Fluorescence: making animals glow

Fluorescence: making animals glow

Subject: Science and tech

Section: Msc 

Context: A recent study reported that the bodies of animals belonging to all the known mammalian orders fluoresced in some way. Some 107 species also had fur that fluoresced.

Fluorescence 

• when an object absorbs some light of higher energy (like blue color) and  releases it at lower energy (like red color). It usually happens when an electron  absorbs a photon, or a particle of light, jumps to a higher energy level, before releasing that energy and jumping back down.
• In this process, the electron’s spin must not change. If its spin changes, the process is called phosphorescence.
• Fluorescence has many applications. The fluorescent lamp uses an electric discharge to bombard a material with UV light. The material absorbs it and re emits it as visible light. More curiously, scientists have been finding that the bodies of many mammals also fluoresce.

What is the Purple Economy?

Key Points:

• The Purple Economy, also sometimes referred to as the care economy, obtains its name from the color adopted by many feminist movements.
• It represents a new vision of economics that recognizes the importance of care work, empowerment and autonomy of women to the functioning of the economies, wellbeing of societies and life sustainability.
• Care work consists of two overlapping activities and can be paid or unpaid:
  • 1) direct, personal, and relational care activities, such as feeding a baby or nursing an ill partner; and
  • 2) indirect care activities or domestic work, such as cooking and cleaning.
• The bulk of care work worldwide is provided by unpaid carers, mostly women and girls. Paid care work is also predominantly carried out by women, often those from socially disadvantaged groups, including migrants.
• Being mostly in the service sector, care work is often associated with significant wage penalties and poor working conditions.
• How does the purple economy aims to address the problem?
  • The Purple Economy aims to overcome the fragility of the care economy at the national and international levels and address the multiple and intersecting inequalities created by the disproportionate reliance on women’s unpaid and underpaid labour, and under-investment in the care sector.
  • Purple Economy calls for the internalisation of the costs of care. The movement argues for making transitions to sustainable care arrangements along with environmental sustainability.
  • Public investments in the care sector should be seen as a source of decent and quintessentially green jobs.
  • Women benefit from job and entrepreneurship opportunities created in other, less feminised green sectors, such as energy or transport.