Category: Science &Technology

Rwanda to Host Global Conference on Biofortification

{{Rwanda is preparing to host the 2nd Global conference on Biofortification scheduled for March 31 to April 2, 2014 in Kigali, Rwanda.}}

{{Understanding Biofortification}}

Biofortification is the idea of breeding crops to increase their nutritional value. This can be done either through conventional selective breeding, or through genetic engineering.

There are over two billion people who lack proper nutrients especially vital vitamins and minerals that they need for good health

{{Application}}

Through a new approach called biofortification, these micronutrients can be provided to millions of people through the staple foods that they eat every day, foods such as maize, sweet potato and wheat.

While these staples are often packed full of energy, they usually lack essential micronutrients such as vitamin A, iron and zinc.

When people don’t get enough of these micronutrients, they suffer from a hidden hunger.

This puts them at increased risk of stunting, anemia, blindness, infectious diseases and even death. Women and children are especially vulnerable.

{{Links}}

Biofortification links agriculture, nutrition and public health, thereby engaging a wide range of actors.

Crop scientists, nutritionists, economists and behavioral-change experts all work together to ensure that nutrient-rich crops are effective and meet the demands of farmers and consumers.

Biofortification targets the people most at risk of hidden hunger and the foods that they habitually eat. This makes it a sustainable and cost-effective approach.
Focus is on seven staple food crops:

-* Vitamin A sweet potato, maize and cassava,
-* Iron beans and pearl millet,
-* Zinc rice and wheat.

Once these crops have been distributed, farmers can often save and share the seeds, roots or tubers, so that each harvest continues to deliver better nutrition year after year.

To date, nearly half a million people in Africa and Asia are already planting or eating some of these nutrient-rich crops, all of which have been conventionally bred.

As a bonus, these crops have other valuable traits, for example being high yielding and virus – or disease – resistant.

kwezi@igihe.com

March 6, 2014
Understanding Plant Breeding

{{For thousands of years, farmers, herdsmen and poultry keepers have been selectively breeding their plants, animals and poultry to improve desirable traits, develop specific characteristics or maintain certain genes.}}

It was somehow a trial and error process since the actual mechanisms governing inheritance were unknown and knowledge of these genetic mechanisms finally came as a result of careful laboratory breeding experiments carried out over the last two centuries.

By the 1890s, the invention of better microscopes allowed biologists to discover the basic facts of cell division and sexual reproduction.

The focus of genetics research then shifted to understanding what really happens in the transmission of hereditary traits from parents to their offspring.

{{Particular patterns}}

A number of hypotheses were suggested to explain heredity, but Fr Gregor Johann Mendel, a monk, who was an Austrian by nationality but born in Germany, was the only one who got it more or less right.

He became known as the founder of the new science of genetics, where he demonstrated that the inheritance of certain traits in cowpeas follow particular patterns. This is now referred to as the laws of Mendelian inheritance.

He discovered that certain properties, which he called particles, existed in the cowpea. His ideas had been published in 1866 but largely went unrecognised until the 1900s, which was long after his death.

Fr Mendel spent his life doing basic genetics research and teaching mathematics, physics and Greek in Brno, now in what is known as Czech Republic.

The profound significance of Mendel’s work where he carried out some cross-pollination was not recognised until the 20th century, when the independent rediscovery of these laws initiated the modern science of genetics.

{first published in Newvision}

March 6, 2014
Mercedes & Infiniti Planning To Develop Cars Together

{{Daimler’s & Mercedes and Nissan’s Infiniti plan to pool development of compact cars to cut costs, expand the German carmaker’s North American production and broaden the Infiniti lineup, people familiar with the matter said.}}

The outline deal, which reinforces Daimler’s relationship with the Renault-Nissan alliance, will see Nissan build the next-generation Mercedes GLA sport utility vehicle and related models in Mexico alongside all-new cars for its own Infiniti brand, said the sources, who asked not to be identified.

The plans are due to be presented to the Daimler board for approval as soon as April, the sources said, with the first jointly manufactured vehicles expected in late 2017.

Daimler and Nissan have said they are looking to increase cooperation in smaller premium cars, but neither carmaker would confirm the Mexico production plan on Tuesday.

The companies have yet to reach a “joint formal decision”, Infiniti CEO Johan de Nysschen said in an interview at the Geneva auto show.

“But Mexico does have a lot going for it,” he added, including tariff-free exports to the U.S. and Europe.

Mercedes, Nissan and alliance partner Renault have shared engines, plants and vehicle architectures for small cars and vans since Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche and Renault-Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn announced a broad-based partnership in 2010, underpinned by token reciprocal shareholdings.

