Facts in News

Facts in News

Content Distribution Network (CDN)

• Recently, several popular websites were reported to be facing an outage due to a possible glitch with CDN services .
• A Content Distribution Network (CDN) is a network of servers/data centres distributed across the globe that helps highly-trafficked websites keep up with the constant demand for data.
•  A CDN does this by offloading some of this load from the website’s primary servers. 
• For instance, sending all the images that make up a web page to millions of users can be a demanding task and easily overwhelm a small group of servers.
• A CDN can act as a middle-man, sending these images directly to the user, without the website’s own servers coming into play, thus improving response time. 
  • This is known as “caching”.
• The CDN can further improve the speed and responsiveness of a website by serving assets (images, videos, JavaScript and other files) from a location closer to the end-user.
• This cuts the amount of cross-continental traffic, as a local server is usually quicker to respond.

Brood X

• The US President’s first trip abroad was delayed unexpectedly when a swarm of cicadas bombarded the plane of the Air Force .
  • Swarms of these insects have been spotted in a number of American states. 
• These are part of a group named Brood X, based on their life cycles and periodic appearances. 
  • The term ‘brood’ refers to a population of cicadas that is isolated from other populations because of differences in their year of emergence or locality.
• Brood X is the largest brood of 17-year cicadas and is found in Pennsylvania, northern Virginia, Indiana and eastern Tennessee, according to the US National Park Service (NPS). 
• The cicadas in Brood X number in billions and come out of their underground homes every 17 years.
  • When underground, cicada nymphs go through five stages of development. 
  • Once they become adults, which takes about 17 years for some periodical cicadas, the males emerge from underground
  • Last year, another grouping of 17-year cicadas dubbed Brood IX emerged in some states on the east coast of the US.
• The time when they decide to emerge is dependent on weather, specifically when ground temperatures reach about 17-18°C.
• They feed on the roots of trees both underground and above it. 
• Cicadas also do not bite or sting, but when the males sing, their collective chorus can reach up to 100 decibels, a noise level that can possibly cause severe damage if you are exposed to it for several hours.
•  One hundred decibels is equivalent to a jet flyover at 1000 feet, a motorcycle or a powered lawn mower.

Image Courtesy :guardian.com

CAR-T Cell Therapy

Recently, the clinical trial of an indigenously developed CAR T-cell therapy for blood cancer treatment has begun at Mumbai’s Tata Memorial Centre.

• Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T-cells are cells that are genetically engineered to produce an artificial T-cell receptor.
  • T-cell receptor is widely used in developed nations for immunotherapy during cancer treatment.
  • However, the technology is not available in India yet.
• The therapy targets leukaemia and lymphoma, and the team has applied for national and international patents for the research.
  • Leukaemia is cancer of blood-forming tissues, including bone marrow.
  • Lymphoma is a cancer of the lymphatic system, which is part of the body’s germ-fighting network.
• The researchers of the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B) have now designed and developed the first indigenous CAR T-cell therapy.
• The design developed by IIT-B uses lentiviral technology.
  • In gene therapy, this is a method of inserting, modifying, or deleting genes in organisms using lentivirus, a family of viruses responsible for diseases such as AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome).

(Image Courtesy: NCI)

Dihing Patkai National Park

Recently, the Assam government has notified Dihing Patkai as a National Park.

• It is Assam’s seventh National Park and has been notified four days after creating the Raimona National Park (sixth NP).
  • The five older National Parks in the State are Kaziranga, Manas, Nameri, Orang and Dibru-Saikhowa.
    • Kaziranga and Manas are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. They are also tiger reserves along with Nameri and Orang.
• Assam now has the third most National Parks after the 12 in Madhya Pradesh and 9 in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
• Area
  • 234.26-sq. km covering eastern Assam’s Dibrugarh and Tinsukia districts.
  • It encompasses the erstwhile Dehing Patkai Wildlife Sanctuary (notified in 2004), the Jeypore Reserve Forest and the western block of the Upper Dihing Reserve Forest.
  • Short stretches of the Dirak and Buri Dihing rivers have been included in the park
• Flora: It covers the last remaining stretches of the Assam Valley tropical wet evergreen forests.
• Fauna: It is a major elephant habitat and 310 species of butterflies have been recorded there. The park has 47 species each of reptiles and mammals, including the tiger and clouded leopard.
• In April 2020, Dehing Patkai was in focus after a series of virtual protests highlighted rampant illegal coal mining in the area.

(Image Courtesy: SNF)

Monal Species

Recently, local wildlife enthusiasts have sighted two species of monal, a colour pheasant, together in Upper Siang district of central Arunachal Pradesh.

• The birds were seen on Mount Eko Dumbing at 4,173 metres above mean sea level.
• Monal is a bird of genus Lophophorus of the pheasant family, Phasianidae.
  • Their diet consists of plants such as roots and bulbs and insects. 
  • Due to habitat destruction and hunting, they have become rare and their population is endangered.
• Sighting these species of Monal is a good indicator of the ecology of the area.
• Himalayan Monal
  • Scientific Name: Lophophorus impejanus
  • Habitat: It is more widely distributed from Afghanistan to northeast India.
    • In India, it is found in Himalayan hill forest, typically in areas with extensive rhododendron and bamboo-dominated understory.
  • The male has all the colors of the rainbow while the female is nowhere near as brightly-colored.
  • IUCN Red List: Least Concern.

(Image Courtesy: NG)

• Sclater’s Monal
  • Scientific Name: Lophophorus sclateri
  • Habitat: Endemic bird of the Eastern Himalaya, mostly recorded from the junction of India, Myanmar, Tibet and Yunnan province of China.
    • It is restricted to Arunachal Pradesh on the Indian side.
  • It is a high-altitude bird and rarely comes down below 1,500 metres.
  • Male is brilliantly colored but oddly vulturine in appearance and the female is streaky brown.
  • IUCN Red List: Vulnerable.
  • Wildlife Protection Act, 1972: Schedule I.

(Image Courtesy: ebird)