IGIHE

Author: Théophile Niyitegeka

  • Dar smells prostate cancer cure

    {Tanzania is likely to be the first country in the world to discover the ultimate cure for Prostate Cancer. Researchers at Science and Technology Institution here are on the brink of discovering the cure for the deadly prostate cancer, through the herbal-based medical concoctions derived from some indigenous trees found in Tanga Region.}

    The natural remedy will also prevent cases of prostate enlargement, cure other sexually transmitted diseases and eliminate surgical operations on glands. The study on ‘Pranus Africana’ tree in the Magamba Forest in Lushoto may offer remedy for the prostate cancer currently taking toll on male population across the globe.

    Scholars at the Arusha-based Nelson Mandela African Institute for Science and Technology have been working on their study for six months now and according to the institute’s Deputy Vice- Chancellor, Dr Mussa Chacha, the study is bearing fruits.

    “The tree, which grows naturally in many parts of the country, is on the verge of extinction due to harvest but the Magamba Forest has plenty of it and local residents have been using its barks for treatment… the tree is believed to totally cure prostate infections, including cancer,” said Dr Chacha.

    It has been discovered that the Pranus Africanas bark is also used by locals to cure fevers, malaria, wound dressing, arrow poison, stomach pain, purgative, kidney disease, appetite stimulant, gonorrhoea and insanity. It is also a rather large tree by any dimension. The Pygeum is an evergreen tree native to forest regions.

    It can grow to approximately 45 metres high. The thick leaves are oblong in shape while the flowers are small and white. Pygeum fruit is the red berry, resembling the cherry when ripe. Researchers at Nelson Mandela Institute describe the log as having the bark which is red, brown, or grey in colour and is the part of the plant used for medicinal purposes, including curing cancer.

    But, how long will the research take before the results are put into production? The Vice- Chancellor wasn’t sure when, but pointed out that usually such studies take long to cover all possible angles.

    “We are at the stage of validation of ethnomedical information,” said the don. Education, Science, Technology and Vocational Training Minister Professor Joyce Ndalichako visited the Institute over the weekend and was informed about the ambitious medicinal project.

    “The government will continue supporting research and innovation as well as related institutions by injecting money and resources to science oriented programmes,” said Prof Ndalichako.

    The Minister explained that the African Development Bank (AfDB) has granted 8.3bn/- for the Nelson Mandela Institute and the funds will further equip the NM-AIST laboratories, pay for student scholarships and other development projects.

    Source: Daily News

  • Kayonza: Police calls for ownership in fighting crime

    {Residents of Kayonza District have been urged to work with local leaders and security organs in identifying and reporting crime.}

    Parents and guardians were also asked to monitor their children especially in these holidays not to indulge in illegal activities like abusing drugs.

    The call was made by the Acting District Police Commander, Chief Inspector of Police (CIP),John Nsanzimana during a meeting that was also attended by Members of Parliament, local leaders, and civil society including religious leaders.

    He said that the concept of community policing that empowers everyone to fight and prevent crimes, tasks local leaders to lead and champion this proactive initiative.

    Community policing committees are composed of the local leaders at the village and cell levels.

    “Work with the people and create a smooth flow of information on injustices happening in families like domestic and gender based violence, and child abuse,” the DPC said.

    He also said that ill-advised youth are commonly found abusing drugs which influences their illegal behaviors.

    “Drug abuse has negative consequences such as luring teens into sexual acts, dropping out of school and end up indulging in other criminal activities like house break-inns and selling illicit drugs. We need to work together not only to fight but also to prevent them by identifying and reporting dealers,” CIP Nsanzimana said.

    He further appealed to the youth to refrain and step up against the vice, and share information with security organs regarding those involved.

    Source:Police

  • Prolonged sleep disturbance can lead to lower bone formation

    {Insufficient sleep, a common problem that has been linked to chronic disease risk, might also be an unrecognized risk factor for bone loss. Results of a new study will be presented Saturday at the Endocrine Society’s 99th annual meeting in Orlando, Fla.}

    The study investigators found that healthy men had reduced levels of a marker of bone formation in their blood after three weeks of cumulative sleep restriction and circadian disruption, similar to that seen in jet lag or shift work, while a biological marker of bone resorption, or breakdown, was unchanged.

    “This altered bone balance creates a potential bone loss window that could lead to osteoporosis and bone fractures,” lead investigator Christine Swanson, M.D., an assistant professor at the University of Colorado in Aurora, Colo., said. Swanson completed the research while she was a fellow at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, Ore., with Drs. Eric S. Orwoll and Steven A. Shea.

    “If chronic sleep disturbance is identified as a new risk factor for osteoporosis, it could help explain why there is no clear cause for osteoporosis in the approximately 50 percent of the estimated 54 million Americans with low bone mass or osteoporosis,” Swanson said.

