IGIHE

Category: Science &Technology

  • Rwanda Ranked Highest in ICT Usage in EAC

    {Rwandan Pupils reading from laptops}

    {{Rwanda is ranked highest user of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in East Africa.}}

    Rwanda is also ranked at 88th position while Kenya comes second at 92nd, Tanzania comes third at 127th and Burundi is the least networked ready nation in the world at the 144th position.

    ICT can help developing countries frog-leap stages of development and usher them into first world economies.

    Meanwhile. Uganda is ranked 110th in 144 surveyed countries by the World Economic Forums Networked Readiness Index 2013 under the theme “Benchmarking ICT uptake and support for growth and jobs in a hyper connected world.”

    The report informs decision makers and investors on ICT readiness and usage in several economies in as regards the Internet economy.

  • Kenya &Tanzania in Joint Geothermal Power Production

    {{Kenya has revealed plans to partner with Tanzania for production of geothermal power in an attempt to increase energy production in the East African region.}}

    A delegation of senior government officials and members of Tanzania’s parliamentary committee on energy and mining recently discussed geothermal energy developments in Kenya with the aim of understanding capacity building, licensing and how to attract investors for the partnership.

    Tanzania, which has the longest rift stretch in eastern Africa, has about 52 identified sites with geothermal potential of 650MW that have not been fully exploited.

    Tanzania’s parliamentary committee chairman of energy and mining Victor Mwambalaswa noted that geothermal power production in Kenya has been successful in the past four years and added that the same could be replicated in Tanzania to help in faster development of the resource.

    Mwambalaswa said, “During our discussions, we have been impressed by what Kenya has done in the past four years and we have discussed what is going to suit both partners.”

    Tanzania’s commissioner for energy and petroleum affairs Hosea Mbise said the exploited energy in Tanzania is about 600MW, which has been low considering that the demand of the resource was about 900MW.

    To kick off the project, the African Development Bank will sponsor a few experts from Tanzania to train on geothermal science.

    Source: {Africanreview}

  • Scientists Edge Closer to Effective Malaria Vaccine

    {{A new kind of malaria vaccine that mimics the effect of mosquito bites has shown early promise by offering 100% protection to a dozen human volunteers, researchers said Thursday.}}

    The experimental vaccine, called PfSPZ and produced by the Maryland-based company Sanaria, contains live malaria parasites collected through a painstaking process of dissecting the salivary glands of mosquitoes.

    These immature parasites, known as sporozoites, are then weakened so they cannot cause illness and incorporated into a vaccine, which must be injected into a person’s veins several times, with each shot about a month apart.

    “When we started doing this, everybody knew that sporozoites were the gold standard but everyone thought it was impossible to make a vaccine out of sporozoites and we were crazy. And we have proven them wrong,” Sanaria chief scientific officer Stephen Hoffman told media.

    A test two years ago that administered the same vaccine into the skin of patients, the way most vaccines are given, protected only two of 44 volunteers.

    But the latest trial showed that injecting the vaccine into the bloodstream protected against malaria in all six volunteers who received a five-shot regimen at the highest dosage, according to the results published in the US journal Science.

    Six of nine volunteers in a separate group that received four shots of the highest dose — 135,000 sporozoites per injection — were also fully protected against malaria, it said.

    The phase I study included 57 people — including 40 who received the vaccine in varying doses and 17 controls.

    The study was co-authored by Hoffman and Robert Seder of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

    “The good news is that the proof of concept is quite impressive,” said Anthony Fauci, director of NIAID.

    “The sobering news is that we that we still have a lot of work to do in order to prove that this is something that has very broad applications.”

    There is no vaccine on the market for malaria, which infected some 220 million people in 2010 and killed 660,000 according to the World Health Organization. Most of the deaths were among children in Africa.

    Another vaccine effort under way is the RTS,S trial. Its phase III results, reported in Science in 2012, showed 31 percent effectiveness in young infants and 56 percent in older babies and toddlers.

    Hoffman told Science he realized years ago that a single protein vaccine like RTS,S would “never do the job” of warding off malaria, which is caused by a 5,000-gene parasite.

    He was inspired instead by studies in the 1970s that showed 90 percent of volunteers were protected against malaria after getting more than 1,000 bites from infected mosquitoes that had undergone radiation to weaken the Plasmodium falciparum parasite.

    {agencies}

  • Cameron castigates cyberbullying websites

    {{British Prime Minister David Cameron has urged Internet users to boycott certain social networking sites, after a teenage girl who was bullied online committed suicide.}}

    Cameron on Thursday described the death of 14-year-old Hannah Smith, who hanged herself last week after receiving abuse on the website ask.fm, as ‘’absolutely tragic’’.

    “There’s something all of us can do as parents and as users of the Internet and that is not to use some of these vile sites,” Cameron told Sky News television.

    Cameron also urged website operators to do more to stop them from being used as forums for bullying.

    “The people that operate these websites have got to step up to the plate and show some responsibility in the way that they run these websites,” he said.

    Some charities in Britain have called for tighter regulation of social networks.

    Internet abuse has hit the headlines in Britain in recent weeks after several women, including two lawmakers, received rape and death threats on Twitter.

