Azerbaijan

Context:

• Azerbaijan says ‘God-given’ oil and gas will help it go green
• Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, prepares to host the COP29 climate conference next week

Azerbaijan, oil reserves, energy security and green agenda:

• Azerbaijan’s vast oil and gas resources “have shaped the history, culture, politics and the economy” of the Caspian nation.
• The abundance of naturally occurring fires from the energy-rich nation’s huge gas deposits has earned it the nickname “The Land of Fire”.
• The world’s first industrial onshore oil well was drilled in Azerbaijan, and also the first offshore one.
• Revenues from oil and gas production make up about 35% of the country’s GDP and nearly half of the state budget.
• The manna of petrodollars helped Azerbaijan to arm itself against arch-foe Armenia, and last year Baku recaptured its breakaway Karabakh region from Armenian separatists who had controlled it for decades.
• Azerbaijan has become an important factor in ensuring Europe’s energy security.
• Economic dependence on hydrocarbons is a concern for the Azerbaijani government, which is making serious efforts to develop other economic sectors, including technology, agriculture and tourism.
• Azerbaijan’s goal is to get the maximum money from its hydrocarbon resources before Europe reaches its decarbonisation objective, which will lead to a significant drop in the continent’s demand for fossil fuels.
• The country aims to increase its renewable energy capacity to 30 percent by 2030 and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2050.
• Clean energy mega projects such as transforming the recaptured Karabakh region into a “green energy zone” fully reliant on solar, wind and hydro power.
• But experts are adamant that Azerbaijan does not have a climate plan in line with the Paris Agreement.
• In September, the Climate Action Tracker group estimated that by 2030, Baku’s greenhouse gas emissions will have increased between 23 to 40 percent compared to 2020.

About Azerbaijan:

• It is a landlocked country of eastern Transcaucasia.
• Occupying an area that fringes the southern flanks of the Caucasus Mountains, it is bounded on the north by Russia, on the east by the Caspian Sea, on the south by Iran, on the west by Armenia, and on the northwest by Georgia.
• Azerbaijan includes within its borders the predominantly Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, which from 1988 was the focus of intense conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
• The capital of Azerbaijan is the ancient city of Baku, whose harbor is the best on the Caspian Sea.
• Turkic-speaking Azerbaijanis (Azeris) make up some nine-tenths of the country’s population; the remaining population comprises only small concentrations of minorities – among them, Lezgians (who speak a Caucasian language), Russians, and Armenians.

India’s first analog space mission

News:

• India’s first analog space mission has been launched by ISRO in Leh.
• The initiative aims to replicate conditions on Mars and the Moon.
• The project is to simulate extraterrestrial life.

More info:

• The mission was developed by a partnership of the Human Spaceflight Centre, ISRO, AAKA Space Studio, the University of Ladakh, and IIT Delhi.
• It is also supported by the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council.
• This mission will simulate life in an interplanetary habitat to tackle the challenges of a base station beyond Earth.
• The mission aims to simulate conditions similar to those on Mars and the Moon while considering Ladakh’s extreme climate and geographical terrain.
• The mission tries to replicate the challenges that astronauts would face in extreme conditions of celestial bodies.
• Ladakh is a cold desert and the climate is a mix of desert and arctic regions.
• The temperature in the region may range from 3 to 35 °C in summers and −20 to −35 °C in winters.
• The region experiences heavy snowfall during winter.
• According to NASA, analog missions are field tests in locations that are similar to extreme space environments.
• The mission aims to save time, money and manpower by mimicking a similar environment on Earth before investing in space.
• These field tests include new technologies, robotic equipment, vehicles, habitats, communications, power generation, mobility, infrastructure, and storage.
• Behavioural effects such as isolation and confinement, team dynamics, menu fatigue, and others, are also observed.
• “Analog missions prepare us for near-term and future exploration to asteroids, Mars, and the Moon. Analogs play a significant role in problem-solving for spaceflight research,” NASA said.

Melanistic tigers

Odisha has moved a tigress from Maharashtra to its Similipal to address the increasing number of pseudo-melanistic tigers

Introduction:

• A tigress from the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve, Maharashtra, was sent to the Similipal Tiger Reserve so as to diversify the genetic pool of the tiger population in Odisha.
• She is part of a plan by the Odisha government to tackle inbreeding in the tiger population that has resulted in increasing numbers of the once elusive black tigers or pseudo-melanistic tigers.
• The presence of so many melanistic tigers in Similipal is not a cause of concern.
• However, the tigress will bring in different genetic matter which would remedy the inbreeding situation.

