QUIZ – 2017: Insights Current Affairs Quiz, 13 February 2018

Solution: a.

“SHe-Box is an effort of the government of India to provide a single-window access to every woman, irrespective of her work status, whether working in organised or unorganised, private or public sector, to facilitate registration of complaint of sexual harassment.”

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/in-sc-centre-lists-steps-to-end-sexual-harassment-at-workplace/article22723506.ece;

From 2017: http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=168892;

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Solution: d.

Bitcoin mining is the process by which transactions are verified and added to the public ledger, known as the block chain, and also the means through which new bitcoin are released.  Anyone with access to the internet and suitable hardware can participate in mining. (Bitcoin miners are required to approve/verify transactions. Therefore more miners means a more secure network.) The mining process involves compiling recent transactions into blocks and trying to solve a computationally difficult puzzle. The rewards, which incentivize mining, are both the transaction fees associated with the transactions compiled in the block as well as newly released bitcoin.

In the earliest days of Bitcoin, mining was done with CPUs from normal desktop computers.  Graphics cards (used for gaming) for mining became dominant as bitcoin gained popularity. Eventually, hardware known as an ASIC, which stands for Application-Specific Integrated Circuit, was designed specifically for mining bitcoin.

Bitcoin mining operations – essentially massive and powerful datacenters – are located internationally, and usually concentrated where the cost of electricity is cheapest. That’s because the cost of electricity can make up 90-95% of total ongoing mining costs.

Additional Information: The MoonLite Project will operate several industrial scale data centres in the Crypto-Currency Mining industry, and plans to begin by mining predominantly Bitcoin, DASH, Litecoin, and Ethereum using 100% sustainable, green energy. 100% of the energy they consume will be generated using Hydro, Geo-Thermal, and Wind sources. The MoonLite Project will base its first mining operation in data center capital of the world, Iceland.

Video: https://youtu.be/GmOzih6I1zs;

From 2017: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/12/19/why-the-bitcoin-craze-is-using-up-so-much-energy/;

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/bitcoin-mining.asp;

In the news (http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-43030677): This year, electricity use at Iceland’s Bitcoin mining data centres is likely to exceed that of all Iceland’s homes.

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Solution: c.

• Inside each of Falcon Heavy’s three cores is a cluster of nine Merlin engines (developed by SpaceX itself).
• Falcon Heavy was designed to be fully reusable. Both the center core and side boosters carry landing legs, which will land each core safely on Earth after takeoff.

http://www.spacex.com/falcon-heavy;

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-42969020;

http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/isro-too-has-designs-on-a-60-tonne-super-lift-rocket/article22724826.ece;

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Solution: c.

Note: The bulk of the central government’s loans are from domestic sources.

http://www.thehindu.com/business/Economy/why-the-fuss-about-fiscal-deficit/article22723770.ece;

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-business/niti-bats-for-separate-debt-office-at-centre/article22725394.ece;

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Solution: a.

Wallace Line is boundary between the Oriental and Australian faunal regions, proposed by the 19th-century British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace. The line extends (see image) from the Indian Ocean through the Lombok Strait (between the islands of Bali and Lombok), northward through the Makassar Strait (between Borneo and Celebes), and eastward, south of Mindanao, into the Philippine Sea. Although many zoogeographers no longer consider the Wallace Line to be a regional boundary, it does represent an abrupt limit of distribution for many major animal groups. Many fish, bird, and mammal groups are abundantly represented on one side of the Wallace Line but poorly or not at all on the other side.

Improvisation: http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/energy-and-environment/on-the-origin-of-oranges/article22713163.ece;

https://www.britannica.com/science/Wallace-Line;

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