20 April 2020 CURRENT AFFAIRS

Goa COVID free:

Goa on Sunday became the first state to be free of COVID-19 patients for the moment as the seventh patient recovered from the virus. The tiniest state has not reported a single COVID-19 case since April 3 and all seven patients — six with travel history, and the seventh the brother of one of the patients have now recovered.

 

What are Blazars?

A blazar is an active galactic nucleus (AGN) with a relativistic jet (a jet composed of ionized matter traveling at nearly the speed of light) directed very nearly towards an observer. Blazars are among the brightest objects in the universe.

  • The most distant of the newly discovered blazars started to emit their light when the universe was just 1.4 billion years old. Previously, the most distant blazars detected by Fermi emitted their light when the universe was about 2.1 billion years old.
  • Blazars are similar to all active galaxies, acquiring energy from matter falling toward a central supermassive black hole. A small part of this infalling material becomes redirected into a pair of particle jets, which blast outward in opposite directions at nearly the speed of light.

 

What is remdesivir?

Remdesivir is an antiviral medication developed by the American biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences. It is a nucleotide analog, specifically an adenosine analogue, which inserts into viral RNA chains, causing their premature termination. It is a drug with antiviral properties that was manufactured by a US-based biotechnology company in 2014, to treat Ebola cases. It was also tried in patients of MERS and SARS, both caused by members of the coronavirus family, but experts said it did now show promising results back then. It is now being studied as a COVID-19 treatment.

Gamma Ray Band:

Gamma Ray is a heavy metal band from Hamburg, northern Germany, founded and fronted by Kai Hansen after his departure from the German power metal band Helloween. He is the band’s lead vocalist, guitarist and chief songwriter. Between 1990 and 2014, Gamma Ray recorded eleven studio albums. Gamma-ray band is one of the bands of the electromagnetic spectrum on which there is limited knowledge on the flux variability of blazars. But this band needs to be explored as this is the energy range where the high energy emission from blazars peaks.

 

OIC

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation is an international organization founded in 1969, consisting of 57 member states, with a collective population of over 1.8 billion as of 2015 with 53 countries being Muslim-majority countries. The organization states that it is “the collective voice of the Muslim world” and works to “safeguard and protect the interests of the Muslim world in the spirit of promoting international peace and harmony”. The OIC has permanent delegations to the United Nations and the European Union.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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