How to turn cassava root to various foods.

Alex Otieno, who had stayed for five years without a job now earns Sh480,000 every year after finding the magic in cassava root which he has been adding value to and making nutritional porridge, crisps and snacks. “I had no idea that the cassava root I always perceived as food for people living in abject poverty could be used for making affordable crisps, doughnuts, chips ,snacks, nutritional porridge and even ugali”, said Mr Ombuto. Since he introduced the idea to Kisumu residents, commercialisation of cassava has been tremendously gaining popularity and many entrepreneurs and farmers are embracing the root and its products.more

Contact tracing and targeted insecticide spraying can curb dengue outbreaks.

Contact tracing -- a process of identifying everyone who has come into contact with those infected by a particular disease -- combined with targeted, indoor spraying of insecticide can greatly reduce the spread of the mosquito-borne dengue virus, finds a study led by Emory University researchers funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The results were published in the journal Science Translational Medicine and based on analyses from a 2009 outbreak of dengue in Cairns, Australia. The new approach of using contact tracing to identify houses for targeted insecticide spraying was between 86 and 96 percent effective in controlling dengue fever during the Cairns outbreak, research shows. By comparison, vaccines for the dengue virus are only 30 to 70 percent effective, depending on the type of virus or serotype involved.

Heavy Drinking Linked to Increase Heart Disease Risk in Men.

A new British study has shown that men who drink more than a pint of beer a day over several years may increase their chances of heart disease by prematurely ageing their arteries. Beer is not the only culprit, moreover. Regular heavy consumption of wine, spirits, liqueurs and even cider can produce the same harmful effects. The finding comes from a University College London study, which suggests that drinking can affect the elasticity of arterial walls, interfering with blood flow. While alcohol consumption did not appear to have the same effect on women, the researchers pointed out that 73 percent of the 3,869 participants in the study were men. The findings of the study, which were published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, build on previous studies that have linked heavy alcohol intake with high blood pressure, obesity, stroke, certain types of cancer, accidents and suicide. The link between alcohol and reduced arterial elasticity was found when researchers examined the drinking habits of participants between the ages of 30 and 60 over a 25-year period. The volunteers reported the number of glasses of wine, pints of beer or cider, and measures of spirits or liqueurs consumed in the week preceding each assessment of their arteries. The scientists then compared the participants’ alcohol consumption with measurements of the main arteries in their necks and thighs. According to Dr Darragh O’Neill, an epidemiologist and lead author of the study: “Heavier alcohol intake may activate certain enzymes that would lead to collagen accumulation, which could in turn exacerbate the rate of arterial stiffening. more

Venom From A Caribbean Sea Snail Offers Long Lasting Pain Relief .

The venom of a small snail native to the Caribbean could be used to develop a completely new way of treating chronic pain, according to researchers.The venom of the Conus regius sea snail, which is normally used to paralyze or kill the snail’s prey, also contains a compound that seems to offer long-lasting pain relief. The compound was still working and still blocking pain three days after being administered in experiments with rats. According to the American research team, the findings meant that it may be possible to create a new pain therapy for patients who had exhausted all other options. Opioids, which are the medicines most commonly used to treat moderate to severe pain, work by reducing the perception of pain. They do this by attaching to specific proteins in the brain and organs of the body, called opioid receptors. A compound known as Rg1A works in a different way using a new pathway. Scientists from the University of Utah, writing in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said the compound appeared to have a beneficial effect on parts of the nervous system. This, in turn, could open the door to new opportunities to treat pain, they said. The researchers added that drugs that worked in this way could reduce the use of opioids, such as morphine, which are addictive and can cause a number of serious side-effects. This new compound offers a potential new pathway to prevent pain from developing in the first place and offers a new therapy to patients who have run out of options. In research on rats, scientists found that pain was experienced by those animals treated with a chemotherapy drug that caused them to be hypersensitive to cold and touch. Those also treated with the snail compound did not experience pain and the relief was long lasting, moreover. more

5-year-old girl attacked by dogs is dead .

5-year-old girl attacked by dogs is dead . Aliyah, the 5-year-old girl attacked on Monday by 3 dogs in Lagos has died. She passed on at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, Wednesday evening. She had been transferred from the Ikorodu General Hospital, where she was first admitted. Punch had reported that Aliyah was sleeping at home on Alhaji Abdul Hakeem Bin Sulaimon Avenue, off Ewuren Road, Ikorodu, when an Alsatian dog broke loose. The dog, named Rover, was one of the15 other dogs owned by the landlord who is based in London, United Kingdom. It dragged Aliyah to the back of the house where two other Alsatian dogs joined it in attacking her. They inflicted multiple injuries on her body in an attack residents said lasted for about two hours. The father, Wasiu, who was responsible for the care of the dogs, had reportedly gone to buy the dogs’ feed when the incident happened. Around 11pm of that day, some residents reportedly invaded the house and killed Rover. more

Radioactive boars found in Czech forests 31yrs after Chernobyl disaster.

Radioactive boars found in Czech forests 31yrs after Chernobyl disaster. Radioactive wild boars have been detected in Czech forests, some 31 years after the Chernobyl disaster, a veterinary administration official said, adding that they are eating mushrooms that can absorb high levels of radioactive isotopes. The animals became radioactive due to false truffles, the underground mushrooms they feed on, Jiri Drapal at the Czech State Veterinary Administration told Reuters. The mushroom is found in the Sumava mountain region in the Czech Republic, which borders Austria and Germany. It can absorb high levels of radioactive isotopes, including Caesium 137, which was released in great quantities after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. Caesium-137 has a half-life of 30 years, which means it loses half of its radioactivity within that period. When boars eat radioactive mushrooms, they become radioactive themselves. Boar meat is highly popular in the Czech Republic, so there’s danger of radioactive meat ending up on one’s table.more

The Challenges for Artificial Intelligence in Agriculture.

The Challenges for Artificial Intelligence in Agriculture. A group of maize farmers stands huddled around an agronomist and his computer on the side of an irrigation pivot in central South Africa. The agronomist has just flown over the pivot with a hybrid UAV that takes off and lands using propellers yet maintains distance and speed for scanning vast hectares of land through the use of its fixed wings. The UAV is fitted with a four spectral band precision sensor that conducts onboard processing immediately after the flight, allowing farmers and field staff to address, almost immediately, any crop anomalies that the sensor may have recorded, making the data collection truly real-time. In this instance, the farmers and agronomist are looking to specialized software to give them an accurate plant population count. It’s been 10 days since the maize emerged and the farmer wants to determine if there are any parts of the field that require replanting due to a lack of emergence or wind damage, which can be severe in the early stages of the summer rainy season. At this growth stage of the plant’s development, the farmer has another 10 days to conduct any replanting before the majority of his fertilizer and chemical applications need to occur. Once these have been applied, it becomes economically unviable to take corrective action, making any further collected data historical and useful only to inform future practices for the season to come.more