China set to curb high pork consumption with the "Terminator."

Meat consumption in China has grown sixfold since 1978. Pork is a popular meat in China, as pig farming takes center stage in the country. The success of pig farming in China has seen more and more people venturing into the business and more and more people consuming pork.There are nutritionist who believe that cutting meat consumption prolong life and ensures healthy living. The vegan group canvasing for a life of veggies have also shown that life without meat is possible and beneficial. The Chinese Food Guide Pagoda, in which meat is not taking top priority also encourages more of Water, cereals, tubers and legumes as being very important in the diet. The guide also canvases for more vegetables and fruits and small amounts of roughly 40-75 g/day of meat to be acceptable. The government in line with the food guide have enlisted Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Cameron and Chinese actress Li Bingbing in a new video aimed at the Chinese people, in an attempt to reduce the country’s meat consumption.The tagline of the video is Less meat, less heat, more life. They are to help promote the campaign which was set up by the Chinese government to curb meat consumption by 50% - of which pork is taking a large share. Schwarzenegger, who is very popular in China, is to leverage on this to win the Chinese people over said, “If they tell you to eat more meat to be strong – don’t buy it.” The action spearheaded by WildAid, an American-based environmental organisation.The video is part of a broader strategy which include billboards and a Web campaign, shows the actor walking through a damaged landscape which allegedly is destroyed partly by carbon emissions due to animal production.

Nanoparticles used to break up plaque and prevent cavities.

A new strategy published in the journal Biomaterials shows how University of Pennsylvania researchers have adopted a more sophisticated approach to fight plaque.An iron oxide nanoparticle applied to teeth prior to treatment with hydrogen peroxide effectively reduced the onset and severity of cavities .The bacteria that live in dental plaque and contribute to tooth decay often resist traditional antimicrobial treatment, as they "hide" within a sticky biofilm matrix, a glue-like polymer scaffold. The team did not apply an antibiotic to the teeth rather, they took advantage of the pH-sensitive and enzyme-like properties of iron-containing nanoparticles to catalyze the activity of hydrogen peroxide, a commonly used natural antiseptic. The activated hydrogen peroxide produced free radicals that were able to simultaneously degrade the biofilm matrix and kill the bacteria within, significantly reducing plaque and preventing the tooth decay, or cavities, in an animal model. The paper's lead author was Lizeng Gao, a postdoctoral researcher in Koo's lab. Coauthors were Yuan Liu, Dongyeop Kim, Yong Li and Geelsu Hwang, all of Koo's lab, as well as David Cormode, an assistant professor of radiology and bioengineering with appointments in Penn's Perelman School of Medicine and School of Engineering and Applied Science, and Pratap C. Naha, a postdoctoral fellow in Cormode's lab. A very low concentration of hydrogen peroxide in the process was incredibly effective at disrupting the biofilm but the adding nanoparticles increased the efficiency of bacterial killing more than 5,000-fold.

New rapid blood test for the detection of Bovine TB.

A new blood test to detect Mycobacteria in blood has been developed by researchers. The scientists have used this new method to show that cattle diagnosed with bovine tuberculosis (bTB) have detectable levels of the bacterium Mycobacterium bovis (M. bovis) in their blood which causes this disease. The routine test for Bovine TB uses the Single Intradermal Comparative Cervical Tuberculin (SICCT) skin test for M. bovis infection and all healthy cattle are regularly tested this way. However, it is known that this test is only 90 per cent sensitive at best and misses many infected animals. This has prompted the need for better techniques to prevent false negatives during testing. Many countries are suffering the scourge of the disease not only because of economic loss but because of zoonotic nature of disease. The team from the University of Nottingham led by Dr Cath Rees, an expert in microbiology in the School of Biosciences and Dr Ben Swift from the School of Veterinary Medicine and Science.The result published has been published online in the peer reviewed medical journal Virulence shows evidence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex bacteraemia in intradermal skin test positive cattle detected using phage-RPA. This new, simple and inexpensive blood test detects very low levels of mycobacteria in blood using a bacteriophage-based technique developed by The University of Nottingham. The group has patented an improved version of the method that delivers results in just six hours. More recently 'proof of principal' experiments have shown that this is even more sensitive. This is currently licensed to a spin out company, PBD Biotech Ltd.

Urban Agriculture : Cricket farming is the latest money code.

The art of insect rearing for commercial purposes originated from the Netherlands, but has now spread to different parts of the world including Africa.. Crickets are black or brown insects that belong to the class insecta, order Orthoptera and genus Acheta. They are categorized into two groups; house cricket and field cricket. These creatures are the latest money code in agriculture.

Crickets is independent of climate change. Farmers are able to rear them throughout the year and thus their profitability is ensured. This cheap startup has found its share in urban agriculture,the crickets can be raised in-house,outdoors in bucket,crates or bowls. The relative ease of raising these creatures coupled with the health benefits derived has made the cricket ,food of the future. Crickets have a higher feed conversion ratio converting most of their feed into protein. The insect has a high protein value an advantage that is tapped in area of malnutrition. Crickets are a rich source of fats, especially the polyunsaturated fatty acids ,they also contain minerals such as iron and zinc. Crickets can be used directly as food or ground into flour to fortify other foods. 

