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Chagos Islands

Context:

  • K. hands over sovereignty of Chagos Islands to Mauritius in deal to secure U.S. base

News:

  • Britain’s government said that it agreed to hand sovereignty of the long-contested Chagos Islands, an archipelago of more than 60 islands in the Indian Ocean, to Mauritius, in a deal that secures the future of a strategically important U.K.-U.S. military base there.

More on the news:

  • British Foreign Secretary said the agreement secures the vital military base at Diego Garcia, the largest in the chain of islands, for the future.
  • The U.K. government said without the deal the secure operation of the military base would be under threat, with contested sovereignty and legal challenges, including through various international courts and tribunals.
  • As part of the deal, the U.K. will retain sovereignty of Diego Garcia for an initial period of 99 years.
  • “It will strengthen our role in safeguarding global security, shut down any possibility of the Indian Ocean being used as a dangerous illegal migration route to the U.K., as well as guaranteeing our long-term relationship with Mauritius, a close Commonwealth partner,” British Foreign Secretary
  • The deal was strongly supported by international partners including the U.S., British officials said.
  • The agreement will have to be signed off in a treaty and is dependent on legal processes being finalized.
  • Both sides have committed to complete this as quickly as possible.
  • The Chagos Islands have been at the heart of what Britain calls the British Indian Ocean Territory since 1965 when they were siphoned away from Mauritius, a U.K. territory that gained independence three years later.
  • The U.S. Navy base at Diego Garcia was built in the 1970s and provides what American authorities have described as “an all but indispensable platform” for security operations in the Middle East, South Asia and East Africa.
  • Around 1,500 inhabitants from the Chagos Islands were displaced to make way for the U.S. base.
  • It’s unclear immediately whether they and their descendants, who are mainly living in the U.K., Mauritius and the Seychelles, will have a right to return.
  • In a statement, the White House said President Joe Biden applauded the “historic agreement” on the status of the Chagos Islands.
  • It called the Diego Garcia base vital in preserving “national, regional, and global security”.
  • “The agreement secures the effective operation of the joint facility on Diego Garcia into the next century,” the statement said.
  • “This agreement affirms Mauritian sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago, while granting the United Kingdom the authority to exercise the sovereign rights of Mauritius with respect to Diego Garcia.”

           

 

International Medical Device Regulators Forum

Context:

  • India becomes affiliate member of International Medical Device Regulators Forum (IMDRF)
  • India joins IMDRF as an affiliate member, enhancing global collaboration and harmonisation in medical device regulations for public health

News:

  • “India has become an affiliate member of the International Medical Device Regulators Forum (IMDRF), which will open doors to invaluable opportunities for reliance and collaboration with regulatory authorities worldwide,” the Union Health Ministry said.

About IMDRF:

  • The IMDRF, which was established in 2011, is a group of global medical device regulators whose aim is to speed up the adoption of international medical device regulatory harmonisation and convergence.
  • Its members include national regulatory authorities of the U.S., Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Russia, China, South Korea, Singapore and the World Health Organization (WHO).
  • “To achieve global alignment in its medical device regulatory system, enhance the competitiveness of the domestic industry and boost transnational prominence, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO), under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, applied for Affiliate Membership in the International Medical Device Regulators Forum (IMDRF) in 2024,” the Health Ministry said in a statement.
  • “After review of India’s application for affiliate membership and meeting discussions by the IMDRF Management Committee (MC) with the senior officers of CDSCO during the 26th Session of IMDRF held in September 2024 at Seattle, Washington, USA, the CDSCO has received approval from IMDRF as an affiliate member of the forum,” it said.
  • “Becoming an affiliate member of the IMDRF will open doors to invaluable opportunities for reliance and collaboration with regulatory authorities worldwide,” it said.
  • The membership helps to harmonise regulatory requirements across the globe, which reduces complexities for manufacturers and helps safeguard public health by promoting collaboration, harmonising regulations and promoting convergence.
  • As an affiliate member, India will participate in IMDRF open sessions for information exchange on technical topics with other regulators, to discuss the latest medical device regulatory strategies and trends, provide feedback on its experience and perspectives and use IMDRF documents in part or in whole as the basis for its regulatory framework for medical devices.
  • “This will strengthen the CDSCO’s medical device regulatory system, helping meet emerging technical challenges that are increasingly diverse, ensuring the protection of public health and safety, and continuing to maintain the goal of international recognition for its medical device regulation,” the statement said.
  • “This membership will also enable Indian medical device manufacturers to meet the regulatory requirements of IMDRF member countries, thereby strengthening “Brand India” in the global market,” it said.

