{"id":71966,"date":"2025-11-04T13:10:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T07:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=71966"},"modified":"2025-11-06T10:56:33","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T05:26:33","slug":"heavy-metals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/heavy-metals\/","title":{"rendered":"Heavy Metals"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Heavy Metals Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Heavy metals are polluting the Cauvery River and its fish, researchers from Tamil Nadu have reported.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Heavy Metals<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The term \u2018heavy metal&#8217; refers to any <\/span><b>metallic chemical element<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that has a<\/span><b> relatively high density<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and is<\/span><b> toxic or poisonous at low concentrations.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Examples <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of heavy metals include <\/span><b>mercury (Hg), cadmium (Cd), arsenic (As), chromium (Cr), thallium (Tl), and lead (Pb).\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Heavy metals are <\/span><b>natural components of the Earth&#8217;s crust.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> They<\/span><b> cannot be degraded or destroyed.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To a small extent they <\/span><b>enter our bodies via food, drinking water, and air.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>As trace elements, some heavy metals <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(e.g. copper, selenium, and zinc) are <\/span><b>essential to maintain the metabolism <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of the human body.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, <\/span><b>at higher concentrations <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">they can lead to <\/span><b>poisoning<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Heavy metal poisoning could result,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for instance,<\/span><b> from drinking-water contamination <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(e.g. lead pipes), <\/span><b>high ambient air concentrations near emission sources<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, or intake via the<\/span><b> food chain.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Heavy metals are dangerous because they <\/span><b>tend to bioaccumulate.\u00a0<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bioaccumulation means<\/span><b> an increase in the concentration of a chemical in a biological organism over time,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> compared to the chemical&#8217;s concentration in the environment.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><b>Compounds <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">accumulate in living things any time they are<\/span><b> taken up and stored faster than they are broken down<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (metabolized) or excreted.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Heavy metals can enter a water supply<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> by industrial and consumer waste, or even from acidic rain breaking down soils and releasing heavy metals <\/span><b>into streams, lakes, rivers, and groundwater.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b style=\"font-size: inherit;\">Mercury, lead, and cadmium <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">are of <\/span><b style=\"font-size: inherit;\">greatest concern<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> because of their <\/span><b style=\"font-size: inherit;\">ability to travel long distances in the atmosphere.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/epaper.thehindu.com\/ccidist-ws\/th\/th_delhi\/issues\/154818\/OPS\/GA4F48HEK.1.png?cropFromPage=true\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">TH<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Heavy metals are metallic chemical elements that has a relatively high density and are toxic or poisonous at low concentrations. Read more about Heavy Metals, Meaning, Examples, Impact, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":71980,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3548,246,21,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-71966","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-heavy-metals","9":"tag-prelims-current-affairs","10":"tag-prelims-pointers","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71966","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\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}