Scandium Nitride (ScN)

• Scandium Nitride (ScN), a rock-salt semiconductor with high thermal stability, robustness, and electronic properties.
• It is a transition metal nitride semi-conductor that has emerged as a promising candidate for next-generation electronics due to its properties.
• Challenges – Despite its potential, the practical application of ScN in electronic devices has been hindered due to its relatively lower electron mobility.
• This key factor influences the speed and efficiency of semiconductor devices and researchers had been curious to unravel why the mobility of the electrons are limited.
• The factors that limit electron mobility in ScN are – Ionized-impurity and grain-boundary scatterings significantly reduced mobility.
• Depositing single-crystalline ScN that are devoid of impurities and defects is expected to increase its mobility significantly.
• Applications:
  • Thermoelectricity
  • Neuromorphic computing
  • High mobility electron transistors
• Single-crystalline scandium nitride (ScN) – Can emit, detect, and modulate infrared light with high efficiencies.
• Applications:
  • Infrared sources, emitters, and sensors
  • Electronics
  • Healthcare
  • Defence and security
  • Energy technologies

Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU)

Lok Sabha Speaker recently led a Parliamentary Delegation (IPD) to the 149th Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Assembly in Geneva.

• Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) is the global organization of national parliaments.
• It facilitates parliamentary diplomacy and empowers parliaments and parliamentarians to promote peace, democracy and sustainable development around the world.
• Funding – Financed primarily by our Members out of public funds.
• Headquarters – Geneva, Switzerland and offices in New York, United States of America and Vienna, Austria.
• Members – 181 Member Parliaments and 15 Associate Members.
• India is one of the member of it and not an Associate Member of it. (Statement 2 is incorrect)
• Member include from huge nations like China, India and Indonesia, to the tiny States of Cabo Verde, San Marino and Palau.
• 15 Associate Members are mostly parliaments drawn from groups of nations, or similar bodies.
• They include the Arab Parliament, the European Parliament and other parliamentary organizations in Africa and the Americas.
• President – Is the political head of our institution, who directs the activities, chairs full meetings and acts as the representative at global events and gatherings.
• The President serves as head of our Executive Committee.
• Secretary General – Act as the Chief Executive of the Organisation, manages the IPU and is accountable to the Governing Council.
• Assemblies – Is the IPU's main political body through which the IPU's Member Parliaments adopt parliamentary resolutions on global issues.
• It plays a pivotal role in addressing the issues which threaten peace, democracy and sustainable development, including through its four thematic standing committees.
• Governing Council – Is our administrative and policy-making body whose meetings are usually held during our twice-yearly Assemblies.
• The Governing Council elects the President and Secretary General and decides on the mandate and composition of committees, working groups and ad hoc bodies.
• It decides on admitting, readmitting and suspending members and on our activities.
• It oversees our budget and work programme and sets contribution rates.
• It is made up of 3 MPs from each Member Parliament, provided that the delegation includes both men and women.
• Cremer-Passy Prize – Being named after the IPU’s founders, William Randall Cremer and Frederic Passy.
• It is awarded every year to sitting parliamentarians who make an outstanding contribution to the defence and promotion of the IPU’s objectives
• It is also awarded to people who contribute to a more united, peaceful, sustainable and equitable world.

Malabar Grey Hornbill (Ocyceros griseus)

• India is home to 9 species of hornbills out of which 4 are found in Kerala.
• Malabar Grey Hornbill is endemic to India whose existence could be threatened due to rampant and unchecked deforestation, resulting in a decline of suitable nesting and fruit trees.
• Features – It is apparently sedentary but will move around locally, especially within deciduous forest parts of the range.
• This species prefers the higher terrain with dense tree cover.
• Range – It is found in evergreen forests and plantations.
• It occurs in evergreen and deciduous forests, especially riverine forest and in the hills above 500 m elevation, but also in the lowland.
• Protection – It is listed as Vulnerable under the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Pyrocystis Noctiluca

• Pyrocystis noctiluca is a single-celled organisms that can travel tens of meters by ballooning to six times the normal size.
• It’s one of the most massive migrations on Earth that can float upward in the ocean.
• It can travel from 125 meters deep to 50 meters where there's more sunlight.
• Journey takes days, unlike daily zooplankton migrations and it is a one-time trip in their lifecycle.
• Migration Mechanism – Cells inflate by filling with seawater.
• Aquaporin proteins likely filter out dense salt, making the cell less dense than surrounding seawater.
• Process takes about 10 minutes.
• Calcium in seawater may trigger this transformation.
• Life cycle – Starts with inflated cells rising and at the end of 7-day cycle, cell divides into two as it sinks.
• New daughter cells then inflate and rise again.
• Additional benefits of inflation – Reduced predation risk due to larger size.
• Improved nutrient uptake and photosynthesis efficiency.

Marine Heat Waves (MHWs)

• A marine heatwave is a period of unusually high ocean temperatures and is defined by its duration and intensity.
• One of the most common ways that scientists measure the ocean’s temperature is through sea surface temperature.
• Deviations from average sea surface temperature are referred to as temperature anomalies.
• Impact of Marine Heat Waves (MHWs) – Marine heatwaves not necessarily cause harmful algal blooms.
• Twilight zone of ocean – Is situated between 200 and 1,000 metres, still has some visibility, but research on the domain is lacking.
• Extreme temperature changes in the temperature of the twilight zone are also a matter of concern, since many fish species and plankton reside here.
• Heat and cold brought by eddies aren’t the only threat to the twilight zone but can lead to low oxygen levels in the water and reduced nutrients.
• Eddy currents – Are huge loops of swirling current, sometimes hundreds of kilometres across and reaching down over 1,000 metres.
• In Deep Ocean, atmospheric factors are not responsible for temperature changes but instead eddy currents play a major role in it. (Statement 3 is incorrect)
• They can carry warm or cold water across long distances.
• Eddy currents are acting to magnify the warming rates of marine heatwaves and the cooling rate of the cold spells.
• Warmer oceans overall are leading to stronger eddy currents.