{"id":30708,"date":"2024-07-03T10:57:01","date_gmt":"2024-07-03T05:27:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=30708"},"modified":"2025-04-15T22:06:36","modified_gmt":"2025-04-15T16:36:36","slug":"zinc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/zinc\/","title":{"rendered":"Zinc"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>About Zinc:\u00a0<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>It is a <strong>silvery blue-grey metal<\/strong> with a relatively <strong>low melting and boiling point<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Both <strong>lead &amp; zinc are found<\/strong> to occur <strong>togethe<\/strong>r in ore along with other metals like silver and cadmium.<\/li>\n<li>It is the <strong>fourth most widely used<\/strong> metal across the globe, trailing only steel, aluminium and copper. India has self-sufficiency in respect of zinc.<\/li>\n<li>In India, <strong>Rajasthan<\/strong> is endowed with the <strong>largest reserves\/resources<\/strong> of lead \u2013 zinc ore, followed by Andhra Pradesh (3.03%), Madhya Pradesh (1.98%), Bihar etc.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Global reservoirs of Zinc: Australia <\/strong>accounts <strong>for 27% of world&#8217;s zinc reserves<\/strong>, followed by China (18%), Russia &amp; Mexico (9% each), Peru(8%), Kazakhstan(5%), USA(4%), etc.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Uses:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The largest consumer of zinc is the <strong>Galvanising Industry. <\/strong>Owing to its <strong>corrosion resistance<\/strong> in varied types of environment, zinc is used for protecting steel by way of galvanizing.<\/li>\n<li>Large quantities of zinc are used to produce <strong>die-castings<\/strong>, which are important in the <strong>automobile, electrical and hardware industries<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Zinc oxide is widely used in the manufacture of very many products such <strong>as paints and rubber etc.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Biological role<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>It is a <strong>trace mineral<\/strong>, meaning that the <strong>body only needs small amounts<\/strong>, and yet it is necessary for almost 100 enzymes to carry out vital chemical reactions.<\/li>\n<li>It is a major player in the <strong>creation of DNA, growth of cells<\/strong>, building proteins, healing damaged tissue, and supporting a healthy immune system.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Key findings<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It found that <strong>zinc in plantsaids in nitrogen fixation<\/strong>, a process where atmospheric nitrogen is converted into ammonia, an essential nutrient for plants.\u00a0\n<ul>\n<li>Legume crops form a symbiotic relationship with rhizobia, a bacteria that fixes atmospheric nitrogen in root nodules.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>However, these nodules are sensitive to environmental factors such as temperature, drought, flooding, soil salinity, and high soil nitrogen levels.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Another vital finding of this study is the identification of a <strong>crucial transcription factor<\/strong> that controls nodule breakdown when soil nitrogen levels are high.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>The researchers discovered that legumes <strong>also use zinc as a secondary signal<\/strong> to integrate environmental factors and regulate nitrogen fixation efficiency. The mechanism works due to a <strong>transcriptional regulator called Fixation Under Nitrate (FUN).<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>FUN is inactivated by zinc through the formation of large filament structures, which are dismantled to release active FUN when zinc levels are low.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1: What is galvanisation?<\/h3>\n<p>It is the process of applying a protective zinc coating to iron or steel, to prevent rusting. The most common method is hot dip galvanizing, in which steel sections are submerged in a bath of molten zinc.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.downtoearth.org.in\/agriculture\/unexpected-discovery-reveals-zincs-crucial-role-in-making-legumes-resilient-to-climate-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Unexpected discovery reveals zinc\u2019s crucial role in making legumes resilient to climate change<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zinc  is a silvery blue-grey metal with a relatively low melting and boiling point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":30709,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-30708","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}