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Synthesis gas (syngas) is a combustible mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, often containing carbon dioxide and methane. It's primarily used to produce methanol or ammonia, and can also be used as a fuel. Syngas is derived from carbon-containing feedstocks like biomass, natural gas, heavy oil, and coal.

Agadagidi

Agadagidi is a traditional alcoholic beverage in Nigeria made from fermented overripe bananas or plantains. The traditional process for preparing agadagidi involves microorganisms like yeasts and bacteria at various stages of fermentation.

Welfare board for Gig Workers

The labour welfare and skill development department has constituted the Tamil Nadu Platform Based Gig Workers Welfare Board recently. It will cater to workers in e-commerce services including online food delivery and cab aggregators.

Tansen Festival

Tansen Samaroh is a musical extravaganza celebrated near his tomb at Gwalior district, Madhya Pradesh. The festival is organized to pay tribute to the Great Indian Musical Maestro Tansen. Tansen popularised and improved the plucked rabab (of Central Asian origin). He was among the Navaratnas (9 jewels) at the court of the Mughal Emperor Jalal ud-din Akbar who gave him the title Mian, an honorific, meaning learned man.

Message in a Bottle Campaign

Message in a bottle campaign is a campaign done by NASA, U.S. It invites people around the world to sign their names to a poem written by the U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón. The names will be on a microchip that will ride aboard NASA’s Europa Clipper mission as it explores Jupiter’s moon (Europa). Europa is one of the largest and the 6th-closest moon to the Jupiter.

Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM)

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) recently announced that its SLIM lander successfully went into lunar orbit. This is the 1st Moon-landing attempt being made by Japan and the 5th country to successfully soft land on the moon. SLIM would be the smallest and lightest spacecraft to land on the Moon. The chosen landing site for SLIM is near a small crater named Shioli in the equatorial region of the Moon.

Thakkar Bapa (Amritlal Vithaldas Thakkar)

Thakkar Bapa (1869 - 1951) was an Indian social worker and freedom fighter who worked to improve the lives of tribal people in Gujarat. Thakkar Bapa was a strong believer in universal education and the abolition of untouchability. He was the Chairman of the Excluded and Partially Excluded Areas Sub-Committee of the Constituent Assembly. In 1922, he established the Bhil Seva Mandal and in 1949, he established the "Adim Jati Sevak Sangh".

Jumping spider species

2 jumping spider species - Afraflacilla kerala and Afraflacilla adavathurensis were discovered recently from Kerala and Tamil Nadu respectively. Before the discovery of Afraflacilla kerala, only 3 species of the Afraflacilla genus had been found in India. Afraflacilla is a genus of jumping spiders (Salticidae). Most species are found in Eastern to Northern Africa and Australia, with 2 species found in Europe.

Pantoea Tagorei

Pantoea Tagorei is a Gram-negative, short-rod, non-motile, facultatively anaerobic, potassium-solubilizing bacterium. The bacteria promotes plant growth and is being used in organic farming. It solubilizes potassium, replenishes nitrogen, and solubilizes phosphorus. It was discovered by a team of microbiologists from Visva Bharati University and named after Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore and his son, Rathindranath.

FLip mutation

JN.1 subvariant has a mutation in its spike protein, L455S, also called a “FLip” mutation. L455S and L455F are called “FLip” mutations because they switch the positions of amino acids F and L on the spike protein, increasing their transmissibility. This type of mutation is performed we use binary crossover.

Polar Wolf Colony

The Polar Wolf is considered one of the toughest prisons in Russia. The Polar Wolf is a high security corrective labor colony for men in the village of Kharp, Russia. It's also known as FKU IK-3, which is part of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia.

Terms in news

Basadi and Nishidis were a Jain shrine or temple in Karnataka. ‘Bhattarakas’ are the chiefs of Jain monasteries.

Madan Mohan Malaviya

Madan Mohan Malaviya was an Indian educationist, freedom fighter and the thrice president of Indian National Congress. He was born on 25 December 1861, Prayagraj and died on 12 November 1946. He was addressed as 'Mahamana', he was the founder of Banaras Hindu University (BHU) at Varanasi in 1916, also founded an English-newspaper, “The Leader”. Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya was posthumously conferred with Bharat Ratna.

National Mathematics Day

National Mathematics Day was observed to commemorate the birth anniversary of Srinivasa Ramanujan every year on December 22. Ramanujan was born in Erode, Tamil Nadu was an Indian greatest mathematician given contributions to number theory, functions, infinite series and continued fractions. He was the 1st Indian to be elected a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. He also received a prestigious award from the King of England for his services to mathemat