Is our food safe?

Ergotism also known as “St. Anthony’s Fire”, a disease occurred as epidemic during the Middle Ages, is the oldest identified mycotoxicosis in humans caused by mycotoxin ergotin, produced by fungi Claviceps purpurea that grows on wheat and rye. Mycotoxins are low molecular-weight toxic metabolites of fungi, so called alkaloids, which are capable of causing disease and death in humans and animals. Thousands of mycotoxins have been described and identified; but only those produced by fungi genera Aspregillus, Fusarium and Penicillium are actually associated to food. When present in food (maize, wheat, peanuts, apricots, grapes, apples, olives, peaches etc.) in sufficiently high levels, toxic fungal metabolites might induce different toxic symptoms that range from acute (for example kidney detoriation) to chronic (liver cancer) together with mutagenic or teratogenic effects. Total number of people affected by any kind of mycotoxicosis is unknown; however most of them are coming from developing countries especially from tropical areas where high temperature and moisture lead to fungal proliferation and production of mycotoxins. Although methods for controlling mycotoxins are enforced having mostly preventive character, such as: good agricultural practice; host resistance through breeding or by antifungal genes via genetic engineering, none of these methods was successful in control of those “natural” food contaminants.

By Irina Ćalić

Clownfish: transgender or transexual?

Did you know the whole story behind ‘Finding Nemo’ is a fraud?
Disney’s version of Nemo’s story is actually a twisted version of the true story. Clownfish such as Nemo and his ‘father’ start off as male and as they age, they grow in size according to their social status in a group. If one of them proves to be the strongest and biggest clownfish of the group ‘he’ changes gender and turns into the female of the group. If the female dies, the biggest male fish will transform into the female.
So the genuine story should tell us that when Nemo’s birth mother dies, dad Marlin becomes mum Marlene.


Barbara Dhoop

El Peyote: a sacred plant

It is well known the use of hallucinogenic plants by numerous cultures worldwide as a mediators between man and his goods. El Peyote, a small cactus without prickles, is an endemic plant from the North of Mexico and South of the United States. Over the years, it has been used by many indigenous communities in spiritual rituals; and as a medicinal plant. Still nowdays an annual pilgrinage is carried out by the Huicholes, a native mexican group, in search of the sacred plant. During the pilgrimage, a series of rituals are performed with the aim to get purified before finding it. El Peyote has been used as a remedy for diabetes, pneumonia, cancer, rheumatism, arthritis, asthma, to increase sexual appetite, to thwart the effects of animals poisoning, among others.

L.LORENA GONZALEZ SANTIN

A Miracle Tree

Imagine a tree in your backyard that will meet all your nutritional needs, take care of you medicinally, and purify your water for you. This tree actually existed for centuries, the natives of northern India and many parts of Africa have known of the many benefits of Its uses are as unique as the names it is known by, such as clarifier tree, horseradish tree and drumstick tree (referring to the large drumstick shaped pods) and in East Africa it is called "mother's best friend”. Virtually every part of the tree can be used, scientific research confirms that the leaves which are eaten as greens, in salads, in vegetable curries, as pickles and young branches are relished by livestock are a powerhouse of nutritional value in such a way that, gram for gram, the leaves of the tree contain 7 times the vitamin C in oranges, 4 times the Calcium in milk, 4 times the vitamin A in carrots, 2 times the protein in milk and 3 times the Potassium in bananas. The podscontaining all the essential amino acids along with oil from the seed known as Ben which is clear, sweet and odourless, never becomes rancid, its nutritional value most closely resembles olive oil and seed-cake remaining contains the active components for removing turbidity (solid particles) from water. The Bark can be used for tanning and also yields a coarse fibres while flowers, which must be cooked, are eaten either mixed with other foods or fried in batter and have been shown to be rich in potassium and calcium. This tree is truly a “miracle” tree offering hope; nutritionally, medicinally and economically to devastatingly communities that tree it's called Moringa oleifera
By Yasinta Nzogela

The man who made his name with urine.

Man has always been attracted to gold, it's bright yellow colour and easy ductility made it for one a perfect material for jewellery. This attraction brought forward an intense search for the synthesis of gold from other metals, a search conducted by alchemists all over time and place.
In 1669 an alchemist in Hamburg, Hennig Brand, thought he had find the answer: gather urine and let it stand for days until the air is filled with a terrible smell, subsequently boil it down to a paste, heat this paste to a high temperature and gather the vapours through water were gold finally will form as an end product. Much to his surprise, no gold was to be found... nevertheless, the experiment wasn't a complete failure. A waxy white substance that glowed in the dark had formed which he named 'phosphorus', the Greek word for light-bearer. He had just discovered a new chemical element, and had by this immortalized his name in history.

By Filip Deckers

The discovery of X-rays

In 1895, the German scientist Wilhelm Konrad Röntgen started studying a new type of invisible rays. He named them 'X-rays' because, at that time, the behaviour of the rays was not completely understood. Although today, the unknown characteristics of these rays are completely clear, the terms 'X-rays' or 'Röntgen-rays' are still being used.
In hospitals, X-rays are frequently applied for visualizing bone fractures and other body parts. A human hand was the first body part imaged by Röntgen, he made an X-ray print of his wife’s hand which clearly shows the finger bones and also indicates that she was wearing a ring.
In 1901, Röntgen received the very first Nobel Prize of Physics for his pioneering research.

Human genome project(HGP)

The Human Genome Project was an international scientific research project to determine the sequence of total genes of human being, which was initiated by James D. Watson at the U.S. National Institutes of Health in 1990. Before the starting HGP, researchers studied the genetic makeup of several nonhuman organisms which included the common human gut bacterium Escherichia coli, the fruit fly, and the laboratory mouse. This project was performed by United States of America, United Kingdom, France, German, Japan, and China and finished in 2000. People can benefit from the completely human genome data, such as it will provide a total new perspective for medicine and biotechnology. It also can help man to understand the law of individual development, the difference between human being and the mechanism of how diseases happen. In a word, Human Genome Project is one of the great projects in the world, the enormous genome data looks like an endless gold mine waiting to be dig.

by Shi Shunteng