    Inadequate sleep is also prevalent, affecting more than 25 percent of the U.S. population occasionally and 10 percent frequently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report.

    The 10 men in this study were part of a larger study that some of Swanson’s co-authors conducted in 2012 at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Mass. That study evaluated health consequences of sleep restriction combined with circadian disruption. Swanson defined circadian disruption as “a mismatch between your internal body clock and the environment caused by living on a shorter or longer day than 24 hours.”

    Study subjects stayed in a lab, where for three weeks they went to sleep each day four hours later than the prior day, resulting in a 28-hour “day.” Swanson likened this change to “flying four time zones west every day for three weeks.” The men were allowed to sleep only 5.6 hours per 24-hour period, since short sleep is also common for night and shift workers. While awake, the men ate the same amounts of calories and nutrients throughout the study. Blood samples were obtained at baseline and again after the three weeks of sleep manipulation for measurement of bone biomarkers. Six of the men were ages 20 to 27, and the other four were ages 55 to 65. Limited funding prevented the examination of serum from the women in this study initially, but the group plans to investigate sex differences in the sleep-bone relationship in subsequent studies.

    After three weeks, all men had significantly reduced levels of a bone formation marker called P1NP compared with baseline, the researchers reported. This decline was greater for the younger men than the older men: a 27 percent versus 18 percent decrease. She added that levels of the bone resorption marker CTX remained unchanged, an indication that old bone could break down without new bone being formed.

    “These data suggest that sleep disruption may be most detrimental to bone metabolism earlier in life, when bone growth and accrual are crucial for long-term skeletal health,” she said. “Further studies are needed to confirm these findings and to explore if there are differences in women.”

    Source:Science Daily

  • 3 kinds of people you should be with every day of your life , and watch your life change

    {Change doesn’t just happen; it takes an action, or better still, it requires consistent action.}

    There are some people you spend your everyday life with, and your life will take steps forward, and there are people who will make your life go backwards if you spend your daily life with them.

    These three kinds of people will change your life for good.

    {{1. Happy people }}

    Try to spend time with people who are happy, who look for a reason to be happy everyday, no matter what happens. They are grateful for life and they always find a reason to be thankful. If you consistently spend one month of your life with such a person, you’d find yourself being happy for no just cause, and there are so many benefits that accompanies happiness.

    {{2. Positive people }}

    Positivity is a trait that’s very necessary if you want to achieve success in life. You can never be successful when you think about failing.

    Positivity starts from the heart, and being with people who are positive will help shape your mind towards seeing the positive sides of things.

    {{3. People that will inspire you to think }}

    Spend time with people who are innovative, people who learn to create, who are visionary and who are thinkers. When you surround yourself with people like these, you’ll be a creative thinker in no time, and you should know that every success is born out of creative thinking.

    What kind of people do you love to be with? If you want to change your life, you must first start with the people you surround yourself with.

    Source:Elcrema

  • The last ‘caimans’ living in Spain

    {Sixteen million years ago, the reptile Diplocynodon ratelii lived in wooded ecosystems among the lakes and pools of what we know today as Catalonia (Spain). Fossils found at the Els Casots site in the Vallès-Penedès Basin confirm not only that these are the most recent remains of the genus in the Iberian Peninsula, but also that temperatures at the time were higher than today’s.}

    A group of researchers working at the Els Casots site in the 1990s excavated the remains of a species of crocodile that was until then known only to have lived in southern France.

    Following several years in storage as they awaited analysis, the fossils have now been confirmed by new research published in the journal Comptes Rendus Palevol to be the first evidence of Diplocynodon ratelii in the Iberian Peninsula, where evidence had previously only been found for other species of this genus.

    In addition to this, “these remains represent the latest published evidence of the genus in the Iberian Peninsula, as until now it had only been recorded much less recently, in the Eocene and Oligocene epochs, over 23 million years ago,” Sinc was told by the lead author of the paper, David Alba of the Catalan Institute of Paleontology Miquel Crusafont (ICP).

    To reach these conclusions, the study provides the most detailed anatomical descriptions of the species given to date, highlighting the small size of the reptile, which measured no more than a metre long, according to craniums found at the site in Catalonia. Diplocynodon ratelii was a diplocynodon which would have originated prior to the divergence between caimans and alligators.

    “The genus Diplocynodon was widely distributed across Europe for over 40 million years (from the Paleocene to the Miocene) and includes many species of small crocodiles similar in appearance to caimans and alligators (the family to which the species belongs, now extinct, is part of the alligatoroidea superfamily, alongside caimans and alligators),” said the researcher.

