Australian scientists on Thursday said they have taken a crucial step toward in developing a new malaria vaccine by using a novel “atomic-scale” blueprint to track how the parasite invades human cells. “With this unprecedented level of detail, we can now begin to design new therapies that specifically target and disrupt the parasite’s invasion machinery, preventing malaria parasites from hijacking human red blood cells to spread through the blood and, ultimately, be transmitted to others,” Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research Associate Professor Wai-Hong Tham said in a statement. Her team’s discovery was published in scientific journal Nature. The researchers’ work involves using…
Author: Abdallah el-Kurebe
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that a new drug – Carbetocin – has the potential to save thousands of women’s lives in childbirth annually. WHO said Carbetocin now serves as a new competition – with improved benefits – to Oxytocin, a stand-by drug used to prevent potentially-fatal bleeding after childbirth. WHO said excessive bleeding after childbirth still kills around 70,000 mothers a year and currently, Oxytocin is the first-choice medication, but it must be kept cold, unlike the new drug, Carbetocin. The study, partly led, among others, by WHO and published on Wednesday, suggested that the new drug…
The 194 Member States of the World Health Organisation (WHO) have finally ratified the framework on tobacco control. The ratification, aaccording to WHO, comes almost six years after the first protocol was adopted. The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) announced that with the ratification of the UK, the necessary number of parties to the Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products has been reached for its enter into force in 90 days. It’s a “clear message of the international community’s commitment to combating illicit trade in tobacco products worldwide,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, adding that it’s the “first…
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) flagship carrier, Emirates Airline, has launched a joint project with U.S. Crop One Holdings, to build the world’s largest vertical farming facility. The facility would be near Dubai’s Al Maktoum International Airport, Emirates said in a statement on Tuesday, June 26, 2018. “Emirates Flight Catering (EKFC), the flight catering division of Emirates, and Crop One, a leading global vertical farm operator, will co-invest $40 million in the large project,’’ the statement said. Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Emirates, said the massive investment “aligns with the UAE’s drive for…
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says it plans to assist more than one million people in the Northeast to grow between six and eight months’ worth of food in the 2018 rainy season. Mr Suffyan Koroma, the FAO representative in Nigeria said this on Wednesday in Maiduguri in his message at the launch of the organisation’s rainy season programme. Koroma said an estimated 149, 730 households are expected to benefit from the programme whose overall objective is to ensure restoration of livelihood, particularly in agriculture for a full recovery in the sub region. He said the launch has become…
A group of researchers from Kenya, Tanzania and Spain have joined forces to develop a breed of cassava which would be more resistant to the destructive effects of climate change. The cooperative project, funded by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is targeted at achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and will have researchers from various agricultural research institutes in the three countries, including the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) in Kenya, Mikocheni Agricultural Research Institute (MARI) in Tanzania, and the Basque Institute for Research and Development in Agriculture (NEIKER) in Spain. Professor Elijah Ateka…
By Kristen Hovet Contracting HIV is no longer the death sentence that it was in the 1980s and early 90s. The first cases of AIDS in the United States were reported in 1981, and since then the antiretroviral drugs used to treat HIV have come a long way in both safety and efficacy. HIV-positive individuals who take antiretroviral medications are estimated to have a life expectancy close to the national average, provided they take the medications as prescribed. Without adequate treatment, however, an individual with HIV can be expected to survive an average of about 10 years. Recent medical advances, however,…
In developing countries, the food system employs the majority of people in self and wage employment both on and off the farm. Globally, 65% of poor working adults relied on agriculture for their livelihoods in 2016. According to 2017 data, farming generates about 68 percent of rural income in Africa, and about half of rural income in South Asia. Changes in diets, rising consumer demand and urbanization are creating opportunities in the broader food system—including in manufacturing, marketing, transportation and food preparation. In Africa, food systems accounted for nearly 50 percent of economic activity in 2013 and could create a trillion-dollar food market—and even more jobs–…
Detecting light away from eyes can trigger animals’ color changes By SUSAN MILIUS Octopus skin can detect light and respond to it — no eyes or brain required. Tests of fresh skin samples from California two-spot octopuses (Octopus bimaculoides) show this ability clearly for the first time in any cephalopod, says Todd Oakley of the University of California, Santa Barbara. White or blue light prompts the pale skin’s tiny quick-change color organs, or chromatophores, to expand, creating waves of yellows and browns. The octopus tests, along with another research team’s new studies of two kinds of cuttlefishes and a squid,…
Despite its potential to battle disease and hunger, genetically engineered food is still controversial By Ian Tucker Pigs Last week, scientists from the University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute announced they had deleted the section of DNA that leaves pigs vulnerable to porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, which is estimated to cost European farmers £1.5bn a year in loss of livestock and decreased productivity. Genetically modified animals are banned from the EU food chain, but since this is a new and different technique it’s possible they’ll be appearing in bacon sandwiches in a few years. A genetically modified mosquito emerges from its pupa. Photograph:…