Notes:
Brood X – or the Great Eastern Brood – is the group of cicadas that spread over the eastern USA. A cicada is an insect in the order Hemiptera (true bugs). They are similar to smaller jumping bugs such as leafhoppers and froghoppers.
During the 17-year-life cycle for the hordes of bugs, different broods emerge at different times. Brood X, otherwise known as the Great cicada hatching of 2021, is expected to occur in the last week of May and the first week of June in the USA.

Notes:
Researchers from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have developed a new technology called Scalable and Portable Testing- SPOT.
It can be used as a coronavirus test to get accurate results from a saliva sample in less than 30 minutes. It does not require the complicated process of heating and cooling each sample to get results. SPOT also can detect multiple genes per sample and it can detect as little as one viral particle per 1-microliter drop of fluid.

Notes:
A team at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia have come up with a snapshot of the global bird population.
As per the study, there are at least 50 billion individual wild birds in the world, among them House sparrows alone make up about 1.6 billion. European starlings, barn swallows and ring-billed gulls also have population above 1 billion.

Notes:
The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) has signed a contract worth USA 1.78 billion with Petropars Group for the development of Farzad-B Gas Field located in Iran.
ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL) owns 40 per cent participating interest (PI) in the block, in which gas discovery was first made by a consortium led by ONGC. It has now lost development rights for the gas field in Iran to Iranian Petropars Group.

Notes:
India’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India releases the ‘State of the Economy’ report along with its monthly bulletin.
As per the recent report for the month of April, it said that the impact of the second wave on the real economy appears limited so far in comparison with the first wave. It also highlighted the highest collection of GST in April 2021.