Daily Current Affairs

Haemoglobin isn’t used only in blood, scientists discover (GS Paper 2, Health)

Why in news?

• Textbooks have said for decades that haemoglobin is found in the red blood cells (RBCs),that it makes blood red, carries oxygen, and is essential for survival.
• A new discovery has revealed that haemoglobin isn’t used by RBCs alone.
• The scientists from China have reported that chondrocytes, cells that make cartilage, the connecting tissue between bones also make haemoglobin and seem to depend on it for their survival.

 

Background:

• Feng Zhang, a pathologist had been working on bone development since 2010. In 2017, when he was studying growth plates, cartilaginous tissue at the end of certain long bones that allow the bones to become longer, he stumbled upon a few spherical blob-like structures.
• They seemed to bear an uncanny resemblance to RBCs, and they contained haemoglobin.
• He ascertained that the chondrocytes within the growth plates of newborn mice were not only producing large amounts of haemoglobin, but also that it was coalescing and forming large blobs without a membrane.
• The scientists called these blobs haemoglobin bodies, or Hedy.

 

Function of Hedy:

• The scientists used genetically modified mice, in this case mice in which the gene making haemoglobin had been removed. These mice produced almost no haemoglobin molecules and they died as embryos.
• But it turned out that if one looked closely at the growth plate cartilage tissue from these mice, most of the chondrocytes were dying.
• Removing the gene that made haemoglobin specifically in the cartilage tissue also resulted in the same outcome: cell death among the chondrocytes. It was clear that Hedy was essential for the chondrocytes to live.

 

Whether haemoglobin also carries oxygen in chondrocytes?

• In RBCs, haemoglobin carries oxygen and makes sure that different parts of the body receive the oxygen to function correctly. The scientists conducted a series of experiments to check whether haemoglobin also carries oxygen in chondrocytes.
• First, they checked if the cartilage cells showed signs of stress before dying when haemoglobin molecules were absent.
• They focused on a special type of stress called hypoxic stress, caused by low-oxygen conditions. And indeed they did: cartilage that didn’t contain haemoglobin showed signs of hypoxic stress.

 

Outcome:

• Now they knew that the absence of haemoglobin caused the chondrocytes to go through some sort of low-oxygen stress. They then wanted to see how normal and haemoglobin-free chondrocytes behaved when there is little oxygen in the cells’ environment.
• The researchers proceeded to test the cells in a low-oxygen, or hypoxic, environment. In the presence of haemoglobin, the cells seemed to release more oxygen. But in the absence of haemoglobin, the chondrocytes started dying.
• This further confirmed their hunch that the haemoglobin in the chondrocytes was most likely storing oxygen and supplying it to the cells when required.

 

Haemoglobin in other places:

• In a developing growth plate, where oxygen is limited due to a lack of blood supply to the region, the chondrocytes still manage to thrive. Based on the scientists’ findings, it’s the haemoglobin molecules that manage to bring them the oxygen they need to survive.
• The scientists also found that cartilage in regions outside the growth plate, like the one in the ribs or the spine of mice, also contained haemoglobin.

 

Way Forward:

• The discovery of functional haemoglobin in cartilage also leads to the possibility that it plays a role in certain joint diseases.
• There are many bone deformities that develop from defects in chondrocytes.

 

UNESCO names Kozhikode city of literature

(GS Paper 1, Culture)

Why in news?

• The city of Kozhikode in Kerala was added in UNESCO’s Creative Cities Network (UCCN) recently. Gwalior from Madhya Pradesh was also among the 55 new cities to join the network.
• These cities have been handpicked to represent seven creative fields — crafts and folk arts, design, film, gastronomy, literature, media arts, and music.
• Kozhikode was included in the category of literature and Gwalior in the category of music.

Kozhikode’s literary tradition:

• The North Kerala city of Kozhikode is home to many promiment personalities of the state’s literary and cultural world.
• The city, where several leading media houses are headquartered, has hundreds of publishing banners and several libraries enriching its literary tradition.
• The first Malayalam novel Kundalatha was born in Kozhikode in 1887. It was authored by Appu Nedungadi.
• Several illustrious writers like S K Pottekkatt, Vaikom Muhammad Basheer, Uroob, Thikkodiyan, NN Kakkad, P Valsala, Akbar Kakkattil, Punathil Kunjabdulla and MT Vasudevan Nair have brought laurels for Kozhikode.
• The city has also produced many film and theatre professionals in the last half a century.