 

Small rocky planet detected in orbit about nearby Barnard’s star

Context:

  • Scientists eager to study nearby potentially habitable worlds are excited by the discovery of the first confirmed planet orbiting Barnard’s star, a rocky one with a mass about 40% that of Earth.

More info:

  • Barnard’s star is a red dwarf, the smallest type of regular star and much smaller and less luminous than our sun.
  • At about 6 light years away, it is the closest single star – one not orbiting with other stars – to our solar system.
  • It is, in cosmic terms, in our neighbourhood.
  • Because of this, scientists eager to study nearby potentially habitable worlds are excited by the discovery of the first confirmed planet orbiting Barnard’s star, a rocky one with a mass about 40% that of Earth.
  • While this planet, orbiting very close to Barnard’s star, has a surface temperature too high to be suitable for life, the researchers found what they called “strong hints” of three other planets around Barnard’s star that might be better candidates.
  • The confirmed planet, called Barnard b, has a predicted diameter about three-quarters that of Earth, so about 6,000 miles (9,700 km).
  • “It is one of the least massive planets ever found,” beyond our solar system.
  • Among planets in our solar system, only Mars and Mercury are smaller.
  • Barnard b, with a surface temperature around 275 degrees Fahrenheit (125 degrees Celsius), orbits Barnard’s star in just three Earth days at a distance 20 times closer than our solar system’s innermost planet Mercury is to the sun.
  • Planets beyond the solar system are called exoplanets.
  • Scientists searching for exoplanets that possibly could harbor life look at those residing in the “habitable zone” around a star, where it is not too hot and not too cold, and liquid water can exist on the planetary surface.
  • The researchers used an instrument called ESPRESSO on the European Southern Observatory’s Chile-based Very Large Telescope to detect this planet.
  • The three other potential planets orbiting Barnard’s star all apparently are rocky and smaller than Earth, ranging from 20-30% of Earth’s mass.
  • The hope is that at least one of these may be in the vicinity of the habitable zone.
  • If confirmed, this would be the only known star with a multi-planet system entirely comprised of planets smaller than Earth.
  • Barnard’s star, in the constellation Ophiuchus, has a mass about 16% of the sun’s, a diameter 19% of it and is far less hot.
  • It also is estimated to be more than twice as old as the sun.
  • Being so cold and small, it is quite faint, making its habitable zone much closer to the star than in the case of the sun.
  • It also is a very quiet star. While some red dwarfs have been found to flare very frequently, Barnard’s star doesn’t do it.
  • The closer that exoplanets are to us, the easier they are to study.
  • It is easier to detect low-mass rocky planets orbiting red dwarfs, the most common type of star in our Milky Way galaxy, than around larger stars.
  • Only the three stars in the Alpha Centauri system, about 4 light-years away, are closer to our solar system than Barnard’s star.
  • A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km).
  • Two exoplanets have been detected in the Alpha Centauri system, both orbiting the red dwarf Proxima Centauri.
  • One has a mass about equal to Earth’s. The other is about 25% Earth’s mass.
  • In science fiction, light speed travel is commonplace.
  • In reality, it is far beyond human capabilities, though research projects such as Breakthrough Starshot are exploring the feasibility of interstellar travel.
  • Barnard’s star and Alpha Centauri might be on wish lists of future destinations.
  • While they are very close in astronomical terms, they are out of reach for any kind of human technology. However, if projects such as the Breakthrough Starshot are successful, it is likely that these will be some of the first targets.