Cricket flour can be used as an ingredient to make products such as biscuits, cakes, porridge, chapati and mandazi. For example cricket farmers in Bondo have been incorporating cricket flour to make different confectioneries. Farmers in Kenya utilize buckets where female adults lay fertilized eggs under a wet cotton wool. After a month, the eggs hatch into nymphs that feed on vegetables, soy flour and water.It takes three months for crickets to mature into adult stage. An adult cricket weighs about 0.5- 1.5grammes. 

 Harvesting of the mature crickets is by emptying into boiling water for about 5 minutes. These are then cooled in cold water before being dried in a solar drier to a moisture content of below five per cent. This reduces the growth of bacteria and molds, making them have an extended shelf-life and safe for human consumption. MORE

Crickets as future protein source for poultry and pigs.

Insect farming is considered more sustainable than traditional livestock. They are coldblooded and are efficient at converting food into protein. 

 They require 12 times less feed than cattle, four times less feed than sheep, and half as much feed as pigs and broiler chickens to produce the same amount of protein, according to a 2013 United Nations report examining insects' potential as human food. 

Insects are reported to emit fewer greenhouse gases and less ammonia than cattle or pigs, and they require significantly less land and water than cattle rearing.  

 Crickets require 8 percent of the water it takes for cows to produce a similar amount of protein,and critters emit 1 percent of the greenhouse gases of cows. The protein content the crickets deliver's is 15 percent more ,and has an iron content than spinach and as much vitamin B-12 as salmon. 

Crickets as protein source for pigs and poultry.

Crickets as edible food.

The business is fast gaining popularity because of the low capital startup, rapid and high return of investment and the relative ease of production. Iowa resident begins cricket farming for human consumption,she

Wealth creation through fingerling production.

Fingerling production in cat fish farming is an essential part of the farm operation because it is the seed needed for production.The Clarias gariepinus spp is the common cat fish reared in Nigeria because of its early maturity taste,and the fact that it has an accessory breathing organ hence can survive outside water for some hrs,this explains why its sold live in the open markets. The mature male and female brood stock are chosen and kept in separate tubs,one male can fertilize 10 females.The males are bigger and heavier than the females,weighing over 1kg is the ideal .The males must have well developed genitals that are reddish indicating maturity. The females to be used must be identified as good spawners,with a weight of 450-500g,and must be over 8months with dark golden green eggs. The females are usually injected with hormones,the eggs expressed and mixed with milt of the male catfish.The male catfish is killed to extract the milt while the female is returned to pond after eggs are expressed. There are various hormones used in stimulating ovulation in fish such as ova prim, human chorionic gonadotropin, crushed pituitary gland and a combination of motilium and suprefact. The materials needed for the spawning include; a glass trough or a bath tub with water inlet and outlet pipes, screen with stand, pumps,bowls and net covering to keep tank covered and dark.The method you intend to use will dictate materials you will put in place. The The money making potential is enormous and so many farmers are into hatchery business and smiling to the bank. Jane Waruinge, the proprietor of Jasa Fish Farm left America to set up an hatchery business. Jane only keeps a few mature fish for brooding, seeing as her venture mainly deals in fingerling,She shipped in the brooders, with her monosex tilapia coming mainly from UK, and the gold fish and catfish coming from Jambo Fish Farm in Kiambu. Her aquaculture farm now boasts of three types of fish fingerlings (tilapia, catfish and gold fish), with her specialty being in monosex male tilapia fingerlings.She pumped Sh3.5million into the development of her two plots, bought and erected the hatcheries, built the ponds and put up other numerous essential structures. The environment of the hatchery and ponds has to be kept at a constant temperature of 24-28 degrees centigrade and anything much lower or higher than that could prove disastrous to the fingerlings. More

Fighting poachers with smart apps.

A new smartphone app developed in St Petersburg in Florida, USA is being used to fight poachers in northern Kenya. Fulcrum whose use was perfected by municipalities and businesses to collect forms and field data is now being used to track down the location of elephants and ivory smugglers by sharing the information quickly with game rangers before poachers strike. The initiative, tenBoma, is a counter-poaching initiative being piloted by the non-governmental International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and the Kenya Wildlife Service designed to protect the most endangered Kenyan wildlife by identifying, mapping, and destroying poaching networks “IFAW’s tenBoma project is taking the lessons learned from counter-terrorism and applying them to wildlife protection. Fulcrum is a powerful new weapon being used in the battle to destroy poaching. Fulcrum tracks the location of elephant poachers helping game rangers to plan their patrols. Where any security threat is detected, it is promptly shared out for effective response from ground and air surveillance. The patrols use Fulcrum-equipped smartphones, and they traverse the plains looking for poachers and plot their observations on a real-time map shared with authorities and game rangers. The information is then used to form essential data analysis which is shared out with local law enforcement and communities in the affected area The work of the Fulcrum team on the tenBoma initiative is recognized worldwide as a model for combating the effects of illegal wildlife trafficking on global security