The latest agreement will help Infiniti to fill a big gap at the bottom end of its model range with a new SUV, sedan and coupe built with the same parts and architecture as successors to the Mercedes A- and B-Class, GLA and CLA, the sources said.

In return, Daimler gets a first North American production site for its front-wheel drive “MFA” architecture, development savings and economies of scale – in a vehicle category where it has struggled in the past with low profitability.

Such a deal could make good sense for both partners, said Ronald Harbour, an automotive consultant with Oliver Wyman.

“For Mercedes it would allow them to get into that market without having to invest massive capital.”

The new Mercedes and Infiniti models will be built at Nissan’s Aguacalientes 2 plant northeast of Guadalajara, opened in November with an initial production capacity of 175,000 vehicles, the sources said.

{wirestory}

March 5, 2014
How Malaria Parasite Beats top Insecticides

{{Gene detectives on Tuesday said they had discovered how the parasite that causes malaria becomes resistant to DDT and to insecticides used in anti-malaria bednets.}}

The secret lies in just one change in the DNA code on a single gene, they said.

A singe mutation changes a normal gene for metabolism, known as GsTe2, into one that helps the mosquito break down the insecticide molecule so that it is no longer toxic.

Insecticide resistance is a major worry in the fight against malaria.

DDT, banned decades ago in many countries because of its damage to the environment, remains an important mosquito-killing tool in poor economies.

Chemicals called pyrethroids are also used to treat bednets, shielding infants against the insect.

Researchers led by Charles Wondji at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in England found a population of resistant Anopheles funestus mosquitoes in the western African state of Benin.

They unravelled the genome of the insects and compared it against a non-resistant strain of mosquitoes, to see what made things so different.

The answer: a mutation called L119F — which was confirmed by looking at resistant mosquitoes in other parts of the world.

The team then introduced the mutant gene into fruit flies, a widely used laboratory tool. The insects themselves became resistant to both pyrethroids and DDT.

The work, reported in the journal Genome Biology, has opened the way to a test to spot emerging insecticide resistance in mosquitoes.

“Such tools will allow control programmes to detect and track resistance at an early stage in the field,” said Wondji.

“This significant progress opens the door for us to do this with other forms of resistance as well, and in other… species” that transmit malaria.

AFP

March 1, 2014
Rwanda Finalizes Deal to Host Regional Science Body

{{Rwanda has signed an agreement establishing the East African Community science and technology commission, a new body that seeks to promote and coordinate technological activities within the bloc’s five partner states.}}

Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi and Tanzania form the EAC bloc with its headquarters in Arusha, Tanzania.

According to an agreement signed Tuesday by the government of Rwanda and the EAC Secretariat in Kigali, Rwanda will host the commission and the operations of the new organ are set to commence by July 2014 with a proposed budget of 1.8 million U. S. dollars.

The Headquarters Agreement, establishing the commission, was signed by EAC Secretary General, Amb. Dr Richard Sezibera, and Rwanda’s Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo, in the presence of Rwanda EAC affairs minister Jacqueline Muhongayire and officials from EAC Secretariat.

“Investment in science and technology is not a choice; it’s crucial and vital for the region. Technology will play a major role in unlocking the East Africa’s potential,” Sezibera told reporters shortly after signing the agreement.

He stated that the EAC partner countries cannot compete at the international level without (promoting) science and technology because the power of technology has taken root in the most of the developed world and immerging markets.

According to Muhongayire, the commission will serve as the principal advisory organ for the Community in areas of research, develop priority areas for collaboration in science and technology, and facilitate the innovations in technology.

The East African Science and Technology Commission that will be operational from July 1, 2014 with a priority of promoting and coordinating the development, management and application of Science and Technology in the Partner States.

The Science and Technology Commission is one of the EAC institutions as provided for under article 9 of the Treaty establishing East African Community.

It is mandated to develop structures and frameworks, which will strengthen cooperation in Science and Technological advancement within the Partner States.

It is also expected to identify and address major issues of importance to science and society and facilitate interaction among scientists across all disciplines.

The Commission will promote the participation of scientists from Partner States in international scientific endeavors, and provide independent and authoritative advice, which will stimulate constructive dialogue among the scientific community.

In 2012, the International Telecommunication Union report named Rwanda, Bahrain, Brazil, Ghana, Kenya, and Saudi Arabia as developing nations with strong dynamic ICT markets because of catching up fast in efforts to bridge the “digital divide.”

To advance ICT growth, Rwanda plans to establish an ICT park that will be a base of technological investments, including training, industries, research and development.

The country has also laid a robust 2,500-km national fiber optic cable that seeks to enhance access to various broadband services and the National Data Center.

