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A Biafran scientist,Oluchukwu Uchenna has finalised the building of his private satellite which he said he shall be launching today amid the sit-at-home action being observed by the indigenous people of Biafra.

Happening Now!!! Biafran Scientist, Uchenna Set To Launch His Satellite To Monitor IPOB’s Sit-At-Home Action

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President Muhammadu Buhari has challenged the National Research and Innovation Council, NRIC, to deepen scientific research in Nigeria, with the hope of producing Nigerian Nobel laureates in the sciences.

Renowned playwright, Professor Wole Soyinka, is Nigeria’s only Nobel laureate. He won the world’s most prestigious prize in literature in 1986.

While Nigeria has produced world renowned scientists, none of them have been found worthy of winning the Nobel laureate prize in the sciences.

In his remarks at the inaugural meeting of NRIC on Thursday, President Buhari said Nigeria’s vision of becoming one of the world’s 20 largest economies by 2020 could only be achieved when science, technology and innovation are fully integrated into the nation’s national socio-economic development process.

Mr. Buhari expressed hope that the body, which was inaugurated on February, 18, 2014, would focus more on acquiring esteemed positions and prizes in world science, than merely producing scientific journals and publications.

“I am aware that Nigeria must accord high priority to science and technology if it must take its rightful place among the leading economies in the modern world”, the president said.

“It is my fervent hope that our research and innovation output should be measured by number of intellectual property such as patents granted and not only by the number of articles published in scholarly journals.

“By this action, Nigeria will become a centre of discoveries, inventions and innovation in all fields of science and technology. Before long we should be in a position to produce Nobel Laureates in the sciences”, the president stated.

Mr. Buhari noted that the NRIC is designed to accelerate the growth of innovation-based entrepreneurship in the country and to create conditions for the commercialization of current and future research findings in our universities and research institutes.

The president said the government had structured the NRIC to provide for the establishment of a Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) consisting of technocrats from the various fields to ensure a full implementation of resolutions of the council.

He also declared government’s support for the NRIC and asked for collective effort by members of the body to ensure the actualization of its objectives.

The meeting was attended by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Ministers of Science and Technology (Ogbonnaya Onu), Information and Culture (Lai Mohammed), Power Works and Housing (Babatunde Fashola) and Minister of State for Petroleum (Ibe Kachikwu) among others.

Buhari Tasks NIRC On Producing Nobel Laureate In Sciences

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Nigeria is lagging behind in the agricultural biotechnology revolution as other African nations leap forward in its adoption, resulting in unprecedented transformation of their respective economies.

Biotechnology is any technological application using biological systems, living organisms, or their derivatives to make or modify products for specific human benefits.

South Africa, the world’s eighth largest grower of biotech crops, became the first African country to adopt genetically modified (GM) crops with commercial approvals in 1997.

According to data from the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA), the total biotech crop area for South Africa in 2013 was 2.9 million hectares. The economic gain from biotech crops in the country between 1998 and 2012 was $1.15 billion, and $218.5 million for 2012.

However, without commercial GM crop practices, ISAAA does not regard Nigeria as a biotech country. The country had a GM pro-Vitamin A cassava released in December 2011 by the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) Ibadan. Other GM crops such as rice, sweet potato, sorghum and yam are only at experimental or field trial stage.

Nigeria, through the National Cereals Research Institute (NCRI), in July 2013 joined Ghana and Uganda to participate in a research to introduce GM rice in Africa.

While Ghana and Uganda have already commenced phase one of the project, Mark Ukwungwu, NCRI acting Executive Director, said Nigeria would rather build on the results from their trials.

Reuters reported that Burkina Faso made over $1 billion from cotton sales in 2013 and $1.2 billion in 2014. This is 20 per cent higher than the amount President Gooodluck Jonathan is seeking legislative approval to borrow and finance the fight against Boko Haram insurgents in Nigeria’s north east.

According to Lucy Ogbadu, Director-General and Chief Executive Officer, National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA), biotechnology is a field from which communities stand to benefit maximally when judiciously developed and carefully deployed.

