FG Seeks to Augment Petrol, Diesel Consumption With Biofuel.

The federal government will soon insist that a minimum of 10 and 20 per cent of biofuel be added to every litre of petrol and diesel, respectively in petrol stations across the country, the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) has disclosed. According to the PPPRA, a national policy on biofuel development, which would provide the incentive for the growth of biofuel consumption in the country was underway and could be passed into law soon.The policy, the PPPRA said, would ensure that bioethanol and biodiesel, which are blends of petroleum products and agricultural products, are readily available in Nigeria. It said the policy was part of efforts to diversify Nigeria’s energy sources and respect global convention on climate change with the inclusion of alternative clean options.continue

USDA strikes back against parasite with 101M sterile screwworms.

The USDA has released more than 101 million sterile New World screwworms since October in an effort to wipe out the parasite in the Florida Keys. The endangered Key deer population has lost 135 animals to the worms, whose larva feed on wounds in living flesh, but no new infestations have been found among deer since Jan. 7, marking the longest period without a new case since the start of the outbreak. Antiparasitic medicine for endangered Key deer and an abundance of sterile New World screwworm flies continue to help fight the screwworm situation in South Florida. More than 101 million sterile screwworm flies have been released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Marathon and the Lower Keys since October. In Homestead, where a stray dog was found with a screwworm infestation in December, nearly 2 million have been released. They help to drive down the number of fertile flies by mating with wild flies to produce eggs that never hatch. Screwworms feed inside the open wounds of any warm-blooded living animal, which has resulted in the deaths of 135 endanger Key deer found only in Monroe County. Some have had to be euthanized and others have died from their screwworm-inflicted conditions. source

Genomic testing and breeding success.

The beef business is moving from a segmented industry to one that’s more united, and information is at the core of that shift. Genomic data is helping that transition as genomic data is a growing part of that information. The big paradigm shift is set to change with the incorporation of genomic data into calf value discovery, the growing use of genomic information in leveraging prediction accuracy of genetic merit. One of the stepping-stones along the way is the growing number of commercial producers utilizing genomic tests to identify replacement heifer, without using genomic tests, experience is showing that producers would choose 66-75% of the same heifers. This technology allows selection risk cut by 25-33%.

Oral administration of bacteria-killing viruses prevents cholera infection in animal models.

Oral administration of viruses that specifically target cholera bacteria prevents infection and cholera-like symptoms in animal model experiments.Oral administration of a cocktail of three viruses, all of which specifically kill cholera bacteria, prevents infection and cholera-like symptoms in animal model experiments, report scientists from Tufts University School of Medicine (TUSM) and the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at Tufts in Nature Communications The findings are the first to demonstrate the potential efficacy of bacteria-killing viruses—known as bacteriophages, or phages—as an orally administered preventive therapy against an acute gastrointestinal bacterial disease. Camilli and colleagues searched for phages that are specific for Vibrio cholerae, the bacterium that causes cholera—a potentially lethal infectious disease marked by severe diarrhea and dehydration. While phages that kill V. cholerae are abundant in nature, the team identified three strains that uniquely retained the ability to kill V. cholerae within the small intestine, the site of infection in humans. These phages function by targeting bacterial surface receptors normally involved in infectiousness, making them ideal therapeutic candidates—to develop resistance, cholera bacteria must acquire mutations in these receptors, which cause the bacteria to become less infectious. The team carried out a series of experiments in small animal models of cholera to test the efficacy of these phages as a preventative treatment. Animals were given an oral dose of a cocktail containing all three phages, at time points ranging from three to 24 hours before infection with a standardized amount of V. cholerae bacteria. A preventative dose of the phage cocktail eliminated V. cholerae in the small intestines of over half of treated animals when given three hours before infection. In remaining animals, and for those treated up to 24 hours before infection, bacteria numbers were reduced 500-fold or more on average, compared to untreated controls. Overall, treatment was most effective in reducing bacterial load when given between three and 12 hours before infection. The team found no evidence of cholera-like diarrhea and no significant weight loss in treated animals.

