Urban agriculture : raising snails in your home.

Snail rearing is a very feasible urban agricultural project. The housing ,feeding and rearing is easy that you only require just some few minutes everyday to attend to them before you dash off to work.

 Snail rearing in urban areas is simple and any person can easily be trained to start the venture. Snail farming has the added advantage  that there is no environmental pollution from the waste and also no noise because the snails are quiet,nocturnal with no offensive smell.

 There are key facts to get before you can be successful in rearing,

 1) soil preparation.

 2) feeding

3) housing.

 4) general management.

Women diagnosed with breast cancer after 70 twice as likely to die from it.

Women diagnosed with breast cancer after the age of 70 are twice as likely to die from it, because they are being denied treatment, an international study has found. The major research on more than 200,000 breast cancer patients found mortality rates were far higher among older women – even though the disease was no more aggressive. Regardless of severity of disease, the women diagnosed over the age of 70 were twice as likely to die from it, the study found. The research found chemotherapy levels were far lower among older women, when they were matched against younger patients with the same severity of disease. The study by Genomic Health, a company that has a test diagnosing which breast cancer patients are likely to suffer a recurrence of disease, and which are most likely to benefit from chemotherapy, found older women were less likely to be offered tests.Last year a study found older women are three times as likely to die from breast cancer in England compared with other European nation.more

Agriculture and healthy food systems.

Agriculture has taken center stage in the race for food security with many countries bringing out strategies and platforms to incorporate more people to achieve the goal. Agriculture and agribusiness has proven to be a major key for economic growth, the cry to go back to the field is not only wealth creation and generation but also to ensure healthy living. 

 The war against antibiotic misuse in farmed animals has opened the eyes of many to the fact that eating more greens is a sure ticket to healthy living. The rise in cases of cancer, obesity, heart diseases and diabetes has been linked to over consumption of over-processed foods with numerous additives that actually impact the health of man. 

The adage" you are what you eat, is aptly rephrased as you are what your animals eat." The consumption of grass-fed cattle according to studies does not predispose to cancer as against others fed with different ration. 

The balance between agriculture and healthy living starts from farm to fork, where animals are fed balanced rations without additives or hormones and also the processing and packaging are done in hygienic environment to prevent contamination of products and infection in the consumers. 

 The changing of diet to include more greens,leafy vegetables will also play a vital role in healthy living. Urban agriculture will not only open doors to wealth creation,but will also ensure that more families have access to farm fresh foods daily. 

The race to incorporate veggies into our everyday meals has started with my farm where Vegetables are easy and fast to cook. The addition of vegetable to your diet will help in various ways that you have not thought about,and various vegetables have various advantages but generally all vegetables have the following in common; 1) easy to cook. 2) can be eaten raw. 3) a healthy snack. 4) smooth skin .5) weight management. 

 Healthy food systems and nutritious facts. 

The lettuce is good for you as it helps to lower cholesterol so no heart disease, it helps prevent cancer, has a lot of water, dietary fiber, antioxidants and has anti inflammatory properties so no bloating. 

 Lettuce helps to reduce anxiety and also induces sleep so bye bye to insomnia. Its rich in protein,carbohydrate alongside other minerals. 

 This fit-farm era, why dont you try mixing your lettuce with other veggies? Garden salad is in order. This delicacy is lettuce,with carrot,peas. sliced eggs and sweet corn, let the taste buds challenge begin. Order your farm fresh vegetables now!!!

Brewery wastewater transformed into energy storage.

Brewery wastewater transformed into energy storage.The findings were published recently in the American Chemical Society journal Applied Materials & Interfaces. Engineers have developed an innovative bio-manufacturing process that uses a biological organism cultivated in brewery wastewater to create the carbon-based materials needed to make energy storage cells. This unique pairing of breweries and batteries could set up a win-win opportunity by reducing expensive wastewater treatment costs for beer makers while providing manufacturers with a more cost-effective means of creating renewable, naturally-derived fuel cell technologies. The process of converting biological materials, or biomass, such as timber into carbon-based battery electrodes is currently used in some energy industry sectors. But, naturally-occurring biomass is inherently limited by its short supply, impact during extraction and intrinsic chemical makeup, rendering it expensive and difficult to optimize.

Dog stool microbiome predicts canine inflammatory bowel disease.(IBD)

A study published in October of Nature Microbiology shows a pattern of microbes that is indicative of inflammatory bowel disease that has been identified in dogs. The more than 90 % accuracy test, the team used that information to predict which dogs had IBD. They also determined that the gut microbiomes of dogs and humans are not similar enough to use dogs as animal models for humans with this disease. In this latest study, the team collected fecal samples from 85 healthy dogs and 65 dogs with chronic signs of gastrointestinal disease and inflammatory changes confirmed by pathology. To determine which microbial species were living in each sample, they used a technique , called 16S rRNA sequencing, to quickly identify millions of bacterial species living in a mixed sample, based on the unique genes they harbor. With this information, the researchers were able to look for similarities and differences in the microbial species found in IBD and non-IBD dogs. The differences were significant enough that they could distinguish IBD dog feces from non-IBD with more than 90 percent accuracy.

Nigeria: Biochemist Wants Herbal Medicine Integrated Into National Health Care - allAfrica.com

Nigeria: Biochemist Wants Herbal Medicine Integrated Into National Health Care - allAfrica.com

Gender identification method using a feather in Psittacine birds.

A peculiar problem lies behind the breathtaking colors of Psittacine birds, more commonly known as the parrot family (including parakeets and macaws) — identifying their gender based on morphology is not easy because most of them are monomorphic meaning both males and females are similar in size and appearance. The Avian and Exotic Pet Unit of the Department of Wildlife Sciences at the Madras Veterinary College (MVC) offers a non-invasive DNA sexing technique by testing a feather for major Psittacine bird species, including budgerigars, lutino and African love birds, cockatiels, cockatoos, conures and macaws. They are the first government institution in the country to achieve this breakthrough, even though some private laboratories are offering the facility. “Sexing, even of young birds, is important in avian breeding and evolutionary studies. Sexing is currently performed by expensive and time-consuming procedures such as vent sexing, laparoscopy, steroid sexing and karyotyping (a chromosomal evaluation). These procedures may cause pain and are a threat to the health status of the birds. The sexing is done using the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) method ,the PCR method substantially reduces stress and bleeding in birds. The gender identification is carried out by presenting just the feather of the chick or adult bird to the laboratory and its gender is determined in a couple of days. This procedure can also be used for gender identification of other birds such as pigeons. Sexing is possible in budgerigars from the male’s bright blue cere (the fleshy section above the beak); the female’s cere is a pinkish brown. Similarly, the grey cockatiel has distinguishable features that enable sexing visually. more