    ‘True tragedy’

    Ask.fm has described Hannah’s suicide as a “true tragedy” and pledged to work with police investigating her death.

    It stressed that it encourages users and their parents to report any bullying.

    The website, which is popular amongst teenagers, has a question-and-answer format and allows users to post messages without their identity being disclosed.

    The ninth most popular social networking site in the world created in 2010 and based in Latvia, has 13.2 million daily users.

    Source: {Al Jazeera and agencies}

  • UK scientists to serve up world’s first in-vitro burger

    {{A corner of west London will see culinary and scientific history made on Monday when scientists cook and serve up the world’s first lab-grown beef burger.}}

    The in-vitro burger, cultured from cattle stem cells, the first example of what its creator says could provide an answer to global food shortages and help combat climate change, will be fried in a pan and tasted by two volunteers.

    The burger is the result of years of research by Dutch scientist Mark Post, a vascular biologist at the University of Maastricht, who is working to show how meat grown in petri dishes might one day be a true alternative to meat from livestock.

    The meat in the burger has been made by knitting together around 20,000 strands of protein that has been cultured from cattle stem cells in Post’s lab.

    The tissue is grown by placing the cells in a ring, like a donut, around a hub of nutrient gel, Post explained.

    To prepare the burger, scientists combined the cultured beef with other ingredients normally used in burgers, such as salt, breadcrumbs and egg powder. Red beet juice and saffron have been added to bring out its natural colours.

    “Our burger is made from muscle cells taken from a cow. We haven’t altered them in any way,” Post said in a statement on Friday. “For it to succeed it has to look, feel and hopefully taste like the real thing.”

    france24

  • Giant virus ‘opens Pandora’s box’, says French team

    {{Dr Chantal Abergel is not easily surprised by the discovery of giant viruses. A director of research at Aix-Marseille University and the CNRS (France’s National Centre for Scientific Research), she has already been involved in identifying two very large viruses, the Mimivirus and Megavirus.}}

    In fact, the IGS laboratory headed by her colleague, Professor Jean-Michel Claverie, had long predicted the existence of giant viruses. And yet they were taken aback by their own latest discovery… a virus so big that it resembled a cell.

    “We were expecting giant viruses to have 1,000 genes; however, one of the two viruses we recently found had 2,556 genes, which is huge,” Dr Abergel told France24.com, adding that the other virus’s gene count was around 1,500.

    The team at the IGS laboratory discovered the two viruses from samples obtained in Chile and Australia – two among several countries they were drawn to after earlier studies had pointed to the prevalence of giant viruses in marine environments.

    “As far as Chile was concerned, we took advantage of Europe’s ASSEMBLE project that allowed us to use their marine facilities worldwide to try different locations, one of which was Las Cruces, Chile. The sample in Australia was a result of random sampling we carry out in places we visit,” Dr Abergel explained.

    Because of the unique nature of the viruses and the fact that little is known about their genetic makeup, Dr Claverie’s team opted for the term “Pandoravirus”.

    A new perspective on evolutionary biology

    “This discovery has opened a Pandora’s box,” said Dr Abergel. “It will force us to change the way we think about viruses. The Pandoraviruses are extremely complex. In fact, 90 percent of their genes are unlike anything we have known so far. Out of the 2,556 genes of the Pandoravirus, less than 200 are known to us. This discovery is bound to make us reconsider our perception of evolutionary biology.”

    According to the French researcher, the Pandoravirus is totally different from previously known viruses.

    “Normally, under a microscope, viruses look like crystals. But Pandoraviruses looked like cellular structures. First, we thought they might be special bacteria because of their size and morphology. However, further tests confirmed that they were viruses,” she said.

    When asked whether the French team’s discovery had set a new limit for a virus’s size, Dr Abergel replied that there was no limit. “Our latest discovery has shown that giant viruses exist all over the planet. To find Pandoraviruses at locations 15,000 km away from each other indicates the prevalence of such viruses,” she said.

    While Pandoraviruses are not pathogenic to humans or animals, Dr Abergel said they were involved in the production of carbon and oxygen. “They have more than 2,000 genes whose nature and coding behaviour for proteins and enzymes is unknown to us. As a result, a deep study of such viruses will not only have important implications in the field of biotechnology, but it will also enhance our understanding of the beginning of life,” she said.

    france24

  • MPs: UK ‘losing fight’ Against internet Crime

    The UK must do more to stop online fraud and deter state-sponsored cyber-espionage or risk losing the fight against e-crime, MPs have warned.

    The Home Affairs Select Committee said much low-level internet-based financial crime was falling into a “black hole” and was not reported to the police.

    The MPs said more officers should be trained in digital crime detection and e-crime experts protected from cuts.

    The Home Office said the authorities must “keep pace” with criminals.

    Publishing its first report on the subject, the cross-party committee said e-crime took various forms, did not recognise national borders and could be committed “at almost any time or in any place”.

    It called for a dedicated cyber-espionage team to respond to attacks, many of which are believed to be backed by foreign governments because they are so sophisticated.

