This drum-like keyboard lets you type in virtual reality.

This drum-like keyboard lets you type in virtual reality like a boss. Independent VR developer Jonathan Ravasz has built a nifty keyboard functionality for virtual reality experiences that lets you type without having to let go of the controllers. The PunchKeyboard is fundamentally a visual input interface that lets you use the joysticks to type in VR. While visually it resembles a typewriter, the app has been enhanced with autocomplete and next-word prediction functionalities to further simplify the typing process. The predictive feature currently sources data from Reddit conversations, but Ravasz assures it can be easily filled up with custom dictionaries too. Here’s a little video demo that will give you a better idea how the PunchKeyboard works: more

LlamaZOO to Unveil World’s First Virtual Reality Canine Dissection .

LlamaZOO to Unveil World’s First Virtual Reality Canine Dissection at 2017 Western Veterinary Conference, Las Vegas. LlamaZOO Interactive Inc. (LlamaZOO), developers of world-leading 3D veterinary anatomy software EasyAnatomy, will for the first time ever be enabling users to explore the intricacies of canine anatomy in virtual reality (VR). LlamaZOO has chosen the 2017 Western Veterinary Conference, one of the largest annual veterinary conferences in the world, as the venue to unveil this breakthrough in veterinary medicine. “We’ve made tremendous leaps in EasyAnatomy’s development this year, adding the complete nervous and circulatory systems along with animated pathologies” said LlamaZOO co-founder and CEO Charles Lavigne. “It’s all lined up to make WVC the ideal place for us to demonstrate our medically accurate 3D canine in VR for the first time.” EasyAnatomy is currently available on tablet, laptop, and desktop devices, and since its preliminary launch last summer has been adopted by veterinary practitioners, students, and educators all over the world. LlamaZOO’s aim is to help veterinarians have more engaged, informed, and effective conversations with clients about their pet’s health, and the recent addition of animated pathologies to EasyAnatomy makes this even easier.more

NIRSAL to launch $300m agribusiness loan project for young farmers.

Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk-Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL), an arm of the Central bank of Nigeria (CBN) has announced plans to launch a $300 million agribusiness loan project for young farmers across the country. According to the Executive Director of NIRSAL, Babajide Arowosafe, the project known as ‘Youth Enable’ is to be financed by the African Development Bank (AfDB) and would begin within the next few weeks with the aim of creating a successive farmers generation to replace the ageing ones. continue

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