Morning Current Affairs: 6 January 2018

Aadhaar misuse traceable, system is secure: UIDAI
The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) on 5 January 2017 dismissed reports of misuse of Aadhaar data, asserting that Aadhaar system is secure and any misuse can be traced as it maintains complete log of various functions.

It was recently revealed that Aadhaar details are being made available on payment of Rs 500 by anonymous sellers on WhatsApp. On this, UIDAI stated that there has not been any Aadhaar data breach.

The authority claims that the Aadhaar data, including biometric information, is fully safe and secure. Rather, the reported case appears to be instance of misuse of the grievance redressal search facility.

NASA to launch GOLD, ICON Missions to explore nearest space
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on 4 January 2018 announced to launch two missions to explore 60 miles (96 KM) of area above Earth's surface.

The Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) mission will be launched aboard a commercial communications satellite in January 2018 itself, while the other mission Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) will be launched later in 2018.

Once both the missions will be launched, GOLD and ICON will team up to explore the ionosphere, a boundary area between Earth and the space which features sea of electrically-charged electrons and ions and strong Sun radiations.

Chocolate likely to get extinct by 2050
Scientists have warned that the increase in warmer global temperatures and dryer weather conditions could pose a threat to the survival of the fragile cocoa plant, leading to the disappearance of chocolate as early as 2050.

To avoid same, scientists are exploring the possibility of using the gene-editing technology CRISPR to evolve crops that can survive environmental challenges.

The scientists from the University of California are going to team up with the food and candy company Mars to explore CRISPR technique in order to help tiny cocao seedlings to survive and thrive in the dryer, warmer climate.