Statistics from ISAAA show that biotech crop hectarage marked an unprecedented 100-fold global increase to 175.2 million hectares in 2013 from 1.7 million hectares in 1996. The figures for 2014 are yet to be published.

About 7.2 million smallholder farmers in China and another 7.2 million in India collectively planted a record 15.0 million hectares of biotech crops during this period.

Biotech cotton increased the income of farmers significantly by US$250 per hectare and also halved the number of insecticide sprays, thus reducing farmer exposure to pesticides.

One of the feats of GM technology is the “golden rice,” a strain of rice that has been genetically engineered to produce beta-carotene, the precursor of vitamin A. This rice species is invaluable in regions with endemic Vitamin A deficiency (VAD).

Globally, VAD is responsible for 1 to 2 million deaths, and 500,000 cases of irreversible blindness annually, meaning that golden rice has the potential to do much good for Nigeria.

Nigeria signed the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, signifying its alliance with the international community to ensure that the trans-boundary movement of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) is controlled.

But “Legal practitioners need to have legal impetus for the regulation of modern biotechnological activities and for the use of Genetically Modified Organisms,” noted Rose Maxwell Gidado, Country Coordinator, Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology (OFAB).

In November, NABDA, in conjunction with OFAB and the Nigerian Bar Association, in Abuja put together a special session tagged “legal OFAB.”

During the session, Abdu Bulama, Minister of Science and Technology, noted that “malnutrition, especially lack of essential vitamins and minerals, poses a major challenge in Africa and is the cause of 45 percent of deaths in children each year.”

It has been estimated that 65 percent of Nigerians are malnourished and 54 percent of the country’s over 170 million people are hungry.

Agricultural biotechnology, if widely adopted in Nigeria, could significantly halt or reduce the incidence these human tragedies.

Nigeria lags behind as South Africa, others take biotech leap

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Israel and the United States on Tuesday tested the Jewish state’s Arrow 3 ballistic missile interception system, the defence ministry said, with local media reporting the trial was cut short.

“A target missile was successfully launched and tracked by the Arrow Weapon System, as part of the planned joint testing programme,” the ministry said in a statement, providing no further details.

A defence ministry official was quoted by the Jerusalem Post website as saying the test was “neither a success nor a failure”.

“The first part of the launch involved tracking the target missile, which was fired over the Mediterranean Sea towards Israel” in a simulated attack on Israeli airspace, Yair Ramati told the Post.

But it was decided mid-test not to fire the Arrow 3 interceptor missile, he said, citing unsuitable test conditions.

“This is not the first time that not all conditions are met for a trial,” Ramati said.

The two countries carried out similar tests in September and January, and in 2013 as Washington was considering military action against Syria.

The Arrow Ballistic Missile Defence System, designed to counter long-range missiles, has successfully intercepted missiles similar to Iran’s Shihab-3 in a variety of test conditions.

Israel has been working on upgrading its missile defence capabilities to defend against long- and short-range incoming projectiles.

The Arrow project was first launched in 1988 as part of the then Star Wars programme under late US president Ronald Reagan that was abandoned in 1993.

The Jewish state accuses its arch-foe Iran of seeking to develop a nuclear weapon, a charge that Tehran denies.

Israel, US in abortive missile defence test

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In this month of June, God will surely made His words manifest in You.
No evil shall befall you and yours.
God Bless you abundantly, protect you greatly and always be with you.IJN

Happy New Month!!!

Type Amen.

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Six Taiwanese students won 12 awards at last week’s Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) in Los Angeles, California, the best performance ever by a local team in the world’s largest pre-college science competition.

Huang Yi-hsuan (黃亦軒) from Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School and Chen Yu-hsin (陳郁欣) from Taipei First Girls High School each took four awards.

Huang, 17, submitted a project on the mechanistic characterization of a transcription factor bZIP16 in regulating arabidopsis flowering pathways.

He was one of the three winners of the Dudley R. Herschbach SIYSS Award that offers an all-expenses-paid trip to attend the Stockholm International Youth Science Seminar, which includes attendance at the Nobel Prize ceremonies.

Huang also won the Intel ISEF Best of Category Award and the First Award in the plant sciences category, as well as the Monsanto Award for Innovation in Plant Science First Award.

