General Science Questions (MCQs) for Competitive Examinations

Notes:
Biofortification is the breeding crops to increase their nutritional value. This can be done either through conventional selective breeding or genetic engineering. Biofortification differs from ordinary fortification because it focuses on making plant foods more nutritious as the plants are growing, rather than having nutrients added to the foods when they are being processed.

Notes:
Jhum is a traditional form of shifting cultivation that is common in the North-East of India. Also known as slash and burn agriculture, it is practiced by the tribal groups in Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland and the hilly areas of Assam. Jhum involves clearing a piece of land by setting fire or clear felling and using the area for growing crops.

Notes:
An accessory fruit (sometimes called false fruit, spurious fruit, pseudo-fruit, or pseudo-carp) is a fruit in which some of the flesh is derived not from the ovary but from some adjacent tissue exterior to the carpel. Examples of accessory tissue are the receptacle of strawberries, figs, or mulberries, and the calyx of Gaultheria procumbens or Syzygium jambos. Pomes, such as apples and pears, are also accessory fruits, with much of the fruit flesh derived from a hypanthium.

Notes:
The gap between the two neurons is called the synapse. It is a structure that permits a neuron (or nerve cell) to pass an electrical or chemical signal to another neuron. Synapses are essential to neuronal function : neurons are cells that are specialized to pass signals to individual target cells, and synapses are the means by which they do so.

Notes:
Swedish naturalist Carlous Linnaeus established the binomial system of naming living organisms, setting a format and a structured process for classifying the interrelationships between plants (among which he included all fungi), and between animals. The binomial system that Linnaeus devised enables an author to refer to a species confident that it will mean the same thing to informed readers anywhere else in the world.

Notes:
Mould is a member of the fungi kingdom. Fungi can be defined as a plant without chlorophyll, so it cannot get energy directly from the sun. This means that fungi must use other plants and animals as its food source. This is why bread mould is so common because of the ingredients in bread, it is an excellent source of nutrition for many moulds to grow and thrive.

Notes:
Stomata are tiny openings or pores in plant tissue that allow for gas exchange. Stomata allow a plant to take in carbon dioxide, which is needed for photosynthesis. They also help to reduce water loss by closing when conditions are hot or dry. Stomata look like tiny mouths which open and close as they assist in transpiration.

Notes:
A carnivore is an organism that mostly eats meat, or the flesh of animals. Carnivores that eat herbivores are called secondary consumers, and large carnivores that eat other carnivores are called tertiary consumers. Animals and people who eat both animals and plants are called omnivores. Sometimes carnivores are also called predators.

Notes:
In the blood the key minerals are iron, copper, zinc, sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium. Minerals constitute important part of blood plasma that constitutes almost 55% of blood. In the blood, iron is found in larger amounts than any other mineral.

Notes:
Hh or the Bombay blood group, is a rare blood type. This blood phenotype was first discovered in Bombay, now known as Mumbai, by Dr. Y. M. Bhende in 1952. It is mostly found in South Asia (India, Bangladesh, Pakistan) and parts of Middle East such as Iran. Individuals with the rare Bombay phenotype (hh) do not express H antigen (also called substance H), the antigen which is present in blood group O. For this reason people who have Bombay phenotype can donate red blood cells to any member of the ABO blood group system but they cannot receive blood from any member of the ABO blood group system but only from other people who have Bombay phenotype.