Heroic rats detect land mines and now they might help save an endangered anteater.

Heroic rats detect land mines and now they might help save an endangered anteater.The pangolin, an endangered anteater that is one of the world’s most poached animals, could use a hero. Fortunately, a big rat is training for the job. Actually, 11 African giant pouched rats are. At a research center in central Tanzania, the 2-foot-long rodents are learning to detect the smell of pangolins’ armor-like scales, which are smuggled to Asia for use in sham traditional remedies. If the rats succeed, they and their twitching noses could eventually deploy to ports, national park borders and even highways to sniff out illegal shipments and help bust traffickers. The species already has a strong track record in detection. The Belgian organization APOPO has been training their “heroRATS” to find land mines for 20 years, and it says the animals have helped clear more than 100,000 mines from former war zones. In the past decade, the rats have been used to detect tuberculosis, a highly infectious disease that public health facilities often miss. They can screen 100 mucus samples in 20 minutes — a job that would take clinics four days — and APOPO says they’ve boosted TB detection by 40 percent at the clinics they work

Female reindeer's pull Santa's sleigh..

Santa, turns out, did some savvy hiring of his prancing parade,he got female reindeer's pull his sleigh. The male reindeer shed their antlers at the end of the mating season in early December, while females sport their thinner antlers throughout the winter.Sounds like Rudolph and the gang were all gals. "It appears that way," said physiologist Perry Barboza of the Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska at Fairbanks, who studies reindeer and their closest cousins, caribou. Scientists consider reindeer and caribou the same species. While all reindeer would be equipped for an Arctic journey, though a flightless one, females might have the edge over their male counterparts.When the Christmas journey rolls around, male reindeer carry as low as 5 percent body fat, having lost much of their fatty stores during the energy-sapping mating season. Female reindeer, however, enter winter with about 50 percent body fat, making them "seals on hooves," Barboza said. The fat, which can be a couple of inches thick on their rumps, keeps the reindeer toasty in temperatures as low as minus 45 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 43 degrees Celsius). Which leaves us wondering, however, how they can be "faster than eagles," as legend has it. Santa's reindeer have another hoof up on other animal sleigh pullers: They can see in the ultraviolet range of the electromagnetic spectrum, something humans (and Santa) can't do. This vision ability will come in handy in the winter, said researchers who published a review of reindeer research in the journal Frontiers for Young Minds in 2015.

Tail vaccinations in cats to prevent cancer.

Tail vaccinations in cats to prevent cancer. It’s estimated that about 1 to 10 out of every 10,000 cats vaccinated will develop cancer at the injection site. If 1000 cats are vaccinated, then we are looking at hundreds of cats each year developing vaccine associated sarcomas. These sarcomas are usually difficult to treat and researchers have associated these sarcomas to rabies and feline leukemia vaccines. A university of Florida study has shown how to reduce incidence of sarcomas in cats. The study changed injection site to the tail and it worked.The University of Florida, study suggests that tail vaccinations are a good alternative to rear leg vaccinations. The University of Florida veterinarians studied 60 cats,and they studied two parameters. 1)is it possible to use the tail? and 2) will it provide immunity? The study suggests that there are no significant differences in the behavior of the cats that receive vaccinations below the knee and in the tail. The result showed that 99% of cats that received the tail vaccines developed protective antibody titres. The researchers came to the conclusion that tail vaccines work and are well tolerated. The researchers further opined that in case a sarcoma develops on the tail, a simple procedure to remove it is easy,safe and effective.

Traffic-monitoring tech will make cities smarter and safer.

