GK & Current Affairs Quiz: August 16, 2019

Notes:
The researchers at IIT Hyderabad and BR Ambedkar National Institute of Technology (NIT) of Jalandhar have developed a process by which bone implant materials can be synthesized from waste egg shells. They seek to produce bone substitute materials such as – Tri-Calcium phosphate (TCP) without the use of toxic chemicals. The natural source of choice of the IIT-Hyderabad researchers is egg shells. Eggshells are made up largely of calcium (95.1%) along with small amounts of proteins and water. In modern medicine, damaged and missing bones are replaced with bone from either patient or donor, or by using artificial materials containing calcium, such as Plaster of Paris, and phosphate compounds like hydroxyapatite and calcium phosphate. TCP is a commonly-used bone substitute material from natural sources.

Notes:
The researchers from IIT Madras have developed a multi-modal robot ‘GraspMan’ with good grasping, manipulation and locomotion abilities for use in industrial and field applications. The GraspMan is consists of a pair of graspers, which provide morphological adaptation. It will enable to conform to the geometry of the object being grasped. This allows the grasper to hold objects securely and manipulate it much like the human hand. The motivation behind this research is to realize a robot with a minimalistic design that can overcome the need for task-specific robots that are capable of navigating and manipulating across different environments without increasing the system complexity.

Notes:
Wrestler Deepak Punia has won gold in men’s 86-kg freestyle bout at the World Junior Wrestling Championships after beating Russia’s Alik Shebzukhov in the final at Tallinn, Estonia. With this, Punia has become the first Indian to win gold at the junior World Championship after 18 years. Earlier, Ramesh Gulia (69 kg) and Palwinder Singh Cheema (130 kg) had won international gold medals at the junior circuit in 2001.

Notes:
Rajasthan has bagged the “best innovation and initiative leadership award” for its achievements in higher education in the 14th World Education Summit (WES-2019). The award was received by the Minister of State for Higher Education Bhanwar Singh Bhati at the 14th summit in New Delhi. The representatives of 8 countries and 17 States of India participated in the 2-day summit.

Notes:
V.B. Chandrasekhar (57), the former India and Tamil Nadu cricketer, has passed away in Chennai on 15th August 2019. Fondly referred to as VB, he represented India in 7 ODIs, with an innings of 53 being his highest score. In 81 First Class matches, Chandrasekhar notched up 4999 runs at 43.09 with 10 centuries. After his eventful cricketing career, where he was a part of the last Tamil Nadu team to triumph in the Ranji Trophy in 1988. Later, he led the state side and then briefly played for Goa — VB focussed on coaching and commentary. Notably, he was the cricket manager of Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in the franchise’s first 3 years and was instrumental in getting the iconic M.S. Dhoni to CSK.