Pseudo-melanistic tigers:

• As far as appearances go, pseudo-melanistic (pseudo: false; melanistic: dark coloured) tigers appear to have a black coat with white and orange stripes occasionally peaking through.
• Their pelt looks almost the inverse of a normal tiger.
• An increase in the surface area of the coat covered by darker stripes gives the pseudomelanistic tiger a darker, blotchy appearance.
• The most recent sighting of the black tiger was in 2017-18 in the Similipal Tiger Reserve.

Colours of tigers:

• The pseudo-melanistic tiger is a colour variant of the Bengal tiger.
• Its strange coat is a result of a mutation in a particular gene.
• This genetic quirk causes their stripes to widen and spread across the orange or tawny coat and at times give the appearance of being completely black.

Fig: Distribution of the genotyped individuals. A total of 428 individuals were genotyped at the Taqpep c.1360C > T mutation site. Wild tigers are shown with a circular marker, and captive tigers (NKB, AAC, and Mysore Zoo) are shown with a square marker. The size of the square/circle indicates the number of individuals genotyped from a given area. In addition to the 399 Bengal tigers shown on the map, genotyped 12 Amur, 12 Malayan, and five Sumatran tigers from Armstrong et al.

• A comparison between tiger populations showed that apart from the Similipal population, the mutation of the gene is extremely rare or even non-existent.
• The only other black tigers that have been found beyond the Similipal population are in captivity -Nandankanan Zoological Park at Bhubaneswar (NKB) and Arignar Anna Zoological Park at Chennai (AAC) – whose ancestry could be traced back to the Similipal population.

The mutated gene:

• Mutation of the Transmembrane Aminopeptidase Q or Taqpep gene was responsible for change in colour.
• This gene gives other cat species their markings too.
• For instance, tabbies with darker or more blotchy stripes have this mutated gene.
• A King cheetah’s wider and darker spots are also because of the mutated gene.
• The anomalies in colour and patterns are caused due to a missense mutation in the Taqpep gene.
• This mutation changes the amino acid Cytosine (C) to Thymine (T) in position 1360 of the gene sequence.
• The prevalence of this particular mutation is abnormally high in the Similipal Tiger Reserve population.
• According to the 2021 study, the frequency of the mutated gene occurred at 0.58 or a tiger born in this population had a 60% chance of carrying this mutated gene.

Reasons for more common mutations in Similipal:

• A majority of the tigers found in Odisha are in the Similipal Tiger Reserve.
• The All Odisha Tiger Estimation (AOTE-2023-24) says a total of 30 tigers were found in Odisha’s forests of which 27 of them are in Similipal.
• Of these 27, at least 13 adult tigers (seven females and six males) were found to be pseudo-melanistic.
• No other wild habitat in the world has pseudo-melanistic tigers.
• To find out why the concentration of pseudo-melanistic tigers is so high, researchers dug further.
• The genetic analysis of the tigers along with computer simulations showed that the reason for such high mutation was genetics and not adaptation as previously theorised.
• The Similipal tiger population is cut off from the other populations by a great distance and has been isolated for an extended period of time.
• This has led to inbreeding in an already small founding population leading to higher chances of the mutated gene being passed down.
• The study also attributed the phenomenon of genetic drift which suggests that a mutation may appear in high frequency or die out altogether depending on pure chance.

Cat Ba langurs

Context:

• A new study shows the remarkable adaptability of the critically endangered Cat Ba langurs.
• Despite low genetic diversity, the langurs have retained key genetic traits that help them survive in their isolated environment on Cat Ba Island in Vietnam.

More info:

• One of the remarkable adaptations is the ability to drink salt water.
• Due to the dramatic decline of its population, the species suffers from genetic impoverishment, high inbreeding and a potentially increased susceptibility to disease.
• Analysis of their genetic information shows that genetic diversity has been maintained in functionally important areas of their genetic information.
• This enables the Cat Ba langurs (Trachypithecus poliocephalus) to continue to cope adequately with changing environmental conditions.
• This extraordinary ability is a direct consequence of their isolated island home, where there are only limited freshwater sources.
• The researchers show that changes in certain genes have probably increased tolerance to salt water.
• These genetic adaptations enable langurs to cope with the high sodium content of salt water and thus contribute to their survival in this unique environment.