    Offences range from attacks on computer networks and the use of viruses to steal data to the use of cyberspace to facilitate traditional crimes such as forgery, sabotage, drug smuggling and people trafficking.

    BBC

  • Kenyan Doctor Wins Young Scientist Award IFOS 2013

    {Dr Owen Pyeko Menach on 21st July 2013.He won the young scientist of the year }

    {{A Kenyan doctor is the winner of Young Scientist of the Year Award the IFOS 2013 Congress Scientific Secretariat held in Seoul, Korea.}}

    Dr Owen Pyeko Menach was feted at the 20th World Congress of the International Federation of Oto-Rhino-Laryngological Societies (IFOS), held from June 1 to 5, 2013 in Seoul, Korea.

    Dr Menach, an ENT Surgeon at Kenyatta National Hospital, beat 100 entrants to clinch the coveted award at the global congregation of Ear, Nose and Throat specialist doctors held once every four years Dr Menach He emerged first beating 100 global finalists.

    “Cancer of the Larynx cases are a worrying trend in Central and Eastern provinces largely because of the high incidence of cigarette smoking and alcohol intake,” Dr Menach told the Nation in an interview after receiving the award.

    Dr Menach presented a paper on the rising incidence of cancer of the larynx in the third world which parallels increased smoking and alcohol drinking habits.

    The paper challenges the formation of cancer registries that will encourage better policy formulation and reduction of head and neck cancer in general

    Titled, ‘Demography and Histologic pattern of Laryngeal Squamous cell carcinoma in an African population,”

    His research also indicated that this particular cancer is a predominantly a male disease because cancer was only present in four per cent of the respondents.

    According to Dr Menach, cancer cases have however been steadily rising due to the increasing prevalence of cigarette smoking.

    “Among the cases, majority of them came from Central Kenya (46 per cent) followed by Eastern province (16 per cent) then Rift Valley province at 16 per cent Nyanza and Western provinces followed with eight per cent and six per cent respectively,” said Dr Menach.

    Nyanza province had the least prevalence of cigarette smoking at 7.9 per cent, he added.

    Previous surveys have corroborated the findings that prevalence of cigarette smoking has been shown to be highest in Eastern and Central Provinces.

    “The rise in the prevalence of cancer of the larynx may increase considering the rising prevalence of smoking in this population,” said Dr Menach citing surveys done in Kenya show that the highest prevalence is among men in the 45-49 age brackets.

    “It is quite worrying that 13 per cent of schooling children smoke cigarettes and just like in adults, boys smoke more than girls,” the ENT surgeon said.

    If not checked, there is likelihood of increased cancer burden in this population corresponding to the shifting trends and rising prevalence of cigarette smoking in this population,” he warned.

    Globally, about a fifth of the world’s population smoke cigarettes and these figures are increasing exponentially due to extensive and aggressive marketing done by cigarette manufacturing companies.

    The hospital-based case-control study where the respondents demographic data including age, sex, region of origin, occupation as well as smoking and alcohol intake habits were documented.

    The youngest age for the respondents with cancer was 42 and while the oldest 84 years.

    NMG

  • Kenya Hosts Construction Equipment Event

    {{Case Construction Equipment dealer for Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, CMC Motors Group hosted an event in Nairobi, Kenya to showcase its latest products to its customers in eastern Africa.}}

    The event, which took place at a restaurant in Nairobi, was attended by 220 guests, including representatives from the ministry of the roads from Kenya and Uganda.

    Case 580T tractor loader backhoe, SR150 skid steer loader, CX210B crawler excavator, 821F wheel loader and the 845B grader were demonstrated at the event.
    Case’s official demonstrator Steven Beardmore highlighted the new features of the models during the presentations which were followed by a corporate dinner.

    CMC Motors Group managing director Solomon Muturi said, “Our aim is to support the development of Kenya’s economy with a total solution service that includes the wide range of Case Construction equipment.”

    CNH Construction Equipment business manager Randhir Haripersad noted, “We are determined to continue to strengthen our position in East Africa through our successful partnership with CMC Motors Group.”

    {wirestory}

  • UK to Probe Huawei Staff’s role at Cybersecurity Centre

    {{The UK government has confirmed it is to review Huawei’s involvement in a cybersecurity centre.}}

    The news follows a report by parliament’s intelligence committee which raised concerns that staff working at the base in Oxfordshire were employed by the Chinese firm.

    Part of their job is to test Huawei’s own equipment for vulnerabilities.

    US politicians have claimed that the company posed a threat because of links to China’s government and military.

    The allegations are based, in part, on the fact that the company’s founder, Ren Zhengfei, was a former member of the People’s Liberation Army.

    But Huawei has strongly denied having close ties to the Chinese state and has stressed that it is 98.6%-per-cent-owned by its employees.

    Although the firm has been prevented from bidding for many US infrastructure contracts, it has been active in the UK after striking a multi-billion pound deal to provide networking equipment to BT in 2005.

    A spokeswoman for Huawei highlighted the fact that the government has said it is confident that UK networks using the firm’s equipment “operated to a high standard of security and integrity”.

    She added that her company supported the decision to carry out a review.

    BBC