The spill of Crude oil from artisanal refineries and government owned pipelines has become recurrent situation in the Niger Delta, leading to devastating effects on aquatic ecosystem. toxicity NNPC (Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation) refinery selected Bolo, Twon-Brass Ekpemu Delta were investigated. physicochemical properties products short fall standards for refineries, as they contained...

Skinner and colleagues (Research Article, 23 January 2015, p. 395), based on metacarpal trabecular bone structure, argue that Australopithecus africanus employed human-like dexterity for stone tool making and use 3 million years ago. However, their evolutionary and biological assumptions are misinformed, failing to refute the previously existing hypothesis that human-like manipulation preceded ...

Almécija and colleagues claim that we apply a simplified understanding of bone functional adaptation and that our results of human-like hand use in Australopithecus africanus are not novel. We argue that our results speak to actual behavior, rather than potential behaviors, and our functional interpretation is well supported by our methodological approach, comparative sample, and previous exper...

In his recent paper, Dobson (2005) concludes that, contrary to the work of McHenry and Berger (1998a,b), the pattern of differences in joint proportions between the partial skeleton Stw 431 and A.L. 288-1 ‘‘does not correspond to the pattern revealed from a comparison of large samples of unassociated postcranial material from Sterkfontein Member 4 and Hadar’’ (Dobson, 2005, p. 153). Using exact...

Crude extracts of various Agapanthus africanus plant parts were screened in vitro against eight economically important plant pathogenic fungi. Radial mycelial growth was inhibited significantly (Po0.05) in five test organisms, while Pythium ultimum, and to a lesser extent Fusarium oxysporum and Alternaria alternata, showed a degree of tolerance. Subsequently, these crude extracts were tested in...

Human hands, when compared to that of apes, have a series of adaptations to facilitate manipulation. Numerous studies have shown that Australopithecus afarensis and Au. africanus display some of these adaptations, such as a longer thumb relative to the other fingers, asymmetric heads on the second and fifth metacarpals, and orientation of the second metacarpal joints with the trapezium and capi...

For more than 80 years, Proconsul has held a pivotal position in interpretations of catarrhine evolution and hominoid diversification in East Africa. The majority of what we 'know' about Proconsul, however, derives from abundant younger fossils found at the Kisingiri localities on Rusinga and Mfangano Islands rather than from the smaller samples found at Koru--the locality of the type species, ...

We purposively selected 39 sampling sites along the Mara River and its two perennial tributaries of Amala and Nyangores and sampled snails. In addition, water physicochemical parameters (temperature, turbidity, dissolved oxygen, conductivity, alkalinity, salinity and pH) were taken to establish their influence on the snail abundance and habitat preference. Out of the 39 sites sampled, 10 (25.6%...

⦁ Background: Despite the continuous interest in search for therapeutic agents, little attention has been given to medicinal relevance of earthworm casts, with even less over-seasoned worm-casts. Therefore, this study determined phytochemical, antimicrobial, and cytotoxic properties worm-casts Hyperiodrilus africanus (Eudrilidae). Methods: The casts were extracted n-hexane, ethanol, water crude...