XENOTRANSPLANTATION

• About two months after the procedure, on Saturday, May 11, the first recipient of a modified pig kidney transplant passed away.

Context:

• In March of this year, Richard Slayman received the first kidney transplant from a transgenic pig.

Key Takeaways

• The transplantation of living cells, tissues, or organs from one species to another is known as xenotransplantation, which comes from the Greek word “xenos,” which means “foreign” or “strange.” Xenografts or xenotransplants are the terms used to describe the transplanted cells, tissues, or organs.
• This procedure is compared to allotransplantation, which is the transplantation of an individual from one species to another with a different genotype, syngeneic transplantation, also known as isotransplantation, which is the transplantation of two genetically identical individuals from the same species, and autotransplantation, which is the transplantation of an individual’s body part from one person to another.
• Human heart xenotransplantation was first attempted in the 1980s. The large discrepancy between the number of transplants patients required and the supply of donor organs made such a treatment necessary.
• It presents a possible avenue for treating end-stage organ failure.
• According to a report by the doctors at Harvard Medical School, who performed Slayman’s surgery, the pig kidney in his case had 69 different genomic alterations put to it. In order to “Remove certain pig genes that produce sugars with antibodies our immune systems react to” and “Add certain human genes to improve the kidney’s compatibility with humans,” the gene editing technique CRISPR-Cas9 was used.

Why are xenotransplantations frequently performed on pigs?

• For more than 50 years, human heart valve damage has been repaired using pig heart valves. Pigs are widely and economically bred in farms, and their physiological and anatomical characteristics are comparable to those of humans.
• Additionally, a wide variety of pig breeds are raised, offering the chance to adapt the size of the harvested organs to the recipient’s particular requirements.
• The first xenotransplantation of a genetically altered pig heart took place in January 2022. But after two months, the patient fell unexpectedly from a variety of causes, one of which was that the transplant may not have worked well because of a latent virus in the pig heart.

55 Cancri e

• In a neighboring solar system, a planet twice the size of Earth has been found to have a dense atmosphere, according to research released on Wednesday.One of the few solid planets outside of our solar system with a sizable atmosphere, covered in a layer of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, is the so-called super Earth, also known as 55 Cancri e.

Context:

• A planet that is larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune is referred to as super Earth. It is doubtful that life exists on this planet due to its boiling temperatures, which can reach as high as 4,200 degrees Fahrenheit.

About 55 Cancri e :

• An exoplanet called Janssen, or 55 Cancri e, circles 55 Cancri A, a host star that resembles the Sun.
• The planet is situated in the constellation Cancer, approximately 41 light-years from Earth, within our Milky Way galaxy.The distance that light travels in a year is 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion kilometers), or one light year. There are known orbits of four other planets, all gas giants, around its home star.
• August 30, 2004 was the date of discovery. It was found orbiting a main sequence star and was the first super-Earth ever found.
• The exoplanet has a diameter of almost twice that of Earth and a mass of about eight Earth masses.
• In its planetary system, it is the innermost planet, completing an orbit in less than eighteen hours.
• Temperature: 55 Cancri e is quite hot, with daytime highs of almost 3,000 Kelvin because to its closeness to its star.
• The James Webb Space Telescope’s infrared scans with two instruments revealed the existence of a sizable, albeit hostile, atmosphere that may be continuously refilled by gases ejected from a massive ocean of magma.
• Any atmosphere should be destroyed by winds and stellar radiation because it is so near to its star. However, gases dissolved in the enormous ocean of lava believed to surround the planet might continue to bubble up to replenish the atmosphere.
• Previously discovered exoplanets with atmospheres were all gaseous, not rocky, planets. The discovery of a rocky exoplanet with an atmosphere marks advancement as Webb continues to push the boundaries of exoplanet exploration.

An exoplanet: what is it?

• Any planet outside of our solar system is called an exoplanet. While most exoplanets orbit other stars, certain exoplanets, referred to as rogue planets, are free-floating and orbit the galactic center without any stellar connection.

Deepfake

• Election season has brought to light a serious worry regarding deepfakes.

Context:

• Misinformation campaigns fueled by AI have the ability to sway voter behavior by amplifying content that divides people or disseminating misleading narratives.

