Prelim Bits 30-04-2018

CFTRI

Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI) has announced a program for training life science graduates to work in food and allied industries.
The Mysore based institute is a constituent laboratory of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, New Delhi.
It came into existence during 1950.
The Research focus of CSIR-CFTRI has been revolved around broadly into the following areas:

Swachh Bharat Summer Internship

Ministry of Human Resource Development in association with the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation has launched the 'Swachh Bharat Summer Internship – 100 Hours of Swachhata'.
The program is to engage youth across the country and develop their skill and orientation for sanitation related work and village level development.
The program aims to:

Develop the skill and orientation of youth for sanitation related work
Bring youth across the country an opportunity to make a significant contribution to the swachhata revolution
Integrate youth in the community service in rural areas in the run up to the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi

Space Missions to study Asteroids

In 2001, the NEAR (Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous) Shoemaker spacecraft by NASA landed on Eros, an asteroid near Earth.
In 2011, the Dawn spacecraft entered Vesta’s orbit which successfully completed a 14-month survey of the large asteroid.
NASA researchers announced plans for a spacecraft called HAMMER that would collide and knock incoming asteroids in another direction or simply blow them up into tiny pieces.
In 2016, NASA launched the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft to study a near-Earth asteroid, Bennu.
In 2005, the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa landed on the near-Earth asteroid Itokawa and in 2010, it successfully returned to Earth.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched the Hayabusa 2 probe in December 2014, and plans to return samples from Ryugu in December 2020.

Colistin-resistance bacteria in food

An investigation was led by an expert to look for evidence for strains of bacteria that are resistant to the most powerful antibiotics in everyday food.
The investigation discovered a mutation called mgrB that makes the bacteria Klebsiella pneumoniae resistant to colistin and helps them make their way into people.
Colistin is a last-resort antibiotic, a life-saver for humans.
Even if the food is cooked, thereby killing the bacteria, storage and handling of the food products are processes by which it is passed on to people.
It renders them helpless if they should ever need the colistin antibiotic to save their lives.
It also revealed colistin-resistance in humans is not so much because of indiscriminate use of the antibiotic in hospitals, as it is because of its use in veterinary feed.
China has banned the use of colistin in veterinary use and similarly the use of antibiotic growth promoters in animals is banned in the European Union since 2006.

Transparent eel-like robot

Scientists have developed an innovative, transparent eel-like robot that can swim silently in salt water without an electric motor.
The robot created by engineers and marine biologists used artificial muscles filled with water to propel itself.
The foot-long robot, which is connected to an electronics board that remains on the surface, is also virtually transparent.
The robot is an important step towards a future when soft robots can swim in the ocean alongside fish and invertebrates without disturbing or harming them.
At present, most underwater vehicles designed to observe marine life are rigid and submarine-like and powered by electric motors with noisy propellers.
Soft robotics is a growing field which relies on mimicking locomotion mechanisms of soft bodies existing in nature to achieve smooth and complex motion.

World Press Freedom Index 2018

India’s ranking in the Press Freedom Index has fallen two places to 138.
In the annual report RSF blamed “physical violence” against journalists like Gauri Lankesh as the key reason behind the country’s low ranking.
The report also warned that hate crime is another issue plaguing India.
Norway topped the list of having the world’s freest press for the second year in a row.
North Korea remained the most repressive country followed by Eritrea, Turkmenistan, Syria and then China.
The index is compiled by Reporters without Borders (RSF) which reflects growing animosity towards journalists.
It is published annually by RSF since 2002.
The Index measures the level of media freedom in 180 countries, including the level of pluralism, media independence, the environment and self-censorship, the legal framework, transparency, and the quality of the infrastructure that supports the production of news and information.
It does not evaluate government policy.

Source: PIB, The Hindu, Business Standard