To maximize the country’s ICT infrastructure, Rwandan information technology students and fresh graduates are actively engaged in software applications, thanks to kLab innovation center, an open technology hub for IT entrepreneurs.

{Xinhua}

February 28, 2014
Kenya to Build First Nuclear Plant

{{Kenya has announced that it will build a 1,000 MW nuclear plant worth US$3.5bn by 2025 to support the country’s growing energy needs.}}

William Ruto, deputy president of Kenya, said, “I have no doubt that Kenya will successfully implement its nuclear power programme safely and efficiently, borrowing from best practices in countries that have embraced and used the technology successfully for many decades.”

The plant is expected to be built near the country’s Lake Victoria coastline, according to The Star.

Davis Chirchir, energy and petroleum cabinet secretary, said that no consensus has been reached so far on financing the project as the Kenyan government would prefer a public-private partnership (PPP).

Ruto added that Kenya would develop nuclear energy alongside other renewables such as geothermal, hydro, wind and solar.

Kenyans face frequent blackouts due to the demand for electricity outstripping demand.

{africanreview}

February 28, 2014
Kepler Bags Huge Haul of Planets

{{The science team sifting data from the US space agency’s (Nasa) Kepler telescope says it has identified 715 new planets beyond our Solar System.}}

This is a huge new haul.

In the nearly two decades since the first so-called exoplanet was discovered, researchers had claimed the detection of just over 1,000 new worlds.

Kepler’s latest bounty orbit only 305 stars, meaning they are all in multi-planet systems.

The vast majority, 95%, are smaller than our Neptune, which is four times the radius of the Earth.

Four of the new planets are less than 2.5 times the radius of Earth, and they orbit their host suns in the “habitable zone” – the region around a star where water can keep a liquid state.

Whether that is the case on these planets cannot be known for sure – Kepler’s targets are hundreds of light-years in the distance, and this is too far away for very detailed investigation.

The Kepler space telescope was launched in 2009 on a $600m (£360m) mission to assess the likely population of Earth-sized planets in our Milky Way Galaxy.

Faulty pointing mechanisms eventually blunted its abilities last year, but not before it had identified thousands of possible, or “candidate”, worlds in a patch of sky in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra.

It did this by looking for transits – the periodic dips in light that occur when planets move across the faces of stars.

Before Wednesday, the Kepler spacecraft had confirmed the existence of 246 exoplanets. It has now pushed this number up to 961. That is more than half of all the discoveries made in the field over the past 20 years.

“This is the largest windfall of planets that’s ever been announced at one time,” said Douglas Hudgins from Nasa’s astrophysics division.

“Second, these results establish that planetary systems with multiple planets around one star, like our own Solar System, are in fact common.

“Third, we know that small planets – planets ranging from the size of Neptune down to the size of the Earth – make up the majority of planets in our galaxy.”

When Kepler first started its work, the number of confirmed planets came at a trickle.

Scientists had to be sure that the variations in brightness being observed were indeed caused by transiting planets and not by a couple of stars orbiting and eclipsing each other.

The follow-up work required to make this distinction – between candidate and confirmation – was laborious.

But the sudden dump of new planets announced on Wednesday has exploited a new statistical approach referred to as “verification by multiplicity”.

This rests on the recognition that if a star displays multiple dips in light, it must be planets that are responsible because it is very difficult for several stars to orbit each other in a similar way and maintain a stable configuration.

“This technique that we’ve introduced for wholesale planet validation will be productive in the future. These results are based on the first two years of Kepler observations and with each additional year, we’ll be able to bring in a few hundred more planets,” explained Jack Lissauer, a planetary scientist at Nasa’s Ames Research Center.

Sara Seager is a professor of planetary science and physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is not involved in the Kepler mission.

She commented: “With hundreds of new validated planets, Kepler reinforces its major finding that small planets are extremely common in our galaxy. And I’m super-excited about this, being one of the people working on the next generation of space telescopes – we hope to put up direct imaging missions, and we need to be reassured that small planets are common.”

{The habitable zone is the region around a star where water can keep a liquid state}

BBC

February 27, 2014
Africa’s Cheapest Car Expected in June 2014

{{Kenyan Vehicle Manufacturer (KVM) has announced that it will launch the continent’s cheapest car in June 2014}}

Dubbed Mobius, the vehicle is currently being assembled in KVM’s Thika plant in Kiambu County.

Mobius has been created by mostly using spare parts from Toyota, while 35 per cent of the vehicle parts have been locally sourced, KVM said.

Joel Jackson, inventor and CEO of Mobius Motors, said, ‘‘We made a prototype last year and are launching the car for sale at KVM by Q2.”

