Nixtamalization

• Nixtamalisation is a method by which the ancient peoples of Mesoamerica like the Maya used to soak and cook their maize in an alkaline solution and make it more palatable, nutritious, and non-toxic.
• Nixtamal is derived from the Nahuatl word nextamalli, meaning ‘nixtamalized maize dough’.
• Maize is the primary crop of the Americas and has been cultivated in the region for millennia.
• Maize, beans, and squash are called the ‘Three Sisters’ and formed the basis of diets throughout pre-Columbian North and Mesoamerica.
• Scientists find maize starch spherulites (polymer), a unique byproduct of nixtamalization.

Anocovax

• Anocovax is a SARS-CoV-2 Delta (Covid-19) vaccine for animals that is inactivated.
• The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), the country's main agri-research agency that falls under the Union Agriculture Ministry said in a statement that the immunity produced by Anocovax neutralizes both Delta and Omicron versions of SARS-CoV-2 and dogs, lions, leopards, mice, and bunnies are all safe to receive the vaccine.
• Surra ELISA kit, a suitable diagnostic assay for Trypanosoma evansi infection in multiple animal species, was also launched.
• Surra is one of the most important haemoprotozoan diseases of the different livestock species caused by Trypanosoma evansi.
• The disease is prevalent in all the agro-climatic parts of India.

BrahMos

• BrahMos is a two-stage missile with a solid propellant booster engine.
• Its first stage brings the missile to supersonic speed and then gets separated.
• The liquid ramjet or the second stage takes the missile closer to three times the speed of sound in the cruise phase.
• The missile has a very low radar signature, making it stealthy, and can achieve a variety of trajectories.
• The ‘fire and forget’ type missile can achieve a cruising altitude of 15 km and a terminal altitude as low as 10 m to hit the target.
• They are standoff range weapons, which are fired from a range far enough to allow the attacker to evade defensive counter-fire.

Microlensing

• It is a form of gravitational lensing in which the light from a background source is bent by the gravitational field of a foreground lens to create distorted, multiple, and/or brightened images.
• The separation of order a milli-arcsecond between multiple images is generally too small to be resolved by modern telescopes.
• The combined light of all images is instead observed as a single image of the source, blended with any light that may be emanating from the lens itself.
• The brightness of the combined image is a function of the projected separation of the source and lens on the observer's sky and thus can change as the source, lens, and observer move relative to one another.
• The time variability of the combined image, namely an apparent change in source brightness as a function of time recorded as a microlensing light curve, is the usual observational signature of microlensing.

Web 5.0

• Web 5.0 is aimed at “building an extra decentralized web that puts you in control of your data and identity”.
• Simply put, Web 5.0 is Web 2.0 plus Web 3.0, allowing users to own their identity on the Internet and ‘control their data’.
• Both Web 3.0 and Web 5.0 envision an Internet without the threat of censorship – from governments or big tech, and without fear of significant outages.
• Web 3.0 isn’t truly decentralized or owned by its users, but is instead controlled by various “venture capitalists and limited partners”.