Current Affairs Quiz - April, 2023

Notes:
The first orbital flight test of the Starship was scheduled to be conducted. It is the most powerful rocket ever built to ferry humans to the Moon and beyond.
The vehicle, known as Starship, has been built by entrepreneur Elon Musk’s SpaceX company. The uncrewed mission was called off minutes before the planned launch from Texas.

Notes:
The Epstein–Barr virus is one of the nine known human herpesvirus types in the herpes family. A new study has found that this virus, which primarily spreads via saliva, can evolve into cancer.
Researchers at the University of California San Diego have discovered how the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) can exploit genomic weaknesses to trigger cancer, while also decreasing the body’s ability to suppress it.

Notes:
Utsa Patnaik, a famous economist, has been chosen for the Malcolm Adiseshiah Award 2023. The award is conferred every year by the Malcolm & Elizabeth Adiseshiah Trust to honour social scientists.
Utsa Patnaik, a renowned Indian Marxian economist, taught at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning at Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Notes:
In 2018, Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud read down the law that criminalized homosexuality, citing the idea of indirect discrimination where seemingly neutral laws could disproportionately disadvantage a group.
This marked the first time that indirect discrimination was recognized in the equality jurisprudence by the Supreme Court.

Notes:
The Unified Logistics Interface Platform, which was launched under the national logistics policy, enables the tracking of all cargo containers exported or imported in domestic or international water.
It has recently been integrated with 33 systems of seven Union Ministries.

Notes:
The State of World Population report titled ‘8 Billion Lives, Infinite Possibilities’ was released recently by the United Nations Population Fund.
According to this report released by UNFPA, India is now the most populous country in the world, as it has surpassed China’s population numbers.

Notes:
The Scientists of Indian Antarctic station, Maitri, have recently identified and studied the characteristics of Electromagnetic Ion Cyclotron (EMIC) waves, which are a form of plasma waves.
These waves are said to play an important role in precipitation of killer electrons (electrons having speed close to speed of light, which form the radiation belt of planet Earth), which are hazardous to our space-borne technology and instruments.

Notes:
The Ningaloo Eclipse is a hybrid solar eclipse in which the eclipse will transit from an annular eclipse to a total eclipse in certain regions of the world and again transit back to an annular eclipse.
A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby obscuring the view of the Sun from a small part of the Earth. There are four types of solar eclipses: total, partial, hybrid, and annular.

Notes:
Hanuman Plover Bird has been reinstated as species after more than eight decades. This bird is endemic to India and Sri Lanka.
Hanuman Plover Bird was merged with the Kentish plover in the 1930s as both species were considered to be the same.

Notes:
Earth Energy Imbalance is the difference between incoming and outgoing solar radiation. It is the indicator of climate change as it provides an estimate of how much, how fast and where the Earth’s temperature is increasing.
A new study has found that around 381 ZJ of heat has accumulated on the Earth from 1971-2020 due to anthropogenic emissions. This is approximately equal to EEI of around 0.48 watts per square meters.