According to KVM, the car is primarily built to endure Africa’s rugged roads.
Mobius can accommodate eight passengers and can store large goods but is without air-conditioning or power-steering, KVM said.

The vehicle is designed for rural areas and small business owners who require cheap and affordable transportation, it added.

Although initially priced at US$6,000, the cost has increased to US$11,000 as spare parts are expensive, the company said.

Fifty units of the car will be manufactured initially, KVM said.

{africanreview}

February 26, 2014
WhatsApp to Allow Free Voice Calls By Mid-Year

{{Fresh from a US$19-billion takeover by Facebook, mobile messaging service {WhatsApp } said Monday it will launch free voice calls by mid-year.}}

The introduction of free calls, revealed on the opening day of the four-day World Mobile Congress in Barcelona, Spain, would match rival application Viber’s similar offering.

“We are going to introduce voice on {WhatsApp } in the second quarter of this year,” {WhatsApp } founder Jan Koum said.

Facebook, whose 29-year-old billionaire creator Mark Zuckerberg was the star speaker on the opening day of the industry fair, announced a stock and cash purchase of {WhatsApp} on Wednesday.

“Five years ago we had no users, no product,” said Koum.

“Today we have 465 million active users,” he said, adding that the company still had no marketing, relying mostly on word of mouth to prosper.

{WhatsApp} had not planned any changes in the light of the Facebook takeover, Koum said.

“Mark really understands that for {WhatsApp} to stay successful it really needs to stay independent,” he said.

Viber, one of {WhatsApp’s} key rivals, offers free voice and messaging.

Japanese online shopping group Rakuten announced this month it would buy Viber’s Cyprus-based developer, Viber Media, for US$900 million.

{wirestory}

February 25, 2014
Dogs’ Brain Scans Reveal Vocal Responses

{{By placing dogs in an MRI scanner, researchers from Hungary found that the canine brain reacts to voices in the same way that the human brain does.}}

Emotionally charged sounds, such as crying or laughter, also prompted similar responses, perhaps explaining why dogs are attuned to human emotions.

The work is published in the journal Current Biology.

Lead author Attila Andics, from the Hungarian Academy of Science’s Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest, said: “We think dogs and humans have a very similar mechanism to process emotional information.”

Eleven pet dogs took part in the study; training them took some time.

“We used positive reinforcement strategies – lots of praise,” said Dr Andics.

“There were 12 sessions of preparatory training, then seven sessions in the scanner room, then these dogs were able to lie motionless for as long as eight minutes. Once they were trained, they were so happy, I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it.”

For comparison, the team looked at the brains of 22 human volunteers in the same MRI scanners.

The scientists played the people and pooches 200 different sounds, ranging from environmental noises, such as car sounds and whistles, to human sounds (but not words) and dog vocalisations.

The researchers found that a similar region – the temporal pole, which is the most anterior part of the temporal lobe – was activated when both the animals and people heard human voices.

“We do know there are voice areas in humans, areas that respond more strongly to human sounds that any other types of sounds,” Dr Andics explained.

“The location (of the activity) in the dog brain is very similar to where we found it in the human brain. The fact that we found these areas exist at all in the dog brain at all is a surprise – it is the first time we have seen this in a non-primate.”

Emotional sounds, such as crying and laughter also had a similar pattern of activity, with an area near the primary auditory cortex lighting up in dogs and humans.

Likewise, emotionally charged dog vocalisations – such as whimpering or angry barking – also caused a similar reaction in all volunteers,

Dr Andics said: “We know very well that dogs are very good at tuning into the feelings of their owners, and we know a good dog owner can detect emotional changes in his dog – but we now begin to understand why this can be.”

However, while the dogs responded to the human voice, their reactions were far stronger when it came to canine sounds.

They also seemed less able to distinguish between environmental sounds and vocal noises compared with humans.

About half of the whole auditory cortex lit up in dogs when listening to these noises, compared with 3% of the same area in humans.

Commenting on the research, Prof Sophie Scott, from the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, said: “Finding something like this in a primate brain isn’t too surprising – but it is quite something to demonstrate it in dogs.

“Dogs are a very interesting animal to look at – we have selected for a lot of traits in dogs that have made them very amenable to humans. Some studies have show they understand a lot of words and they understand intentionality – pointing.”

But she added: “It would be interesting to see the animal’s response to words rather than just sounds. When we cry and laugh, they are much more like animal calls and this might be causing this response.

“A step further would be if they had gone in and shown sensitivity to words in the language their owners speech.”

Dr Andics said this would be the focus of his next set of experiments.

BBC

February 23, 2014