    Fauna in Catalonia during the early Miocene

    Today, alligatoroids are more common in the Americas and East Asia, but millions of years ago they were widespread in Eurasia. Diplocynodon ratelii, which is very similar in appearance to today’s caimans, stalked small prey, such as rodents and other extinct fish and reptile species that were present during the early Miocene. It also hunted larger mammals, such as mouse-deer (an artiodactyl).

    According to remains found in recent years in Els Casots, these crocodiles would also have shared their habitat with large mammals: rhinoceroses, the equid genus Anchitherium, peccaries, mouse-deer, primitive pigs and bovines, extinct relatives of elephants (including the mastodon and a proto-elephant named deinotherium) and some carnivorous species, such as the so-called bear dogs and felids, hyaenids and extinct mustelids.

    The presence of crocodiles in this area of the Iberian Peninsula can be explained by evidence from the analysis of other paleo-environmental remains from the site, from 16 million years ago, which indicate that there was once a lake there.

    Given the abundance of fauna remains found in Els Casots, which is listed as an Cultural Asset of National Interest, the research group is very interested in reopening the excavations. Working in collaboration with the municipal government of Subirats, which owns the land, the scientists intend to recover additional fossil remains which may contribute to improving the available information on the fauna, paleo-environment and taphonomy of the site as a whole and on the taxonomy and paleo-biology of specific species.

    “Reopening the site could also be linked to other actions to disseminate paleontology and paleontological heritage, although there still needs to be a discussion into how we would go about doing this,” concludes David Alba.

    Diplocynodon ratelii, which is very similar in appearance to today's caimans, stalked small prey, such as rodents and other extinct fish.

    Source:Science Daily

  • Starting new?These 17 quotes are for you

    {Life is a journey, and there’s always that point where you’ll start something new. In each phase you get to, it might just be a new start.}

    These quotes will motivate you to give your best when starting something new:

    1. “Everyone sits in the prison of his own ideas; he must burst it open, and that in his youth, and so try to test his ideas on reality.” – Albert Einstein

    2. “I do not know anyone who has got to the top without hard work. That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top, but should get you pretty near.” – Margaret Thatcher

    3. “Beginning with audacity is a very great part of the art of painting.” — Winston Churchill

    4. “Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.” — Goethe

    5. “The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

    6. “Begin today. Declare out loud to the universe that you are willing to let go of struggle and eager to learn through joy.” – Sarah Ban Breathnach

    7. “The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.” – Steve Jobs

    8. “Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” – Saint Francis of Assisi

    9. “Life is not a dress rehearsal. Stop practicing what you’re going to do and just go do it. In one bold stroke you can transform today.”

    10. “There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth… not going all the way, and not starting.” – Buddha

    11. “The beginning is the most important part of the work.” – Plato

    12. “When I face the desolate impossibility of writing 500 pages, a sick sense of failure falls on me, and I know I can never do it. Then gradually, I write one page and then another. One day’s work is all that I can permit myself to contemplate.” – John Steinbeck

    13. “The secret to living the life of your dreams is to start living the life of your dreams today, in every little way you possibly can.” – Mike Dooley

    14. “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” – Theodore Roosevelt

    15. “You will never win if you never begin.” – Helen Rowland

    16. “Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” – Maria Robinson

    17. “If all you can do is crawl, start crawling.” – Rumi

    Source:Elcrema

  • University students urged on Africa’s self-reliance

    {Historians and politicians have held dialogue with the youth in various universities in Rwanda with the aim of seeking ways of making Africa a self –reliant continent and free from relying on foreign aid. }

    The talks dialogue was held yesterday organized under the auspices of students at the University of Rwanda, Huye Campus, with participants from Pan African Movement (PAM) aimed at promoting the principle of African and Rwandan spirit among Rwandans and beyond on the continent.

    The president of PAM at the University of Rwanda, Huye Campus, Dan Nkotanyi explained that they organized the meeting in which they invited experts in history and politics to acquire advanced knowledge on what to be done in helping Africa to extricate itself from forms of slavery.

    “We have registered 1000 members at Huye campus. We have organized such discussions to instill the spirit of Pan-Africanism among the students and encouraging them to mobilize others to do so,” he said.

    Discussions revolved around history of Africa, PAM, education and needed reforms.
    Dr Eric Ndushabandi, a researcher and lecturer at the University of Rwanda in political science; Prof François Masabo, a researcher and expert in psychology were among the facilitators.

    Protais Musoni, the president of PAM in Rwanda said that the organization focuses on teaching Rwandans and Africans especially the youth to change the perception of and strive for self-reliance and contribute to their countries’ development.

    “ We advise them to study with the intention of solving particular problems in Rwanda or in Africa. This serves as a strong foundation other than waiting for favor from someone else,” he said.