 

The UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN):

• The UCCN was created in 2004 to promote cooperation among cities that have identified creativity as a strategic factor for sustainable urban development.
• It now includes 350 cities in over a hundred countries.
• The network is aimed at leveraging the creative, social, and economic potential of cultural industries.
• It was launched to promote UNESCO’s goals of cultural diversity and strengthen resilience to threats such as climate change, rising inequality, and rapid urbanisation.
• It encourages a culture of creativity in urban planning and solutions to urban problems.

 

Indian cities in the network:

• Apart from Kozhikode and Gwalior, Varanasi (music), Srinagar (crafts and folk arts) and Chennai (music) are part of the network.

 

Objective of the CCCN:

• The UNESCO Creative Cities Network allows member cities to recognise creativity as an essential component of urban development, notably through partnerships involving the public and private sectors and civil society.
• It envisages to develop hubs of creativity and innovation and broaden opportunities for creators and professionals in the cultural sector. These cities have to achieve the UN agenda of sustainable development.

 

Areas of action:

• The objectives of the network are implemented both at the level of the member cities and at the international level, notably through sharing experiences, knowledge and best practices.
• There are professional and artistic exchange programmes, research and evaluations on the experience of the creative cities, among other activities.

 

The annual conference of network cities:

• A highlight of the network is the annual conference of mayors and other stakeholders of network cities, which offers a unique occasion to strengthen ties between creative cities from across the world.
• The main objective of the conference is to exchange practical information on policies and activities carried out by cities and stimulate inter-city collaborations.
• The last conference was held in Santos, Brazil, and in 2023 conference was in Istanbul. The next conference will be held in July 2024 in Braga, Portugal.

 

What members have to do?

• Every four years, member cities are required to submit a Membership Monitoring Report, with the aim of demonstrating their steadfast commitment towards the implementation of the UCCN Mission Statement.
• They present an action plan for the following four years, providing insights into their achievements and lessons learnt, as well as the impact of the designation.

 

Brazzaville Summit of the Three Basins ends with a declaration

(GS Paper 3, Environment)

Why in news?

• The Summit of the Three Basins recently concluded with the declaration by the Heads of State and Government of the States.

 

Details:

• The three-day meeting in Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of Congo, was attended by more than 3,000 delegates from countries in the three basins of the Amazon, Congo and Borneo-Mekong-Southeast Asia.
• In the declaration, the delegates acknowledged that the three ecosystems of biodiversity and tropical forests provide ecosystem services that are very important for humankind and for the sustainable development of the societies that live there. 
• The delegates hope to ensure that tropical forests, which cover a third of the world's land surface, are protected in the future.

 

The seven-point declaration urged nations to: 

1. Recognise the value of enhanced cooperation between the three basins
2. Recognise that sovereign management of biodiversity, forests and associated resources of the three basins is essential
3. Develop solutions together 
4. Pool and capitalise on existing knowledge, experience, resources and achievements
5. Involve all states and national authorities, including indigenous peoples, youth, women, civil society, academia and the private sector
6. Encourage financial mobilisation and the development of traditional and innovative financing mechanisms
7. Establish a sustainable system of remuneration for the ecosystem services provided by the three basins

 

Financial aspect:

• The delegates said that there is a need to create a fund to address loss and damage due to climate change. In the declaration, the leaders urged developed countries to meet their commitments.
• These include the $200 billion per year by 2030, as set out in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, and $100 billion per year in climate finance as new, additional, predictable and adequate resources to developing countries. 

 

Concerns:

• The declaration acknowledged the importance of protected areas. These basins are responsible for around three-quarters of all global biodiversity and 80 per cent of the world’s forest cover. 
• Despite pledges by governments and businesses, a total of 4.1 million hectares of tropical forest was lost to deforestation in 2022.
• The vast majority of deforestation in the world–96 per cent– occurs in tropical regions.

 

Way Forward:

• Going forward, it will be important to have more robust representation and high-level leadership from all three regions and a more structured discussion on topics such as how to collectively tackle drivers of deforestation, promote restoration and sustainable forest management.