Science Heritage Journal | Galeri Warisan Sains (GWS)

Five Area Councils were selected for the study from the six Area Councils of Federal Capital Territory (FCT-ABUJA) namely; Gwagwalada, Kuje, Kwali, Abaji and AMAC. Three markets were surveyed in each of the Area Council to obtain one measure of infested maize with maize weevils (Sitophilus species) and ten of the insects were selected randomly from each measure and kept separately in a covered jar containing ethanol solution. The sample were taken to Insect Laboratory (Insect Museum), at the Department of Crop Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State for identification. MI scope was used to carry out the morphometric measurement. The features of the insect measured include the wholebody length, Body width, Hind limb, Fore limb, Head, Antennae, Tarsi, Width of Femur, Femur. Then Microscope was use to view and compare the collected insects with other genus of Sitophilus in the insect collection boxes in the museum. The features measured were converted from pixel per length (p/l) to millimeter and subjected to Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) using statistical package version 9.0. The means were separated using Duncan Multiple Range Test (DMRT) at 5 % level of probability. Results obtained indicated that Kuje and Abaji Area Councils had varied diversity of features of Sitophilus granarius and only Sitophilus granarius was identified in all the five Area Councils of FCT-Abuja, Nigeria.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has emerged among the most serious public health issues, prompting the creation of worldwide implementation strategies. In this study, the application of seasonal or time-series approaches was suggested for forecasting the unknown percentages of resistance towards other microbial groups for seven microorganisms. Annual data between 2012 and 2019 were acquired from European Centre for Disease Prevention, and Control (ECDC) reports. Microsoft Excel’s function, ‘FORECAST.ETS’, was used for prediction purposes. Then, a brief analysis was done on the forecasted results. Forecasting AMR’s percentage makes it possible to develop a strategy for dealing with any situation that may emerge.

Research has been carried out on the types and abundance of mosquitoes in Kahyapu Village, Enggano Island, Northest Bengkulu in December 2018 – May 2019 with the goals to knowing the types and abundance of mosquitoes found in Kahyapu Village, Enggano Island, Northest Bengkulu. The research location points were determined by purposive sampling and the mosquito collection at each other location point was determined using the Human Landing Collection method. The mosquitoes obtained were grouped by genus and species, the data obtained were analyzed descriptively. From the results of the study obtained 4 species of mosquitoes, namely Aedes albopictus, Armigeres subalbatus, Culex fuscocephala and Culex quinquefasciatus. mosquito with high abundance are Aedes albopictus.

Nata de coco is a complementary treat of beverages made from coconut milk or water which was fermented by Acetobacter Xylinum bacteria. Although most nata are generally made with coconut milk or water, nata de coco can be made using other ingredients such as coconut milk, molasses or molasses, and other juices such as melons, pineapples, oranges, bananas, guavas, strawberries etc. This study was undertaken to design, construct and develop a new Strawberry flavored Nata De Coco and Nata De Coco drink and its comparative quality assessment respect to comparative quality evaluation of Nata De Coco drink. Best quality Nata De Coco were obtained by using 71.34% water, 13% Sugar, 15% Nata De Coco, 0.03% Gellan Gum, 0.06% Sodium Citrate, 0.12% Calcium Lactate, 0.01% Ascorbic Acid, 0.03% Potassium Sorbate, 0.012% Sodium Benzoate, 0.12%,Strawberry Flavor, 0.23% Citric Acid Anhydrous, 0.05% Liquid Cap. Overall analysis shows that Nata De coco Drinks which are produced with 15% Nata De Coco shows the best results and for other parameters results are respectively 0.23%, 0.0144 acidity; 13 ± 0.2 °Brix and pH 3.6± 0.1. As per evaluation of three samples, average value of taste of sample S3 is accepted. Because we used less citric acid in S1, more less citric acid in S3. Taste of S3 is accepted because taste quality of S1 & S2 is not perfect as per standard. Flavor of sample S3 is better than S1 & S3.Organoleptic test of S3 is better than S1 & S2. At the end of all evaluation, S3 is accepted for manufacturing. Because it is tasted well among the samples are made.

