Category: Current Affairs

Rinku Singh hits 5 sixes in an over to create history

KKR’s Rinku Singh shot to instant stardom as he smashed 5 sixes in the final over to successfully chase down 29 runs against Gujarat Titans in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023. Former and current Indian cricketers took to social media to praise his performance, with India captain Rohit Sharma calling it an “unbelievable innings”.

KnowALLedge Plus

The little-known batter from the north Indian city of Aligarh was born into a low-income family and grew up helping his father transport gas cylinders on a motorbike.

He was picked up by film star Shah Rukh Khan’s KKR in a player draft for INR 800,000 in 2018 and has been earning a steady income which he says has helped uplift his family.

New emoji released to commemorate coronation

It is the world of tech-savvy gen Zs and the British royalty is not far behind. Buckingham Palace has revealed an official emoji to celebrate the coronation of King Charles III. The colourful cartoon motif depicts the 17th-century gold jewelled St Edward’s crown with purple velvet cap.

KnowALLedge Plus

  • St Edward’s Crown is the crown used at the moment of coronation.
  • It was made for Charles II in 1661, as a replacement for the medieval crown which had been melted down in 1649.
  •  The original was thought to date back to the eleventh-century royal saint, Edward the Confessor – the last Anglo-Saxon king of England.
  • The crown was commissioned from the Royal Goldsmith, Robert Vyner, in 1661.
  • Although it is not an exact replica of the medieval design, it follows the original in having four crosses-pattée and four fleurs-de-lis, and two arches.
  • It is made up of a solid gold frame set with rubies, amethysts, sapphires, garnet, topazes and tourmalines. The crown has a velvet cap with an ermine band.

MLB rolls out a number of changes for baseball

One of the changes as mandated by Major League Baseball (MLB) is a bigger base. The traditional base is a square with 15-inch sides, and the new base is now 18 inches along the side, which not only means more base to grab but also means that the distance between the bases is slightly less. The intention of league officials is to reduce injuries and increase stolen bases, an element of the game that has been decimated in the era of analytics.

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MLB is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada comprises 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada.

Start-up to produce oxygen from moon’s surface

An Israeli start-up, Helios, says it has developed technology that can produce oxygen needed for fuel from the lunar soil. This will make multiple and long-term missions to the moon economically viable, as it will allow moon colonies to “live off the land” instead of having to carry all of their fuel and other resources from Earth.

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In 1970 Gerard K. O’Neill, a Princeton University physicist and space activist talked about space colonies and presented detailed concepts for human settlements in space. He designed a kilometre-long sealed cylinder, to be built primarily of processed lunar materials and powered by solar energy, capable of sustaining a human colony indefinitely at a point in space between the Earth and the Moon.

In his book The High Frontier (1978) he suggested that space colonies might be the ultimate solution to such terrestrial problems as pollution, overpopulation, and the energy shortage.

Jupiter nears 100 moons. Pips Saturn to be the planet with most moons.

Astronomers have discovered 12 new moons around Jupiter, putting the total count at a record-breaking 92, as published by the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center. Saturn, the one-time leader, comes in a close second with 83 confirmed moons.

KnowALLedge Plus

Moons come in many shapes, sizes, and types. A few have atmospheres and even hidden oceans beneath their surfaces. Most planetary moons probably formed from the discs of gas and dust circulating around planets in the early solar system. Others were created by capturing objects that formed elsewhere and fell into orbit around larger worlds.

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