RESEARCH: LED lighting could have major impact on wildlife.

RESEARCH: LED lighting could have major impact on wildlife. New research by the University of Exeter and published in global change biology shows that LED street lighting can be tailored to reduce its impacts on the environment. The UK-based study found predatory spiders and beetles were drawn to grassland patches lit by LED lighting at night, but the number of species affected was markedly reduced when the lights were dimmed by 50% and switched off between midnight and 4am. LEDs made up just 9% of the global lighting market in 2011, but forecasts suggest they will account for 69% by 2020. RESEARCH: LED lighting could have major impact on wildlife. The growth of LED lighting is an issue of global concern, and the number of documented impacts on the environment is growing rapidly. The research shows that local authorities might be able to manage LED lighting in a way that reduces its environmental impacts. There is a need to establish whether this is the case for a greater variety of species. The results suggest that the growing use of LED lighting will have impacts on the abundance of predatory invertebrates, potentially leading to knock on effects for other species in grassland food-webs.

Scientists develop 'lab on a chip' that costs 1 cent to make.

Scientists develop 'lab on a chip' that costs 1 cent to make. Microfluidics, electronics and inkjet technology underlie a newly developed all-in-one biochip that can analyze cells for research and clinical applications. Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have developed a way to produce a cheap and reusable diagnostic "lab on a chip" with the help of an ordinary inkjet printer.A study describing the technology will be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The inexpensive lab-on-a-chip technology has the potential to enhance diagnostic capabilities around the world, especially in developing countries. Where due to inferior access to early diagnostics, the survival rate of breast cancer patients is only 40% in low-income nations which is half the rate of such patients in developed nations. There are other diseases plaguing these nations such as malaria, tuberculosis and HIV, which also have high incidence and bad patient outcomes in developing countries. A better and easy access to cheap diagnostics could help turn this around, especially as most such equipment costs thousands of dollars. The chip is designed as a multifunctional platform, one of its applications is that it allows users to analyze different cell types without using fluorescent or magnetic labels that are typically required to track cells. The chip separates cells based on their intrinsic electrical properties: When an electric potential is applied across the inkjet-printed strip, cells loaded into the microfluidic chamber get pulled in different directions depending on their "polarizability" in a process called dielectrophoresis. This label-free method to analyze cells greatly improves precision and cuts lengthy labeling processes.

Artificial intelligence can spot skin cancer.

Computers can classify skin cancers as successfully as human experts, according to the latest research attempting to apply artificial intelligence to health. The US-based researchers say the new system, which is based on image recognition, could be developed for smartphones, increasing access to screening and providing a low-cost way to check whether skin lesions are cause for concern. According to the World Health Organisation, skin cancer accounts for one in every three cancers diagnosed worldwide, with global incidence on the rise. In the UK alone, 131,772 cases of non-melanoma skin cancer were recorded in 2014. In the same year there were 15,419 new cases of the deadliest skin cancer, melanoma, making it the fifth most common cancer, according to Cancer Research UK. As the disease is often initially spotted by a visual examination, Esteva teamed up with colleagues in fields ranging from dermatology to artificial intelligence to create a computer system that would aid screening. Their approach, described in the journal Nature, is based on deep learning – a class of algorithms used for artificial intelligence. When fed with a large set of ready-sorted data these algorithms pick out and “learn” patterns and relationships. Once trained, the algorithms can then be used to categorize new, unsorted data. To create the system, the team harnessed a deep learning algorithm built by Google that had already been presented with 1.28 million images of objects such as cats, dogs and cups.The researchers then fed the system more than 127,000 clinical images of skin lesions, each already labelled, encompassing many different skin diseases. Once trained, the team then tested the system’s ability to classify skin cancer by presenting it with just under 2,000 previously unseen images of skin lesions, whose nature had previously been determined by biopsy, and further compared the results for nearly 400 of the images against the judgement of at least 21 dermatologists. The results reveal that the system predicted the outcomes like the experts in telling apart carcinomas from common benign skin growths and melanomas from moles.