General Science - Biology MCQs

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Daltonism is another term for colour blindness.

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Algae are primitive eukaryotic organisms that do not have true stems, roots and leaves. They are primary producers in aquatic ecosystems and marine organisms. Most of these are edible and have been consumed in different forms since ancient times. Most edible seaweeds are marine algae as most freshwater algae are toxic. While marine algae are not toxic, some do contain acids that irritate the digestion canal, while some others can have a laxative and electrolyte-balancing effect.

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Astronomer Milutin Milankovitch developed the mathematical formulae upon which these orbital variations are based. He hypothesised that when some parts of the cyclic variations are combined and occur at the same time, they are responsible for major changes to the earth’s climate (even ice ages). A 1976 study, published in the journal ‘Science’ examined deepsea sediment cores and found that Milankovich’s theory corresponded to periods of climate change. Indeed, ice ages had occurred when the earth was going through different stages of orbital variation.

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Argemone mexicana (Kutila, Mexican poppy, Phirangi Datura, Pila-Dhatura, prickly poppy, Satyanasi, Sial Kanta, Ujar kanta) grows wild all over India in the cold season. It is an annual herb, belonging to the family Papaveraceae. All parts of plant are poisonous. The extract of the whole plant (latex) contains two alkaloids Berberine and Protopine. Its seeds resemble mustard and yield 22-36% of pale yellow, nauseous, bitter, non-edible oil [Katkar oil or Argemone oil].

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ICMR will soon launch diagnostic kit for lung fluke disease (paragonimiasis): This kit developed by RMRC (ICMR), Dibrugarh is useful for diagnosis of disease caused by lung fluke and is often confused with tuberculosis.

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This treatment was used since 1960s but only recently getting attention. It is still under experiments and is being refined. In the early 2015, Human clinical trials were started in Liberia to test the effectiveness of convalescent plasma therapy (CPT). This question is based on that news. Convalescent plasma was found to effectively treat diphtheria and tetanus at the end of the nineteenth century, and was widely used in the first half of the twentieth century to treat diseases such as measles, mumps and pneumonia. But with the arrival of antibiotics, antivirals and vaccine, convalescent plasma was all but forgotten.

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Citing from The Hindu; January 2015 If Rosetta finally reached a comet in August 2014 after travelling for ten years and covering a distance of 6.4 billion km, in July 2015, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will reach Pluto. The New Horizons’ closest approach to Pluto will occur on July 14. By then the craft will have travelled 5 billion km after it was launched in January 2006. But even before New Horizons reaches Pluto, the craft will begin observing the Pluto system in mid-January. And by mid-May, New Horizons will be able to provide better views of the Pluto system. These views will be far better than the ones that the Hubble Space telescope can provide. “For decades we thought Pluto was this odd little body on the planetary outskirts; now we know it’s really a gateway to an entire region of new worlds in the Kuiper Belt, and New Horizons is going to provide the first close-up look at them,” Hal Weaver, New Horizons Project Scientist said in a release. Meanwhile, in March 2015, NASA’s Dawn probe will arrive at the protoplanet Ceres. Ceres is the “most massive body in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.” The interest in exploring Ceres is because water ice is believed to be present beneath the crust.

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The correct sequence of the evolution would be Monotremes, Marsupials and Eutheria. Since, Whale is in subclass Eutheria, it is the latest in the evolution. So the correct sequence is Echidena (Monotreme), Kangaroo (Marsupials) & Whale (Eutheria).Echidna  are the only surviving members of the Monotremata order and are the only living mammals that lay eggs.

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The mouth secretes salivary amylase. The stomach secretes pepsin. The small intestine secretes protease. The gall bladder stores and secretes bile produced by the liver, which is an emulsifier, not an enzyme.