Why petrol price had to go up to 145 naira per litre - Ibe Kachikwu

Nigeria's minister of state for petroleum, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, explains why price of PMS had to go up, and he assures that over time, the price will crash. Take your time and listen to the video.

Nigeria's Petroleum Minister, Ibe Kachikwu, Speaks On The New Petrol Price Of N145 Per Litre

Would Captain America cope in Lagos?

As the new Captain America film made an eye-watering $181.8m in the North American box office this weekend, it was also causing digital waves across the Atlantic in Africa.
One of the movie's opening scenes is set in a market in Nigeria's main city of Lagos, and even though it was reportedly filmed on a set in Atlanta in the US, it inspired Nigerian tweeters (the third most active on the social media site in Africa), to generate the #CaptainAmericaInNigeria hashtag.
Read more at http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-36249415

Anaya Ellick, handless seven-year-old girl, wins US handwriting contest

A seven-year-old student born without hands has won a US national handwriting contest.

Anaya Ellick from Chesapeake, Virginia, does not use prosthetics. To write, she stands to get the proper angle, holding a pencil between her arms.

Her principal, Tracy Cox from Greenbrier Christian Academy, describes her as an "inspiration".

"She does not let anything get in the way of doing what she has set out to do," says Ms Cox.

"She is a hard worker and has some of the best handwriting in her class."

The girl reportedly beat 50 other competitors to get the special-needs category prize at the National Handwriting Contest.

This category rewards students with an intellectual, physical, or developmental disability.

Competition director Kathleen Wright told ABC News that her "writing sample was comparable to someone who had hands".

Sponsors of the contest Zaner-Bloser said they planned to award each student $1,000 (£690).

This is what her winning entry looked like:

Having no hands was also not an obstacle to 30-year-old pilot Jessica Cox.

Source: BBC

The Inspiring story Of Nigerian Sensation Asisat Oshoala And Her Goal To Inspire Others!

Only 21, and already an idol herself for younger generations of female football players in Africa. Arsenal ladies and Super Falcons attacker Asisat Oshoala spoke to FIFA explaining how she developed from playing six-a-side football with boys in Ikorodu to donning the jersey of Liverpool football club and then Arsenal Football club. When I was in school I used to play football with boys,” Oshoala told FIFA.com. “I was in this six-a-side team. The boys always used to say to me: ‘Don’t go to the front, just stay at the back. Just kick the balls out. You can’t score goals. You can’t dribble past defenders.’

Asisat Oshoala Super Falcons striker speaks at FIFA conference with USA women’s football player Abby Wambach

“And then the day came where we made it to a final. I dribbled two or three players and scored a goal. 1-0. End of the game. I remember saying to them, ‘Look at that. You don’t believe in me but look at what I can do.”

 “When you have this determination, and people see this determination in you, eventually they have no choice but to give you the support you need to get you where you want to go,” explained the Arsenal Ladies player.

“I didn’t think I was even going to get to pass the ball at the U-20 (Japan u-20 Female World cup tournament) because I was so young,” said the midfielder. “I thought I was just making up the numbers.”

Oshoala came on as a substitute in the 76th minute of Nigeria’s opener against Korea Republic. Her performance for those final 14 minutes was so impressive that she started every subsequent match at the tournament, helping Nigeria get to the semi-finals.

“Then and there I learnt that when given an opportunity, you give it your best,” she said. “You might not see them, but someone is always watching. It was a great lesson for me. It’s something I’ve carried from Japan into every match I play now.”

“Canada was a massive one for me,” she said. “I wanted to do better. I wanted people to come not only watch my team, but I wanted them to come watch the girl who is determined, the girl who is always ready to give her best.”

Perhaps one of the most important moments took place against England in their final group stage game of Canada 2014. Locked at 1-1, England’s Bethany Mead missed a penalty in the 53rd minute. Just six minutes later, Oshoala was brought down in the box and given the same chance to snatch the lead.

“It was a crucial penalty for the team,” she said. “We had to score. We had to win the game to qualify for the next round. It wasn’t planned that I take it. We had a penalty taker, but I could see that she was scared. I walked up to her and said, ‘I’ll take it for you.’

“I wanted the challenge, I remember thinking, ‘I’m the old player in the team, I’m the one that played at the previous U-20, I should be able to step up and do it for my team.”

 “The Women’s World Cup was something completely different,” Oshoala recalled. “I’d never experienced playing for such big crowds. I remember having to reprimand myself a few times.

“I kept having to remind myself to not go onto the pitch and just start looking at my idols and not play football. I kept refocusing on this thought, ‘I’m going to go there and play the game I have inside me.’”