Chen, 17, won an all-expenses-paid trip to attend the EU Contest for Young Scientists, for her project on increasing tropical cyclone intensity and ocean subsurface warming in the western North Pacific Ocean.

She also took the Intel ISEF Best of Category Award and the First Award in the earth and planetary sciences category, as well as the Third Award offered by the American Meteorological Society.

Chen Pei-ming (陳培鳴), 16, and Chiu Shao-ting (邱紹庭), 18, both from Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School, won the Fourth Award in the microbiology category. They also snagged the First Award offered by the American Society for Microbiology.

Shen Yu-hsuan (沈玉宣), 18, from Taipei First Girls High School, took the Fourth Award in the chemistry category.

One of the youngest members of the team, Wang Kuan-yu (王冠萭), a 13-year-old from Greater Kaohsiung’s San Min Junior High School, won the Fourth Award in mathematical sciences.

Teenagers win 12 awards at Intel science fair in LA

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A first-of-its-kind study this week suggests that the genomes of new species may evolve in a similar, repeatable fashion -- even in cases where populations are evolving in parallel at separate locations. Evolutionary biologists used a combination of ecological fieldwork and genomic assays to see how natural selection is playing out across the genome of a Southern California stick insect that is in the process of evolving into two unique species.

Researchers used a combination of ecological fieldwork and genomic assays to see how natural selection is playing out across the genome of Timema cristinae, a California stick insect that is evolving into two unique species.

Credit: M. Muschick/University of Sheffield

[Click to enlarge image]

A first-of-its-kind study this week suggests that the genomes of new species may evolve in a similar, repeatable fashion -- even in cases where populations are evolving in parallel at separate locations. The research is featured on the cover of the May 16 issue of Science.

A team of evolutionary biologists at Rice University, the University of Sheffield and eight other universities used a combination of ecological fieldwork and genomic assays to see how natural selection is playing out across the genome of a Southern California stick insect that is in the process of evolving into two unique species.

"Speciation is the evolutionary process that gives rise to new species, and it occurs when barriers prevent two groups of populations from exchanging genes," said Rice co-author Scott Egan. "One way to study how speciation occurs is to look for examples where partial reproductive barriers exist but where genes are still exchanged."

The stick insect Timema cristinae is one such example. Timema are closely related to "walking sticks," plant-eating insects that look like twigs. Timema's shape and color act as natural camouflage and help themavoid being eaten by predators, such as birds. More than a dozen unique species of Timema have evolved to feed on specific plants in California and northern Mexico.

One of these, T. cristinae, is found in two distinct varieties. One variety, or ecotype, feeds on the thin, needle-like leaves of a shrub called Adenastoma and features a distinct white stripe on its back that serves as camouflage. The other ecotype has no stripe and feeds on Ceanothus, a plant with wide green leaves where the stripe would stand out.

"Populations of T. cristinae on the two host plants have evolved many differences in their physical form while still exchanging genes," said Egan, a Huxley Faculty Fellow in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Rice. "These same populations have also evolved barriers to gene flow. We call this process 'speciation with gene flow,' and evolutionary biologists have long wondered if the genetic basis for this process is highly repeatable and if the genes involved are spread out across the whole genome or in a few discrete regions."

To find out whether this was the case, Egan and a dozen co-authors led by University of Sheffield biologist Patrik Nosil conducted four years of detailed genomic and ecological tests. They first had to sequence the genome for T. cristinae and identify which portions of the genome corresponded to particular biological functions. They then collected about 160 T. cristinae from the wild. Samples were collected at several geographic locations and were equally split between the ecotypes on the two host plants.

"We resequenced the genome of each individual that we collected and looked at which genes were differentiated between populations adapted to different host plants," Nosil said. "Because we also conducted an experiment in the field measuring evolution in real time, we gained information on how natural selection is pulling these populations apart."

For example, the team found that many of the genetic differences were related to the biochemical function of metal ion binding, and metals are known to influence differences in pigmentation and mandible shape between the two T. cristinae ecotypes.