The bean flower thrips, Megalurothrips usitatus is a major pest of mung bean that causes flower dropping and significant yield loss of the crop. M. usitatus demonstrated to have variable lifespan when reared on different leguminous hosts but on mung bean, an important pulse crop in Bangladesh, is unknown. The experiment was conducted to determine the biological attributes of M. usitatus on mung bean in a climate control chamber at 26 ± 1°C, 75 ± 3% RH, and 16:8 hours L:D in the laboratory. The results revealed that the incubation period, first instar larva, second instar larva, prepupa, and pupal period of M. usitatus were 3.13 ± 0.06, 1.48 ± 0.05, 2.30 ± 0.08, 1.30 ± 0.07, and 2.26 ± 0.13 days, respectively. The combined developmental period from egg to adult was 10.54 ± 0.15 (mean ± SE) days. The larvae of M. usitatus were similar in appearance to the adults, but they lacked wings and were smaller and different in color. The first instar was pale yellow, while the second instar was darker and larger, ranging from deep yellow to orange-red. The wing pads of the prepupae were shorter than that of the pupae. The antennae of the prepupa were straight, but they were bent in the pupa. In the case of pre-adult mortality of M. usitatus, the mortality of the first instar larva was 14.41%, second instar larva 22.77%, prepupa 14.10%, and pupa 65.67%. The pre-adult mortality was 80.51% overall. Adult males had lower longevity (6.42 ± 0.44 days) than females (12.07± 1.56 days). The developmental period of M. usitatus on mung bean indicated the suitability of the leguminous crop as a potential host, as well as the need for information on the pest’s various growth stages in order to design effective management strategies.

Genetically Engineered (GE) plants are the demand of time for increased need of food. The regulation system, followed from the development of a GE plant to its release into the environment is categorized into separate stages for maintaining the proper biosafety including Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA). ERA identifies potential risks and its impacts through science based evaluation process where it follows a case by case study. All the countries dealing with GE plants follow specific guidelines to conduct a successful ERA. In this study, ERA guidelines of 4 developing and 4 developed countries including Bangladesh were compared in terms of required data and information against ten criteria. Surprisingly, an adequate amount of data and information requirements (e.g. if the intended modification has been achieved or not, growth habit of GE plants, potential adverse effects on the human health etc.) matched between all the countries. However, a few differences of data requirement such as agronomic conventions of non-transformed plants, clear description of experimental procedures followed etc. were also observed in the study. Moreover, the result indicates that only a few countries provide instructions on the quality of the data used for ERA. Thus, if the similarities are recognized in a more framed manner then the approval pathway of GE plants can be shared.

Each year one third of all the produced food for human consumption is lost or wasted. Food wastage scales up the number of hungry people throughout the world and impairs the global food security. Food wastage not only decreases the availability of food, it also reduces the resources needed to produce food for future generation. In many low-income countries, there is considerable loss due to poor storage facilities and lack of capacity to transport produced food immediately after harvesting. Confusion arising from the existence and poor understanding of different food date labels are a major indirect causes of food wastage in developed countries. The quantitative and qualitative impacts of food wastage can be addressed through food wastage footprint. The total food wastage accounts for 3.3Gtonnes of CO2 equivalent. Globally, the blue water footprint of food wastage is about 250km3 equivalent to three times the volume of Lake Geneva. Produced but uneaten food occupies almost about 1.4 billion hectares of land; this represents close to 28% of the world’s agricultural land area. It is difficult to estimate the impact on biodiversity at global level. The impacts are assessed through deforestation due to agricultural expansion and species threatened during agricultural practices. Food wastage also leads to loss of economic value of food entities. Each year, 1 trillion USD is lost through food loss and waste at global level. The broad level of causes and impacts enable us to identify number of solutions to reduce food wastage. Improved practices at harvest and post-harvest stages by adopting new technical innovations could be the best way to mitigate losses in developing countries. Consumer’s behavior should be modified to reduce waste at down-stream level. The government and development partners have to develop sustainable initiatives through effective policies and raise awareness among the people to solve food wastage problem.

