amoebagrrrl:

soilwitch:

typicalugandan:

Ugandan girl, 19, makes deworming tablet: Innovation. The medicine, made of dried pawpaw seeds, sugar and cassava flour or banana flour.

“My dream is to become a veterinary doctor but I am also an emerging innovator,” says Christine Nalukwago, the girl behind the research which might lead to the discovery of locally-made de-worming tablets.
Nalukwago, 19, currently a Senior Six student at Kitante Hill School, says she hatched the idea of coming up with a solution to parasitic worms in children while staying with her grandmother.

“My grandmother used to give us dried pawpaw seeds to chew when we were still young but we didn’t know the use. But one day, she told us that they expel worms from our bodies,” she says.

Nalukwago says she became inquisitive after her grandma’s revelation and when she joined secondary school where she has access to laboratories, she chose to carry her research forward.

“At first, the results were not good but I kept on trying,” says Nalukwago, who offers Physics, Chemistry, Agriculture and sub-Math as a subject combination.

How it is done: Nalukwago says some of the substances she mixes to develop the ‘drug’ includes; dried pawpaw seeds, sugar and cassava flour or banana flour.
“I mix them in equal quantity and leave them in a clean open place to concentrate. Sometimes the whole process takes a week when there is enough sunshine or two weeks when there is little sunshine,” Nalukwago explains.
She says after final tests in the laboratory, she tried the drug on a worm and it died instantly. (read more via Daily Monitor)

fucking awesome

This is so cool because not only is this girl an inspirational young scientist, it also goes to prove the value of traditional medicines which are often scorned by western medical authorities.

tokyopaperguide:

Omiyage meets Fashion?  Nippon Omiyage by Uniqlo

Not only can you buy souvenirs while traveling around the country in the upcoming months, but you can also wear them. In an effort to perhaps promote tourism, or simply Japanese culture, the ubiquitous Uniqlo is launching a special “NIPPON OMIYAGE” (‘Japanese Souvenir’) collection, with T-shirts featuring familiar sights and Tokyo favourites.

The collection is somewhat random: there’s the obvious Mount Fuji and Sky Tree, but also Narita Airport and… a mosquito coil? A team of international graphic designers have apparently teamed up to create a collection that reflects their memories of traveling around Japan, and most of them are quite spectacular.

The designs are very playful and don’t look like any old souvenir trinket picked up at a tourist shop, so don’t expect any “… and all I got was this T-shirt” lines. Even though we felt hesitant at the idea of a Narita Airport shirt, the plane looks pretty good wedged between kanji, and the Mount Fuji shirt is reminiscent of the Comme des Garçons’ Play line, with a face-bearing red heart and the name in katakana.

We’d definitely buy the fireworks one and the Sky Tree, as they somehow made it look cool – perfect for gifts to family and friends abroad. Shinjuku, Kyoto and Odaiba are even part of the lot…

If you’ve stocked up on enough tees, totes and handkerchiefs, you can also pick up a typically Japanese item, the versatile furoshiki – that piece of cloth that’s used for everything, from wrapping up bento boxes to presents, or just to carry as a bag. You can even pack up a watermelon in a pretty intricate way to take to your Sunday picnic.

The best part is, they’re insanely cheap, so you might keep all those saved coins for your train tickets to hop around the country and give Japan a further tourism boost. Which is your favorite?

Read more »

Main image: Shinjuku design by Andrew Joyce.

from tokyoweekender.com

I bought a few of these shirts when I was in Uniqlo yesterday, they have some really great designs!