Previous ecological studies have shown that Timema do not migrate long distances. Because of this, the team expected to find evidence of localized gene flow among individuals collected at specific geographic locations. The genomic tests confirmed this, but they also revealed a pattern in the way that natural selection was playing out at each of the localities.

"In particular, we found that there were regions of the genome that exhibited significant differences between populations from host plant 1 and host plant 2, regardless of where the individuals were collected," Nosil said.

That suggested that evolution might be occurring in the same repeatable fashion at each location. To further test this, the team devised an experiment to gather genomic data from individuals that were actively under selection.

"We took individuals from a mixed population of the striped versus the no-striped ecotype, and we transplanted them back into nature onto the two host plants in five different sets," Egan said. "We allowed them to go an entire generation, and then we resampled those populations, resequenced the genome of the survivors and compared those to the ancestors that we started with a year before. We tried to match up the allele frequency shifts in this experiment with the genome-level differentiation that we observed in our genome-resequencing populations. And what we found was that many of the regions that were highly differentiated in nature were the exact same regions that were responding to our selection experiment."

Egan said it was previously impossible to conduct this kind of study because of the expense of genomic tests. Though the genomes of many plant, animal and microbial species have been sequenced over the past decade, most of those are model organisms. Scientists use model organisms to study critical biological processes, but Egan said the study of nonmodel organisms is often the key to ecological questions, including those related to how the environment influences natural selection and speciation.

"The world of genomics is beginning to open up for people like me who don't study model organisms," Egan said. "This is allowing us to address, in new ways, questions that Darwin posed over 150 years ago."

Study co-authors include Víctor Soria-Corrasco, Aaron Comeault and Timothy Farkas, all of the University of Sheffield; Zachariah Gompert of Utah State University; Thomas Parchman of the University of Nevada, Reno; Spencer Johnston of Texas A&M University; Alex Buerkle of the University of Wyoming; Jeffrey Feder of the University of Notre Dame; Jens Bast of the University of Göttingen, Germany; Tanja Schwander of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland; and Bernard Crespi of Simon Fraser University, Canada. The research was supported by the European Research Council, Utah State University and the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics.

Study probes evolution of California insect: Caught in the act:

Posted by Sylvester No comments

A first-of-its-kind study this week suggests that the genomes of new species may evolve in a similar, repeatable fashion -- even in cases where populations are evolving in parallel at separate locations. Evolutionary biologists used a combination of ecological fieldwork and genomic assays to see how natural selection is playing out across the genome of a Southern California stick insect that is in the process of evolving into two unique species.

Credit: M. Muschick/University of Sheffield

[Click to enlarge image]

A first-of-its-kind study this week suggests that the genomes of new species may evolve in a similar, repeatable fashion -- even in cases where populations are evolving in parallel at separate locations. The research is featured on the cover of the May 16 issue of Science.

A team of evolutionary biologists at Rice University, the University of Sheffield and eight other universities used a combination of ecological fieldwork and genomic assays to see how natural selection is playing out across the genome of a Southern California stick insect that is in the process of evolving into two unique species.

"Speciation is the evolutionary process that gives rise to new species, and it occurs when barriers prevent two groups of populations from exchanging genes," said Rice co-author Scott Egan. "One way to study how speciation occurs is to look for examples where partial reproductive barriers exist but where genes are still exchanged."

The stick insect Timema cristinae is one such example. Timema are closely related to "walking sticks," plant-eating insects that look like twigs. Timema's shape and color act as natural camouflage and help themavoid being eaten by predators, such as birds. More than a dozen unique species of Timema have evolved to feed on specific plants in California and northern Mexico.

One of these, T. cristinae, is found in two distinct varieties. One variety, or ecotype, feeds on the thin, needle-like leaves of a shrub called Adenastoma and features a distinct white stripe on its back that serves as camouflage. The other ecotype has no stripe and feeds on Ceanothus, a plant with wide green leaves where the stripe would stand out.

"Populations of T. cristinae on the two host plants have evolved many differences in their physical form while still exchanging genes," said Egan, a Huxley Faculty Fellow in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Rice. "These same populations have also evolved barriers to gene flow. We call this process 'speciation with gene flow,' and evolutionary biologists have long wondered if the genetic basis for this process is highly repeatable and if the genes involved are spread out across the whole genome or in a few discrete regions."

