Current Affairs Quiz - September, 2023

Notes:
Simone Biles wins a record eighth all-around title at the U.S. Gymnastics Championships, a full decade after her first national title.
She won her first world title at the 2013 championships and she has won 25 medals at world championships, including 18 golds — higher than any men’s or women’s gymnasts in history.

Notes:
In a new study published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports, researchers have successfully extracted ancient DNA from a 2,900-year-old clay brick, uncovering a wealth of information about the plant life cultivated during that era.
The brick analyzed in this study was found in the palace of the Neo-Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II, located in the ancient city of Kalhu, in modern day Iraq.

Notes:
INDUS-X (India-U.S. Defense Acceleration Ecosystem), an initiative to build a defence innovation bridge by Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) of the Ministry of Defence, and the US Department of Defence (DoD).
It began an exercise to begin the Indo-US CrossLinx accelerator programme to prepare defence start-ups to expand to the US markets.

Notes:
President Droupadi Murmu released the commemorative coin on Late NT Rama Rao on his centenary year at Rashtrapati Bhavan Cultural Centre.
NT Rama Rao, who founded the Telegu Desam Party (TDP), also served as the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh for three terms. He initiated many public welfare programs.

Notes:
WR Chess has triumphed as inaugural FIDE World Rapid Team Champions. Altogether, WR Chess secured 22 matchpoints, Freedom finished on 20, and third-placed MGD1 had 18.
WR Chess had one Indian- R Praggnananda, Freedom had two Indian players and MGD1 eight. When it comes to individual medals for board prizes, as many as seven Indians won either a Silver or Bronze medal.

Notes:
Tharman Shanmugaratnam is the president-elect of Singapore. He was born on February 25, 1957. He is a popular politician who has won several parliamentary elections. In 2023, he resigned from all government positions and the PAP to run for the Singaporean presidential election. He won the election with 70.4% of the votes.
Shanmugaratnam was previously the Senior Minister of Singapore from 2019 to 2023. He also served as Deputy Prime Minister for eight years. He studied at the London School of Economics, Cambridge University, and Harvard University.

Notes:
National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has been granted the deemed-to-be-university status by the Ministry of Higher Education, Union Minister of Education Dharmendra Pradhan.
It was announced on the 63rd Foundation Day of the apex decision-making body for school education. He suggested setting up Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence labs in all seven regional centres of NCERT.

Notes:
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will come back through Earth’s atmosphere after a year-long journey to Bennu, a potentially hazardous asteroid with a 1 in 2700 chance of smashing cataclysmically into Earth.
The goal of the mission is to see whether life on Earth came from outer space. OSIRIS-REx is now returning from its mission with a 2-ounce sample of Bennu’s surface that could contain extraterrestrial precursors to life on our planet.

Notes:
Telangana Chief Innovation Officer (CIO) Dr Shanta Thoutam received the World Innovation Award at the first BRICS Innovation Forum hosted in Moscow.
The award is given for outstanding contribution to the Sustainable Development Goal-4 that ensures inclusive and equitable quality education and promotes lifelong opportunities for all. The award was instituted by World Organisation for Development.

Notes:
A new global data platform, Marine Sand Watch, developed by GRID-Geneva within the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), has unveiled that six billion tonnes of sand are being extracted annually from the world’s ocean floors, posing irreparable harm to benthic life.
The platform monitors sand, clay, silt, gravel, and rock dredging in marine environments, particularly in hotspots like the North Sea, Southeast Asia, and the East Coast of the United States.