The family of Cucurbitaceae consists of species with economical and nutritional value. Morphologically, there are only few differences between Cucumis species. The interspecific and intraspecific variation in the genome size of the Cucumis species are not discovered yet. Due to this, this study aims to determine the genome size of C. sativus, C. melo inodorus and C. melo cantalupensis using flow cytometry (FCM) method. Nuclei suspension of selected Cucumis species were extracted using LBO1 lysis buffer by manual chopping technique and stained by propidium iodide priot to FCM analysis. Genome size of C. sativus, C. melo inodorus (Honeydew) and C. melo cantalupensis (Rockmelon) were determined by using Glycine max (Soybean) as an external reference standard (2C = 2.5 pg). This study found that the genome size of C. sativus, C. melo inodorus and C. melo cantalupensis estimated to be 2.83 pg, 3.00 pg and 3.47 pg respectively. The genome size data obtained from this study can be used in future genome studies as well as species characterization.

Mosquitoes are major disease vectors, therefore keeping them under control is essential for human health. Insecticides have been shown to be effective at controlling mosquito populations, but insecticide resistance and environmental concerns are increasing. Looking for the health and environment hazards and cost of synthetic insecticides, there is a need to find a safe, practical and effective alternatives. This study aimed to determine the level of effectiveness and the presence of phytochemical analysis of Gliricidia sepium and Callistemon viminalis leaves extracts. It also included the larvicidal effect from the different extract formulations of Madre de Cacao and Bottlebrush at different instar stage of mosquito larvae. It further investigated whether there is no significant difference in the effectivity among the five different formulations of leaves extract. Results of the experiment revealed that 100% Madre de Cacao formulation were found to be very effective in killing mosquito larvae followed by 75%:25%, 50%:50%, 25%:75% while 100% Bottlebrush formulation came out as less effective. Likewise, Madre de Cacao and Bottlebrush contain sterols, flavonoids, alkaloids, saponins, glycosides, tannins and triterpene that have larvicidal impact on mosquito. Finally, a significant difference exists among the different treatments. Madre de Cacao and Bottlebrush maybe recommended as home-based mosquito larvicide which were found to be not hazardous to the health of people in extracting the leaves. A community may build and designate a certain area for plantation and development of Madre de Cacao tree and other plants that potentially source of insecticides specially mosquito larvae that can lessen the harmful effects of using commercial pesticides in controlling mosquitoes.

Hibiscus cannabinus or commonly known as kenaf is a versatile plant that serves as resources for numerous manufacturing and livestock industries. Originally planted in West Africa, kenaf is now distributed in many countries including Malaysia as its fibres were proved to be an ultimate alternative resource for major industries such as automotive, paper and bio-composite. In fact, in Malaysia, due to its adaptation to wide range of climatic conditions, kenaf has potentially be chosen as a new industrial crop replacing tobacco. There have been many interests on regenerating kenaf via micropropagation as the demand for this crop has been increasing tremendously since the past decades. Hence, this study is initiated with the objective to establish in vitro propagation system of H. cannabinus. The callus induction was achieved on Murashige and Skoog (MS) media supplemented with different concentrations of benzylaminopurine (BAP). It was observed that calli were successfully induced on all the BAP concentrations tested. The optimum concentration of BAP that induced the healthiest and biggest calli was 3.0 mg/l. Shoot and root induction from the calli were attempted using MS medium supplemented with different combinations and concentrations of IBA, BA and GA3. From the seven treatments, three treatments successfully induced formation of shoot; treatment T3 (MS + 1.0 mg/l IBA + 2.5 mg/l BA), treatment T5 (MS + 0.1 mg/l IBA + 2.0 mg/l BA + 0.3 mg/l GA3) and treatment T6 (MS + 1.0 mg/l IBA + 2.5 mg/l BA + 0.3 mg/l GA3). The results obtained in this study can paved for more research on tissue culture of H. cannabinus.