This week the team have collated and curated some interesting information about the lands where their families originated!
🇯🇲 Jamaica
A Cure For Prostate Cancer
Two years after unveiling a ground-breaking treatment for prostate cancer, famous Jamaican scientist Dr. Henry Lowe put the Alpha Prostate Formula 1 on the market in 2012.
Canasol Eye Drop For Glaucoma
The first medication for the eye condition of glaucoma is called Canasol, a medicinal eye drop manufactured from the marijuana plant and developed in Jamaica at the University of the West Indies (Mona Campus).
The JaipurKnee prosthetic
Amputees can credit Jamaican Joel Sadler and his colleagues at Stanford University for developing the JaipurKnee, one of the most reasonably priced prosthetic knees on the market.
Space exploration
Robert Rashford co-invented the world’s first portable 3D non-destructive evaluation (NDE) system, which detects flaws in materials used to construct aircraft, spacecraft and industrial pipelines without having to take these materials apart. The system was used in the maintenance of the Hubble Space Telescope.
Discovery of the Child Malnutrition Syndrome – Kwashiorkor
Dr. Cicely Williams, born in Westmoreland in 1893, was sent to the Gold Coast (present-day Ghana) in 1929. She discovered that toddlers had a higher mortality rate than infants. It was common practice to treat toddlers for “vitamin deficiencies” but sadly, a lot of them passed away. Dr. Williams found the cause was kwashiorkor, an extreme case of protein-deficit malnutrition.
The Aedes Aegypti Mosquito Discovered to Be a Carrier of Dengue Fever
Jamaicans started to experience a weird fever in the latter half of the 1960s. Microbiologist and pathologist Dr. Louis Grant recognised it as the dengue virus and concluded that it was spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which also contains the deadly yellow fever virus
Chocolate Milk
According to historian James Delbougo, Jamaicans were preparing “a hot beverage produced from shavings of newly harvested cacao (cocoa), boiled with milk and cinnamon” as early as 1494!
(Source—www.my-island-jamaica.com)
And we can’t leave Jamaica without mentioning the “Best Coffee in the World”—Blue Mountain! Coffee was introduced to Jamaica in 1728; over the past few decades, this coffee has developed a reputation that has made it one of the most expensive and sought-after coffees in the world—over 80% of all Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee is exported to Japan. In addition to its use for brewed coffee, the beans are the flavour base of Tia Maria coffee liqueur.
(Source—www.bluemountaincoffee.com)
🇳🇬 Nigeria
Nigeria is one of the largest oil-producing countries in the world. As well as petroleum, Nigeria is blessed with 44 different types of minerals including kaolin, gypsum, gold, iron ore, granite and precious stones.
Here are some Nigerian inventions you may be unfamiliar with (source—espact.com):
Emergency Blood Transfusion System
Invented by Dr. Otu Oviemo Ovadje, the is a low-cost blood transfusion system which has the ability to recover blood from a patient’s internal bleeding and then infuses the blood back into their blood system, thereby preventing blood loss. It has been designed to transfuse blood in a safe and non infectious manner and it can also work without electricity.
First Solid Fuel Rocket
At such a young age (26), Shehu Saleh Balami invented and launched a solid-fuel rocket at the new Kaduna Millennium City Road in Kaduna State in 2008. He is a graduate of Mechanical engineering at the Federal University of technology Minna, Niger State.
Fastest computer
The world fastest and most efficient computer was actually invented by a Nigerian in the person of Dr. Philip Emeagwali. He carefully studied the efficient ways in which bees communicate and build honeycombs and decided to create a computer that could work that way. The result was that he successfully combined 65,000 processors to invent the world’s fastest the computer, which performs computations at 3.1 billion calculations per second.
🇬🇠Ghana
Ghana is the second largest producer of cocoa beans in the world and is also known as the most peaceful African nation. Kofi Annan—former Secretary-General of the UN and a 2001 Nobel Peace Prize winner—helped combat the AIDS virus especially in Africa, and helped in the fight to combat human rights abuses.
🇺🇬 Uganda
The name Uganda was derived by the British from the Swahili word meaning Land of the Ganda people.
Uganda boasts about 11% of the world’s birds with over 1,040 species. It also boasts the strongest waterfall located in Murchison Falls National Park. The source of the world’s longest river, the Nile, is found in Jinja. It has about 8% of the world’s butterfly species. 8% of the world’s mammal species are found in Uganda.
There are 30 languages spoken there. It is home to some of the world’s rarest minerals
In 1879 Caesarian sections were reportedly being successfully performed
(Source—www.safarisrwandasafari.com)
Poetry
You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? 'Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I’ll rise. Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries? Does my haughtiness offend you? Don’t you take it awful hard ’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines Diggin’ in my own backyard. You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise. Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I’ve got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.
Maya Angelou – 1928-2014
