Mucormycosis is a serious but rare fungal infection caused by a group of molds called mucormycetes.

These molds live throughout the environment.

It is caused by exposure to mucor mould which is commonly found in soil, plants, manure, and decaying fruits and vegetables.

It affects the sinuses, the brain and the lungs and can be life-threatening in diabetic or severely immunocompromised individuals, such as cancer patients or people with HIV/AIDS.

An international team of astronomers have discovered the most distant ‘radio-loud’ quasar with the help of European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT).

It took 13 billion years for the quasar’s light to reach earth, according to a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal March 8, 2021.

Quasars are very luminous objects in faraway galaxies that emit jets at radio frequencies.

They are only found in galaxies that have supermassive blackholes which power these bright discs.

However, 90 per cent of them do not emit strong radio waves, making this newly-discovered one special.

Most active galaxies have a supermassive black hole at the centre which sucks in surrounding objects.

Quasars are formed by the energy emitted by materials spiralling around a blackhole right before being sucked into it.

Iron Dome is a mobile all-weather air defense system developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries.

The system is designed to intercept and destroy short-range rockets and artillery shells.

TrueNat This is a privately designed test that works on the same principle as RT-PCR, but with a smaller kit and with faster results.

TrueNat, designed by MolBio Diagnostics Pvt Ltd, Goa, is commonly used for tuberculosis and HIV testing.

The ICMR approved TrueNat for screening and confirmation for Covid-19.

A piece of the Winchcombe meteorite that touched down in the town of Winchcombe in Gloucestershire in the UK in February 2021.

Winchcombe is also significant because it is the meteorite to have fallen and recovered from the UK in about 30 years.

Further, this type of meteorite is known as a carbonaceous meteorite and out of about 65,000 known meteorite types, only about 1,000 are of this particular type.

Natural nanomaterials, as the name suggests, are those that occur naturally in the world.

These include particles that make up volcanic ash, smoke, and even some molecules in our bodies, such as the hemoglobin in our blood.

The brilliant colors of a peacock’s feathers are the result of spacing between nanometer-scale structures on their surface.

Man-made nanomaterials are those that occur from objects or processes created by people.

Examples include exhaust from fossil fuel burning engines and some forms of pollution

Air India airlifted 35 tonnes of zeolite mineral used in oxygen production plants on two flights from Rome to Bengaluru.

Zeolite is used in oxygen production plants that are based on pressure swing adsorption (PSA) technology.

Zeolites are microporous, aluminosilicate minerals commonly used as commercial adsorbents and catalysts.

Zeolites occur naturally but are also produced industrially on a large scale.

Natural zeolites form where volcanic rocks and ash layers react with alkaline groundwater.

Naturally occurring zeolites are rarely pure and are contaminated to varying degrees by other minerals, metals, quartz, or other zeolites.

For this reason, naturally occurring zeolites are excluded from many important commercial applications where uniformity and purity are essential.

NFT is a one-of-its-kind asset that is not interchangeable in nature.

It means that the NFT is not replaceable by another ‘identical’ item.

For example, if two individuals hold a bitcoin each, they can exchange their bitcoins, which are a replica of each other and have the same value.

However, NFTs are not interchangeable, as they are more like pieces of art where each and every token is unique in itself.

While bitcoins are also digital assets, NFTs are unique digital assets with each token representing a unique value.

NFTs have evolved to include digital real estate, video game items, digital art and music.

Encryption is the process of encoding messages or information in such a way that only authorized parties can read it.

For example: word “ABC” can become “BCD” in encrypted form, if every letter is replaced by next alphabet.

Those who know how it is encoded can only able to read “ABC” correctly.

All messaging services like WhatsApp, Viber, Google Chat, Yahoo messenger use encrypted services. Banks (payment gateways) and e-commerce sites also use encryption to protect financial and private data including passwords.

Encryption is also used to protect data in transit, for example data being transferred via networks (e.g. the Internet, e-commerce), mobile telephones, wireless microphones, wireless intercom systems, Bluetooth devices and bank automatic teller machines.