DRDO’s Corner-Shot Weapon System
Focus – GS-III: Science and Technology
Context
A corner-shot weapon system (CSWS), designed and developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), is at an advanced stage of being inducted by the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and the Jammu and Kashmir police.
What is CSWS?
- A special purpose weapon designed by the Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE), Pune.
- can engage targets located around the corners as the system bends and captures video feed thus saving soldiers from any surprise counter-attack and is best suited for urban, close quarter situations.
- It is equipped with weapon, camera, laser, infrared illuminator and torch in front portion, while display, electronics, battery and swivelling mechanism are located at rear portion.
- The body is made from high-grade aluminium alloy to make it lighter and durable.
Key features
- Day-night firing capability, colour display, digital zoom, zeroing facility, hot keys, high power battery along with status display
- It is very helpful in Counter Insurgency and Counter Terror (CI/CT) operations.
- This indigenously developed system has many superior features compared to its contemporary international systems.
What is T-Cell Immunity?
Focus – GS:III – Science and Technology
Context
A new study from Wuhan has studied the role of T-Cell Immunity against prolonged and sever COVID-19.
What are T-Cells?
- T cells are central players in the immune response to viral infection.
- For your immune system to fight off any kind of invader, such as a virus, you need a kind of white blood cell called a B cell, which makes antibodies, and a similar-looking white blood cell called a T cell.
- T cells can play different roles altogether.
- They can act as “killer cells”, attacking cells which have been infected with a virus or another kind of pathogen, or they can act as “helper cells” by supporting B cells to produce antibodies.
How do they function?
- Alongside antibodies, the immune system produces a battalion of T cells that can target viruses.
- Some of these, known as killer T cells (or CD8+ T cells), seek out and destroy cells that are infected with the virus.
- Others, called helper T cells (or CD4+ T cells) are important for various immune functions, including stimulating the production of antibodies and killer T cells.
- T cells do not prevent infection, because they kick into action only after a virus has infiltrated the body. But they are important for clearing an infection that has already started.
- In the case of COVID-19, killer T cells could mean the difference between a mild infection and a severe one that requires hospital treatment.
What did the latest research find?
- neutralising antibodies were detectable even 12 months after infection in “most individuals”.
- “multifunctional T cell responses were detected for all SARS-CoV-2 viral proteins tested”.
- the magnitude of T cell responses did not show any difference immaterial of how severe the disease was.
- While the ability of antibodies to neutralise was nearly absent against the Beta variant, it was reduced in the case of the Delta variant.
Gahirmatha witnesses Arribada
Focus: GS-III: Environment and Biodiversity
Context
2.45 lakh Olive Ridley sea turtles crawled ashore on the Nasi-II beach of the Gahirmatha Marine Sanctuary along the Odisha coast for laying eggs, marking one of the largest opening day arrivals of turtles at the site.
Olive Ridley Turtles
- The Olive Ridley Sea Turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea), also known as the Pacific ridley sea turtle, is a medium-sized species of sea turtle found in warm and tropical waters, primarily in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
- In the Indian Ocean, the majority of olive ridleys nest in two or three large groups at Rushikulya rookery near Gahirmatha in Odisha.
- The coast of Odisha in India is the largest mass nesting site for the olive ridley, followed by the coasts of Mexico and Costa Rica.
- The species is listed as Vulnerable in the IUCN Red List, Appendix 1 in CITES, and Schedule 1 in Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
Special feature: Mass nesting
- best known for their behavior of synchronized nesting in mass numbers, termed Arribadas.
- Females return to the very same beach from where they first hatched, to lay their eggs.
- Lay their eggs in conical nests about one and a half feet deep which they laboriously dig with their hind flippers.
- Hatch in 45 to 60 days, depending on the temperature of the sand and atmosphere during the incubation period.