About Deepfake :

• One sort of synthetic media is called a “deepfake,” in which the likeness of one person is convincingly replaced with another’s. A combination of “deep learning” and “fake,” “deepfake”
• An artificial picture, sound, or video produced using a unique type of machine learning known as “deep” learning is known as a “deepfake,” hence the name.
• Deepfake technology utilizes machine learning and artificial intelligence tools and techniques, such as variational autoencoders (VAEs) and generative adversarial networks (GANs), artificial neural networks, and facial recognition algorithms.
• It is applied to audio, image, and video manipulation.
• Among other crimes, this technology can be used to spread false information and perpetrate financial fraud.It adds a digital composite on top of an audio, picture, or video that already exists.
• Anyone in the world can be effortlessly inserted into a film or photo they never actually took part in thanks to deepfake technology.

How does deepfake technology work?

• The method uses generative adversarial networks (GANs), a type of machine learning, to create or change images and movies.
• The artificial intelligence (AI) program recognizes and mimics the subjects’ gestures and expressions from the original footage, then replicates these in a different picture or video.
• The makers of deepfakes use a big library of source photos to make sure the final product is as authentic as possible. For this reason, there are more deepfake videos featuring politicians, celebrities, and public figures produced.
• Next, one piece of software uses the dataset to make a false video, and another uses it to look for evidence of forgery.
• The two software programs work together to render the bogus video until the second program is unable to recognize the forgery. When machine-language models teach themselves, this is referred to as “unsupervised learning.” It is challenging for other software to recognize deepfakes using this strategy.

Examples:

• A robocall impersonating US President Joe Biden erroneously advised voters not to participate in the Democratic Party’s New Hampshire primary in January 2024, stating it would void their eligibility for the general election.
• A liberal candidate’s voice, produced by artificial intelligence, was extensively shared on Facebook in Slovakia, where it discussed plans to rig the election and boost alcohol prices.
• Prior to the national elections in Bangladesh, deepfake videos showing opposition politicians Nipun Roy in a swimming pool and Rumin Farhana in a bikini appeared on social media.

INTERACTIVE VOICE RESPONSE SYSTEM (IVRS)

Voters have been receiving daily calls from Interactive Voice Response Systems (IVRS) and are requesting that the Election Commission of India (ECI) launch an investigation into the manner in which our mobile phone numbers were shared with political parties by various telecom service providers.

Context:

• The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Act, 1997, is broken by the calls. These IVRS calls have an impact on thousands of votes every day. The ECI must act quickly to resolve this matter in order to preserve voter privacy and guarantee a fair election process.

The purpose of the interactive voice response system, or IVRS:

• With the use of a keypad for voice and DTMF tone input, an Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS) is an automated telephone technology that enables human-computer interaction.
• Call centers frequently utilize IVRS to handle high call volume and give customers self-service choices.
• Better customer service, shorter wait times, and lower operating expenses for companies are some advantages of adopting IVRS.
• Contemporary IVRS can support different VoiceXML-written applications and interface with multiple networks, such as public switched telephone networks (PSTN) and voice over IP (VoIP).

IVRS and Political Campaigns:

• Political parties use IVRS to connect with people during elections.
• Voters hear prerecorded messages from party leaders or candidates pleading with them to cast their ballots or stressing key points from their campaigns.
• These statements, depending on the party’s approach, can be convincing or instructive.

Chabahar port

• An important step in their maritime cooperation has been taken with the signing of a 10-year deal by India and Iran to operate the Chabahar port.
• The deal permits Indian Ports Global Ltd. (IPGL) to work with Iran’s Port and Maritime Organization (PMO) to operate the Shahid-Behesti port. India has also extended a $250 million credit window for Chabahar-related infrastructure development projects, with an investment of about $120 million from IPGL. This deal will assist Afghanistan as well as India and Iran by promoting trade, marine cooperation, and transhipment.

About the Port

• Being the only deep-water port in Iran with direct ocean access, Chabahar Port, which is situated in the province of Sistan and Baluchestan, is strategically crucial. It is a portion of the projected International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), which connects the Caspian Sea, northern Europe, and the Persian and Indian oceans. With access to Afghanistan and Central Asia, Chabahar Port provides India with a counterbalance to China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Pakistan’s Gwadar Port. The US sanctions against Iran, which have an effect on equipment suppliers, and China’s proposed participation in Chabahar’s duty-free zone, which might potentially hurt India’s interests, are two obstacles to the project’s implementation.
• The strategic significance of Chabahar as a commercial route linking Afghanistan and Central Asian nations with India is emphasized, underscoring its part in the stability and growth of the region’s economy.