To find out whether this was the case, Egan and a dozen co-authors led by University of Sheffield biologist Patrik Nosil conducted four years of detailed genomic and ecological tests. They first had to sequence the genome for T. cristinae and identify which portions of the genome corresponded to particular biological functions. They then collected about 160 T. cristinae from the wild. Samples were collected at several geographic locations and were equally split between the ecotypes on the two host plants.

"We resequenced the genome of each individual that we collected and looked at which genes were differentiated between populations adapted to different host plants," Nosil said. "Because we also conducted an experiment in the field measuring evolution in real time, we gained information on how natural selection is pulling these populations apart."

For example, the team found that many of the genetic differences were related to the biochemical function of metal ion binding, and metals are known to influence differences in pigmentation and mandible shape between the two T. cristinae ecotypes.

Previous ecological studies have shown that Timema do not migrate long distances. Because of this, the team expected to find evidence of localized gene flow among individuals collected at specific geographic locations. The genomic tests confirmed this, but they also revealed a pattern in the way that natural selection was playing out at each of the localities.

"In particular, we found that there were regions of the genome that exhibited significant differences between populations from host plant 1 and host plant 2, regardless of where the individuals were collected," Nosil said.

That suggested that evolution might be occurring in the same repeatable fashion at each location. To further test this, the team devised an experiment to gather genomic data from individuals that were actively under selection.

"We took individuals from a mixed population of the striped versus the no-striped ecotype, and we transplanted them back into nature onto the two host plants in five different sets," Egan said. "We allowed them to go an entire generation, and then we resampled those populations, resequenced the genome of the survivors and compared those to the ancestors that we started with a year before. We tried to match up the allele frequency shifts in this experiment with the genome-level differentiation that we observed in our genome-resequencing populations. And what we found was that many of the regions that were highly differentiated in nature were the exact same regions that were responding to our selection experiment."

Egan said it was previously impossible to conduct this kind of study because of the expense of genomic tests. Though the genomes of many plant, animal and microbial species have been sequenced over the past decade, most of those are model organisms. Scientists use model organisms to study critical biological processes, but Egan said the study of nonmodel organisms is often the key to ecological questions, including those related to how the environment influences natural selection and speciation.

"The world of genomics is beginning to open up for people like me who don't study model organisms," Egan said. "This is allowing us to address, in new ways, questions that Darwin posed over 150 years ago."

Study co-authors include Víctor Soria-Corrasco, Aaron Comeault and Timothy Farkas, all of the University of Sheffield; Zachariah Gompert of Utah State University; Thomas Parchman of the University of Nevada, Reno; Spencer Johnston of Texas A&M University; Alex Buerkle of the University of Wyoming; Jeffrey Feder of the University of Notre Dame; Jens Bast of the University of Göttingen, Germany; Tanja Schwander of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland; and Bernard Crespi of Simon Fraser University, Canada. The research was supported by the European Research Council, Utah State University and the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics.

What's New Here?

Happening Now!!! Biafran Scientist, Uchenna Set To Launch His Satellite To Monitor IPOB’s Sit-At-Home Action

Happening Now!!! Biafran Scientist, Uchenna Set To Launch His Satellite To Monitor IPOB’s Sit-At-Home Action

Buhari Tasks NIRC On Producing Nobel Laureate In Sciences

Buhari Tasks NIRC On Producing Nobel Laureate In Sciences

Nigeria lags behind as South Africa, others take biotech leap

Nigeria lags behind as South Africa, others take biotech leap

Israel, US in abortive missile defence test

Israel, US in abortive missile defence test

HAPPY NEW MONTH TO ALL DAILYNEWS9JA FANS.

HAPPY NEW MONTH TO ALL DAILYNEWS9JA FANS.

Teenagers win 12 awards at Intel science fair in LA

Teenagers win 12 awards at Intel science fair in LA

Study probes evolution of California insect: Caught in the act:

Study probes evolution of California insect: Caught in the act:

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