General Awareness

ENVIRONMENT - December 2018

Dec 2018

Jun 02, 2021

Giant Tortoise Thought Extinct Discovered on Galapagos Island

A giant tortoise in the Galápagos Islands that was thought to have gone extinct over a century ago just came out of hiding.
Researchers discovered the female tortoise on the Galápagos' Fernandina Island during a joint expedition carried out by the Galápagos National Park Directorate and the Galápagos Conservancy. They nicknamed her "Fernanda."

May 31, 2021

India's First City-wide Environmental Surveillance Platform for COVID Launched

A platform launched by Government of Karnataka in partnership with the COVIDActionCollab that tracks COVID through waste-water surveillance, with Bangalore as the first city-wide initiative Bangalore, Karnataka, India (NewsVoir) With the number of cases of COVID-19 surging across the county in the second wave of the pandemic, the Government of Karnataka is introducing a city-wide sewage surveillance system in Bangalore that will help officials track the virus at an early stage, even among asymptomatic individuals.
Assisting this effort is the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Skoll Foundation-supported COVIDactionCollab (CAC), an India-wide collaborative of over 300 organizations and networks working together to provide COVID-19 relief and recovery services to the country's most vulnerable communities.
Over the last year, scientists around the world have discovered that waste-water testing can serve as a cost-effective early warning system, often predicting an increase in COVID-19 before the number of official cases has risen. The Precision Health Platform in Bengaluru, the first of its kind in Asia, will test sewage from both sewered and non-sewered waste-water to identify clusters of new infections. Early identification of clusters can help guide the COVID-19 response and give policymakers the information they need to better allocate limited pandemic resources.

World Leaders Call for Cleaner, Greener Planet

World leaders called for more action and inclusion of all countries in the global drive towards a cleaner and greener planet at a climate summit hosted virtually by South Korea.
South Korea, which recently announced plans to cut finance for international coal projects, is seeking a bigger role in the global initiative to go green.
The two-day summit is the second of its kind following the inaugural meeting held in Copenhagen in 2018, and is focused on public-private partnerships, especially in developing countries.
Advanced nations have laid out ambitious emissions-cutting goals in recent months, as well as plans to ultimately go carbon neutral by 2050.

May 30, 2021

NGT Forms Panel to Probe Violation of Environmental Norms by JSW

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has formed a five-member committee to probe into a plea alleging violation of environmental norms in running the industrial operations by Jindal Steel Works Limited at some villages in Raigarh district of Maharashtra.
A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice A. K. Goel asked the committee to look into the issues including compliance of the Water and Air Acts and Hazardous Waste Management Rules, destruction of mangroves and damage to agriculture, if any.
The committee would be headed by an officer of the rank of joint secretary, Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), nominated by the secretary MoEF and also comprise officials from the Central Pollution Control Board, IIT-Mumbai, district magistrate of Raigarh and members of the state pollution control board.

May 26, 2021

The Oldest Known Tattoo Tools were Found at an Ancient Tennessee Site

Ancient tattooing tools are tough to find or even recognize as implements for creating skin designs. But new microscopic studies of two turkey leg bones with sharpened ends indicate that Native Americans used these items to make tattoos between around 5,520 and 3,620 years ago.
These pigment-stained bones are the world's oldest known tattooing tools, say archaeologist Aaron Deter-Wolf of the Tennessee Division of Archaeology in Nashville and his colleagues. The find suggests that Native American tattoo traditions in eastern North America extend back more than a millennium earlier than previously thought (SN: 3/4/19). Ötzi the Iceman, who lived around 5,250 years ago in Europe, displays the oldest known tattoos (SN: 1/13/16), but researchers haven't found any of the tools used to make the Iceman's tattoos.
Excavations in 1985 revealed these turkey bones and other elements of a probable tattoo kit in a man's burial pit at Tennessee's Fernvale site.
Two turkey wing bones found in the same Fernvale grave display microscopic wear and pigment residues that likely resulted from applying pigment during tattooing.

May 24, 2021

Cheetah to Be Re-introduced in India

As per reports, cheetah, the world's fastest land animal which was declared extinct in India in 1952, is expected to be re-introduced into the country in November this year at the Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh.
The country's last spotted cheetah died in Chhattisgarh in 1947, and it was declared extinct in the country in 1952.
The Wildlife Institute of India (WII) some years back prepared a cheetah re-introduction project.
The Supreme Court had earlier given its approval to introduce African cheetahs to a suitable habitat in India on an experimental basis.
Officials from India will be sent to South Africa for sensitisation and training in June and July this year and according to the plan, the transportation of the cheetahs will take place in October and November.

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