    Students requested expansion PAM to other universities to make it strong in Rwanda and Africa in general.

    Over 300 students from University of Rwanda, Huye campus, Kiramuruzi University Catholic University of Rwanda and Protestant Institute of Arts and Social Sciences attended the dialogue.

    PAM was launched at the University of Rwanda on 1st April 2016.

    University students who attended the dialogue yesterday.

  • Japan boosts irrigation program with USD 18.2 million

    {Japan Government has donated USD 18.2 million (Rwf 15 billion) to support an irrigation program in Rwamagana district. }

    The support will be used to renovate and construct four water reservoirs and renovate other facilities in Rwamagana marshlands on 400 hectares, renovating 30 kilometers of irrigation canals, renovating roads and offering trainings on irrigation techniques among others.

    During the ceremony of signing agreements held on Friday, the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning (MINECOFIN),Claver Gatete said that the project is an additional to the one in Ngoma district irrigating 300 hectares of rice also funded by Japan.

    He highlighted that the program will support the government of Rwanda to execute performance contract of irrigating 100,000 hectares by 2018 to address drought and become climate change resilient.

    “This support comes at a time when we are heavily investing in irrigation. It will help to solve draught related problems especially in the Eastern Province which is the most affected,” he said.

    Information from the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources indicates that 47,000 hectares are currently under irrigation, below the targeted 60,000 hectares in 2018.

    Japan ambassador to Rwanda, Takayuki Miyashita has said that the support is meant to boost agricultural production which contributes 33% to the country’s GDP.

    Japan ambassador to Rwanda, Takayuki Miyashita and the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning (MINECOFIN),Claver Gatete signing agreements.

  • East African hydro project expected to benefit one million people

    {Construction of the regional Rusumo Falls Hydroelectric Project has kicked off at the Tanzanian border district of Ngara that is expected to benefit over a million people in East Africa when completed.}

    The project is owned by the three East Africa countries of Burundi, Rwanda and Tanzania through a Special Purpose Vehicle, the Rusumo Power Company Ltd.

    “We are very delighted today of the fact that the transboundary shared Rusumo Falls project has finally come to life, after more than 20 years since it was first identified,” the Council of Ministers in charge of energy from Burundi, Rwanda and Tanzania said in a joint statement after the launch on Thursday.

    The project is expected to deliver a shared hydropower plant with an installed capacity of 80 megawatts.

    Each of the three countries will receive 26.6 megawatts directly connected to their respective national grid through the transmission lines, which are expected to benefit over one million people in the three countries.

    The construction of the hydroelectric power plant is funded by the World Bank at a cost of 340 million U.S dollars.

    The project is being constructed by two contractors namely: CGCOC Group & JWHC JV from China for civil works and ANDRITZ Hydro from Germany/India for Electro-Mechanical works. The Rusumo Hydropower Project is scheduled to be completed and commissioned by 2020.
    .

    The construction of regional Rusumo Falls Hydroelectric ProjectThe construction of the hydroelectric power plant is funded by the World Bank at a cost of 340 million U.S dollars.

    Source:Coast Week

  • Diplomat to Burundi Vitisia asks Kenyans to capitalise on expo

    {Burundi has urged Kenyans to showcase their merchandise during an expo in August.}

    Kenya’s Ambassador to Burundi Kenneth Vitisia said the event will be a good opportunity for Kenyans living in Bujumbura, the capital city where the expo will be held, to sell their products.

    Speaking while meeting Kenyans at the Embassy during the sixth East African Health and Scientific Conference in Bujumbura, Mr Vitisia said the forum displayed Burundi’s resilience in the wake of calamities such as the clashes that emerged after President Pierre Nkurunziza won third term controversially in 2015. The country has also suffered civil war that lasted 13 years.

    But ambassador Vitisia said peace has returned.

    “Peace has returned to Burundi. People should not shy away from coming to the country, it is calm. Kenya Airways is the leading airline in Burundi.

    “It lands twice a day but we are looking for a way of talking to the management to introduce the third flight because there is traffic. Calm has returned and many people are now travelling,” he said today at the closing ceremony.

    The four-day event that started on Tuesday brought together more than 500 experts and stakeholders within and outside East African Community.

    He urged countries that are part of the East African Community (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan) to support and grow each other.

    Mr Vitisia called upon Kenyans brands including Kenya Medical Training College and The Aga Khan Hospital to open branches and sell their products and programmes to Burundians.

    The envoy added that Kenya is the leading country among states in the regional intergovernmental organisation with many investments in Burundi.

    Burundi's President Pierre Nkurunziza is welcomed by Kenya's Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohammed at KICC on February 20, 2015 for the East Africa Head of State summit.

    Source:Daily Nation