Asisat and tennis icon and founder of Women’s Sport Foundation Billie Jean King, former USA women’s football player Abby Wambach

“I want to be an inspiration to others,” she said. “So whenever I’m given the opportunity to represent my country I have to give my best.” She told FIFA.com

Young Girls Should Look Beyond Beyonce & Niki Minaj – Ground Breaking Female Scientist, Dr. Hadiyah-Nicole Green

When Dr. Hadiyah-Nicole Green receives invitations to be a guest speaker for professional groups, schools and nonprofit organizations, she almost never turns them down.

“Usually if there is an invitation to speak at a forum like that, I accept it because I feel like it’s a responsibility,” she said. “There are so few of us (black women in STEM fields) I don’t feel like I have the luxury to say I’m too busy.”

By many measures, Green has been extremely busy. One of fewer than 100 black female physicists in the country, she recently won a $1.1 million grant to further develop her patent-pending technology for using laser-activated nanoparticles to treat cancer.

A tomboy as a child, Green was crowned Homecoming Queen at Alabama A&M University (by a landslide vote), earned her master’s and Ph.D degrees at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and is now is an assistant professor in the physics department at Tuskegee University.

It’s tempting to see Green for all the ways that she is unusual – not the least for winning a large grant at a relatively young age, and for being black and female in a field dominated by white men – but it’s not something she said she thinks about in her day-to-day life.

“It looks like I’m special, but I’m not. I’m no different from anybody else,” she said. “When opportunity found me, I was prepared.”

Close to home

Green’s personal history with cancer fuels her drive to find a way to treat it. She grew up in St. Louis and – after the death of her mother and father – was raised by her aunt and uncle, General Lee Smith and his wife, Ora Lee.

When Ora Lee was diagnosed with cancer, “She refused the treatment because she didn’t want to experience the side effects,” said Green. “It was heartbreaking, but I could appreciate she wanted to die on her own terms.

“Three months later, my uncle was diagnosed with cancer.”

Green took time off from school to help him through chemotherapy and radiation treatments. “I saw first-hand how devastating it was, and I could understand why my aunt didn’t want to go through that.”

She earned a bachelor’s degree in physics with a concentration in fiberoptics, and then a full scholarship to UAB. She got the idea to use lasers to treat cancer without the side effects of chemo and radiation.

A physicist’s cancer treatment

A few months ago, Green was awarded a $1.1 million grant to work on a technology that targets, images and treats cancer.

I’m no different from anybody else. When opportunity found me, I was prepared. “I was completely overwhelmed with joy, with thanksgiving, humbled at the opportunity that a group of my peers thought that my work was worthy for such a grant,” she said. “This is a huge door opening. It outlines a path to take this treatment to clinical trial.”

Green had spent seven years during her master’s and doctoral programs at UAB, developing a way to target cancer cells – not the healthy cells around them.

“I’m really hoping this can change the way we treat cancer in America,” said Green. “There are so many people who only get a three-month or six-month survival benefit from the drugs they take. Then three or six months later, they’re sent home with no hope, nothing else we can do. Those are the patients I want to try to save, the ones where regular medicine isn’t effective for them.”

The way the technology works is that an FDA-approved drug containing nanoparticles is injected into a cancer patient and causes the patient’s tumor to fluoresce (glow) under imaging equipment. The goal is for a laser to activate the nanoparticles by heating them.

“They are not toxic, so without the laser they won’t kill anything, and the laser by itself is harmless, so without the particles it won’t hurt anything,” said Green. “Because of their need to work together and their inability to work apart, I can insure that the treatment is only happening to the cancer cells we target and identify.”

While Green is not the first to think of using lasers and nanoparticles to treat cancer, she’s been able to work the bugs out of parts of the technology that have been problematic, like nanoparticle delivery and seeing success in living animals – mice, in Green’s case.

“As a physicist I’ve created a physical treatment that is not specific to the biology of the cancer,” she said. “It’s a platform technology. It’s not cancer type-specific, though it can treat the cancer specifically. That’s a concept my friends who are biologists struggle with.”

Capable of more

As she moves forward with her research and with teaching at Tuskegee, Green makes time to speak at schools, Boys & Girls Clubs and other youth events.

“People told me to make good grades and stay in school,” she said, “and I always take good advice to heart.”

Green said she feels a responsibility to be a positive example and change stereotypes of black women portrayed in media.

“There are black female scientists who don’t get media exposure,” she said. “Because of that, young black girls don’t see those role models as often as they see Beyonce or Nicki Minaj. It’s important to know that our brains are capable of more than fashion and entertainment and music, even though arts are important.”

Green has mentored several young women, many of whom have gone on to receive degrees and jobs in science-related fields.

“It takes a village to raise a child,” she said. “I repeat that because a village of people helped raise me and instill values in me, and encouraged me to get to this point. I did not get here by myself. Because of that clarity, I know my responsibility to encourage and mentor the next generation.”

Source: http://www.sundayadelajablog.com/5641-2-young-girls-should-look-beyond-beyonce-niki-minaj-ground-breaking-female-scientist/