Traffic-monitoring tech will make cities smarter and safer. Technology has simplified life and daily activities but this can be taken a step further to our roads. Traffic gridlock is common in most developed and developing countries,the difference is management of such gridlock. Data is life,and it is been used to monitor activities on the road to prevent logjams and ensure free flow of data. The data revolution can save a lot of wasted hours in traffic thus creating a peaceful conducive atmosphere for work and business. How to use data to ease traffic : the first step will be to a) identify the zone you are interested in. b) get data of vehicles that ply the route per time .c) mine this data,and create a prototype of traffic during the peak and low periods.d) then fashion out alternate routes,detours,back-roads and link -roads and bridges to prevent gridlocks. This technology can be implemented easily in Nigeria to save the commuters from unnecessary pain, imagine you in traffic for 3-4 hrs just to get to your office #Ajah ,not cool at all. Technology at our disposal, #moving ahead #2018. A company waycare is taking the #bulls by the horns,they are making sure that Speed limits, crashes and bumper-to-bumper traffic may become a thing of the past. Waycare is helping to put the smarts into smart cities by monitoring everything to do with traffic flow – traffic lights, road sensors, security cameras and data sent from connected cars. Waycare consolidates and makes sense of all that data for a city’s traffic management center.

Israel’s Waycare – already in use in Las Vegas - helps monitor everything to do with traffic flow, from traffic lights, to road sensors, security cameras and data sent from connected cars.#data #bigdata

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy could ease Alzheimer’s symptoms.

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy could ease Alzheimer’s symptoms.According to Israeli researchers, this therapy has potential to improve behavioral and physical problems associated with the disease. This revolutionary treatment for Alzheimer’s disease uses a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, which has been shown in the past to be extremely effective in treating wounds that were slow to heal,according to Prof. Uri Ashery of TAU’s Sagol School of Neuroscience and the Faculty of Life Sciences, who led the research for the study. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy, prescribed for conditions including embolisms, burns, carbon monoxide poisoning, decompression sickness and fibromyalgia, involves breathing in pure oxygen in a pressurized room or chamber. In this chamber, the air pressure is increased to twice that of normal air. Under these conditions, oxygen solubility in the blood increases and is transported by blood vessels throughout the body. The added oxygen stimulates the release of growth factors and stem cells, which promote healing.

Gut bacteria in bees spread antibiotic-resistant genes to each other.

Gut bacteria in bees spread antibiotic-resistant genes to each other.Researchers have discovered that antibiotic-resistant genes are spread in honey bee gut bacteria so that all strains of bacteria survive, rather than just one gut bacterium acquiring resistance and outcompeting others.

Antibiotic use in farming and human health leads to bacteria acquiring resistance (indicated by a + sign in the illustration). Antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the environment are picked up by honey bees during pollination. In the bee's gut, genetic material for resistance "jumps" to natural gut bacteria, which can spread resistance further. Overuse of antibiotics (USA) leads to more widespread and elaborate patterns or resistance (indicated by multiple colors of + signs). Restricted antibiotic use (Norway) leads to limited and less complex patterns of resistance. How will humans survive serious infections in the future if we're running out of tools today to fight them? Antibiotic resistance among disease-causing bacteria is of global concern, as some last-resort drugs can no longer cure common illnesses such as urinary tract infections. To make matters worse, researchers from Arizona State University and Norwegian University of Life Sciences have discovered that our very own gut bacteria may be perpetuating the resistance. Scientists uncovered this startling finding while investigating the microbial life in honey bee guts.

Tick that feeds on birds may increase the range of Lyme disease.

Tick that feeds on birds may increase the range of Lyme disease.A tick that is not known to bite people may play a role in the transmission of Lyme disease, according to a new article. This study adds to a growing body of evidence that indicates that in order to understand the spread of Lyme disease, researchers must consider the ecology of all of its various hosts and vectors. Blacklegged ticks (Ixodes scapularis) are the primary vector of Lyme disease to humans, but researchers at Old Dominion University in Virginia are focusing on another tick, Ixodes affinis, even though it doesn't bite people. In their paper published in the Journal of Medical Entomology, "New records of Ixodes affinis parasitizing avian hosts in southeastern Virginia," Erin Heller and co-authors document Ixodes affinis parasitizing five songbird species on which it had not previously been recorded. This is important because birds are able to travel long distances, and bring tick hitchhikers with them. As the range of Ixodes affinis expands northwards and overlaps more with that of the human-biting blacklegged tick, the authors predict that having two competent tick vectors may increase transmission of the pathogen throughout the system and lead to an increase in the number of Lyme disease cases in humans.