnetosphere of the planet
• JUICE will enter the orbit of Ganymede to study its composition
• If launched in April 2023, the satellite is expected to enter Jupiter orbit by 2034
• It will be deorbited in 2035.

Other missions to Jupiter

• Juno mission- Juno is a NASA space probe orbiting the planet Jupiter. It was built by Lockheed Martin and is operated by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It was launched in 2011. The spacecraft was launched on, August 5, 2011 as part of the New Frontiers program.
• Galileo mission- Galileo was an American robotic space probe that studied the planet Jupiter and its moons, as well as the asteroids Gaspra and Ida.Named after the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, it consisted of an orbiterand an entry probe. It was launched in 1989.
• Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are called Jovian or Gas Giant Planets. These have thick atmosphere, mostly of helium and hydrogen.
• Jupiter’s iconic Great Red Spot is a giant storm bigger than Earth that hasraged for hundreds of years.
• Jupiter rotates once about every 10 hours (a Jovian day), but takes about 12 Earth years to complete one orbit of the Sun (a Jovian year).