The Director-General of the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA), Dr Sani Aliyu has said the agency would conduct the largest national AIDS survey in june. Announcing this at a news conference on “Nigeria AIDS Indicator and Impact Survey’’ on Thursday in Abuja, the DG said the survey would be in collaboration with the United States Government, Global Funds, UNAIDS, Centre for Disease Control (CDC) and World Health Organisation (WHO), among others. Aliyu noted that the survey which would last for six months, would be conducted across the 36 states and the FCT. According to him,the survey will determine…
Author: Abdallah el-Kurebe
New technology developed by an interdisciplinary team of scientists at Iowa State University could allow anyone with a smartphone to see crops much the same way trained plant breeders and scientists do. The researchers’ findings, published recently in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, demonstrate how artificial intelligence can identify a range of common stresses in soybeans. The technology can improve efficiency for plant breeders and farmers, and it demonstrates the growing value of automation in agriculture. ISU agronomists and engineers started by collecting a large dataset of around 25,000 images of soybean stresses taken in…
By Diana Kwon President Donald Trump’s administration is considering a proposal to prohibit Chinese students and scientists from working on sensitive research at US universities, The New York Times reported this week (April 30). The proposal stems from fears that researchers from China may steal intellectual secrets. According to the Times, US universities are particularly vulnerable to espionage. Defense Department statistics suggest that, in 2014, academic institutions were the target of almost a quarter of the efforts from foreign countries to access sensitive information. The restrictions may include certain projects with “military or intelligence value,” such as those involving advanced materials…
The Industrial Development Manager of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Mr Alhassane Haidara on Wednesday said the bank would support fertilizer production in Nigeria with 100 million dollars. He disclosed this at a media briefing on the key industrial initiatives and projects of the bank in Abidjan. “We are going to finance a huge fertilizer plant for the production of Uriah, Ammonia, among others and we are partnering with many companies to get it done. The plant will be one of the largest fertilizer plants not only in Africa but in the world,’’ Haidara said. Explaining that the production would be leveraging…
A dietician, Dr Emeka Obi has said that the high level of “B vitamins’’ in energy drinks can be very toxic to the human liver. Speaking in Abuja on Wednesday, he advised Nigerians to be cautious with the consumption of such drinks. “Energy drinks like `Monster’, `Red bull’ and `Lucozade Sports’ can be extremely helpful when the body is low on sugar level and energy. That is why we see so many athletes drinking them; it gives a boost in energy when you want to exercise, especially when you want to partake in cardiovascular activities. “The problem is that we see…
Chinese researchers have identified two new risk gene variants that are responsible for leprosy. The findings have been published in the American Journal of Human Genetics. The research, led by Yao Yonggang from the Chinese Academy of Sciences Kunming institute of zoology, was based on a study involving 1,433 patients with leprosy and 1,625 healthy individuals from southwest China’s Yunnan Province. More than 30 risk genes affecting susceptibility to leprosy have been identified. The research team has identified and validated two new rare damaging variants in HIF1A and LACC1 genes that can increase risk of developing the disease. Leprosy is a chronic infectious…
The WHO on Wednesday said seven million people die every year from exposure to polluted air. According to a WHO report, ambient, or outdoor air pollution alone caused some 4.2 million deaths in 2016, while household air pollution from cooking with polluting fuels and technologies caused an estimated 3.8 million deaths in the same period. Those figures are on a par with the number of deaths recorded in an earlier study published two years ago. WHO said air pollution levels remain dangerously high in many parts of the world. New data showed that nine out of 10 people breathe air containing high…
Researchers at the University of Michigan (UM) are developing a pill that makes tumors light up when exposed to infrared light, and the concept has worked in mice. “It’s actually based on a failed drug,” said Greg Thurber, UM assistant professor of chemical engineering and biomedical engineering, in a news release posted on UM website. “It binds to the target, but it doesn’t do anything, which makes it perfect for imaging.” The researchers attached a molecule that fluoresces when it is struck with infrared light to this drug. Then, they gave the drug to mice that had breast cancer, and they…
It has been difficult to predict how weather extremes such as heat waves and cold snaps might change in a future climate. Now, a team of researchers from the Universities of Wageningen, Montpellier and Exeter revealed an unfair pattern. The research team found that rich countries that contributed most to climate change will see less temperature fluctuation, whereas in poor countries the fluctuations will become stronger. While temperature variability is predicted to decrease outside of the tropics, it will increase in tropical countries – countries that are often too poor to deal with these changes. Temperature variability increases by up…
A new study has isolated a gene controlling shape and size of spikelets in wheat in a breakthrough which could help breeders deliver yield increases in one of the world’s most important crops. The team from the John Innes Centre say the underlying genetic mechanism they have found is also relevant to inflorescence (floral) architecture in a number of other major cereals including corn, barley and rice. The genetic identification of an agronomically-relevant trait represents a significant milestone in research on wheat; a crop with a notoriously complex genome. The findings, published today in the journal The Plant Cell, give breeders a new tool to accelerate the global quest to improve wheat. The study also highlights a range of next generation techniques available for fundamental research…