 

Little Prespa Lake

Context:

  • Little Prespa Lake on Albanian-Greek border slowly dying

More info:

  • Plants and reeds have sprouted up as the waters of Little Prespa Lake on the Albanian-Greek border recede, their beauty overshadowing a painful truth: the lake is slowly dying.
  • The once crystal-clear lake has mostly been transformed into a marshy watering hole in this corner of southeastern Albania.
  • The majority of Little Prespa Lake, also known as Small Lake Prespa, sits in Greek territory, with just its southern tip crossing into Albania.
  • It is a smaller cousin of the larger Great Prespa Lake to the north.
  • According to experts, of the 450 hectares of Little Prespa Lake in Albania, at least 430 hectares have been transformed into swamps or dried up.
  • For the inhabitants, the beginning of the misfortune dates back to the 1970s, when communist authorities diverted the Devoll River to irrigate fields around the nearby Albanian city of Korca.
  • Climate change has exacerbated the problem, experts said.
  • Rising temperatures and increasingly mild winters with little snowfall and a scarcity of precipitation have battered the lake.

                            

 

Ancient human DNA

Context:

  • Ancient human DNA from a South African rock shelter sheds light on 10,000 years of history

Introduction:

  • Oakhurst rock shelter is an archaeological site near the town of George on the southern coast of South Africa.
  • It is set into a sandstone cliff above a stream in a valley forested by towering old yellowwood trees.
  • What makes the site special is the record of human occupation there, which spans 12,000 years.
  • Not only have rock art, stone tools and ceramic fragments been found there, but also the remains of 46 people.
  • That’s rare: most very old burials found in South Africa (from the last 40,000 years) have been of single individuals.
  • New technology is making it possible to keep learning more from previously discovered archaeological material.
  • Oakhurst offered an opportunity to reconstruct the genomes of the site’s inhabitants through time, and to assess their genetic relationships to people living in the region today.
  • A genome is the genetic information about a living organism.
  • This information gets passed down from one generation to the next, forming a record of the past.
  • Studying ancient genomes – a field known as archaeogenetics – helps us understand the history of living people and the movements of populations.
  • Scientists were able to generate 13 ancient genomes from skeletal human remains at Oakhurst.
  • They included the oldest ancient DNA from the region to date, from two individuals who lived around 10,000 years ago.
  • The findings show that the population history of southernmost Africa is different from other regions of the world.
  • People didn’t arrive here in waves, replacing other populations and mixing with them.
  • Instead there was long-lasting genetic continuity throughout the entire span for these 13 individuals, from 10,000 until as recently as 1,300 years ago.

Human genetic diversity and history:

  • Archaeogenetics has revealed much about human history in Asia and Europe.
  • There has been less success in Africa, because of the environmental conditions.
  • Ancient DNA isn’t well preserved when average temperatures are high.
  • So far, fewer than two dozen genomes from South Africa, Botswana and Zambia have been published.
  • But Africa is interesting as it is the continent with the greatest human genetic diversity.
  • All of the remaining world’s human genetic diversity is just a subset of Africa’s.
  • So human history cannot be understood without understanding African history.
  • Oakhurst study started in 2017, with a team of biological anthropologists, archaeologists, and archaeogeneticists.
  • They sampled 13 individuals from the site.
  • Two samples were 9,000-10,000 years old, four were 5,000-6,000, five 4,000-5,000 and two 1,000-1,500 years old.
  • Their ages were established by radiocarbon dating of bone or tooth collagen.
  • All individuals were adults, five were women and eight were men.
  • The genetics work required several attempts due to technical challenges caused by poor DNA preservation.
  • They extracted DNA from powdered skeletal material and performed a series of laboratory steps to extract DNA molecules and multiply them often enough so that they could be sequenced.
  • All of the genomes turned out to be relatively similar to those of contemporary San and Khoekhoe people, who live in the region today, including the ǂKhomani San.
  • We could show that between 10,000 and 1,300 years ago, no ancestry from outside present-day South Africa arrived at Oakhurst rock shelter.
  • This genetic continuity over a long time is remarkable.
  • In comparison, in Europe and Asia, we see more of a change in the ancient DNA record as major population movements occurred.
  • But it is not as if there was no change in southern Africa.
  • We do see that these people had cultural innovations over time.
  • Several stone technological shifts are preserved at the Oakhurst site, and around the same time, are similarly found across archaeological sites in South Africa.
  • Around 2,000 years ago, newcomers arrived in the region, introducing herding, farming and new languages.
  • They began interacting with local hunter-gatherer groups.
  • Still, even the individual we studied who lived 1,300 years ago was genetically similar to the older genomes.
  • We hope that these new results may open doors for further studies into one of the most culturally, linguistically and genetically diverse regions of the world.
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