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The Lagos State government today, unveiled a new website at a special event tagged: “Media unveiling of the new face of Lagos” in the cyberspace at Lagos State Digital Village, Alausa.

“An upgraded official website and improved social media presence are the milestones the Lagos State Government is unveiling and celebrating today, ” a statement by the LASG reads.

According to the Lagos State Government(LASG), the  unveiling of the new face of Lagos in the cyberspace is a unique one because it is a gathering of friends and professionals who rule the cyberspace.

The new Lagos State Website http://www.lagosstate.gov.ng  is a community and a hub of information on everything you need to know about Lagos.

The LASG added that some unique new additions have been made to the Lagos State Government website such as a chat window opened from 8am to 4pm, Monday to Friday; Land Use Charge Calculator, Lagos Tourism Calendar and Weather Forecaster.

Meanwhile,  the Lagos state commissioner for Information & Strategy has given daunting directives to the Social Media team of the Ministry to go dominate the cyberspace before the end of the 3rd quarter.

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A few days ago in Beijing, Bill Gates spoke at a conference with a fantastic name: the Reinvented Toilet Expo. The Microsoft founder took with him to the lectern a sealed jar containing human feces, according to BBC News. Gates reportedly pointed to the poop jar and said that it could contain “as many as 200 trillion rotavirus…20 billion Shigella bacteria, and 100,000 parasitic worm eggs.”

Gates’s stunt was conceived to draw attention to the need for sanitary, off-grid toilets that can remove harmful byproducts from human waste, which helps to stop the spread of disease among the two billion people who don’t have access to clean sanitation. The expo, which was the culmination of a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation initiative called Reinvent the Toilet, featured 20 toilet designs developed by companies from around the world, most of which used clever engineering to separate solid and liquid waste safely and without odor.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has spent more than $200m on researching the field across the last seven years.

“I have to say, a decade ago I never imagined that I’d know so much about poop,” Mr Gates joked at the conference. “And I definitely never thought that Melinda would have to tell me to stop talking about toilets and faecal sludge at the dinner table.”

The entrepreneur was helping to launch the three-day event in China – where leader Xi Jinping has made a so-called “toilet revolution” across the country a policy priority.

The showcased products aim to revolutionise sanitation technology by operating off-grid to separate liquid and solid waste and remove harmful by-products.

“It’s no longer a question of if we can reinvent the toilet and other sanitation systems,” he said. “It’s a question of how quickly this new category of off-grid solutions will scale.”

The entrepreneur described the inventions on display as the “most significant advances in sanitation in nearly 200 years”.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), 2.3 billion people around the world still don’t have access to basic sanitation facilities.

This can cause diseases like cholera, diarrhoea and dysentery which kill hundreds of thousands of people every year.

Speaking to the BBC, Mr Gates discussed the inequalities in sanitation access.

“In rich countries we have sewers that take clean water in, flush some of the dirty water out, in almost all cases there’s a treatment plant,” he said.

“As we have these newer cities with lots of less wealthy people in them, those sewers have not been built and in fact, it’s not likely they ever will be, so the question is, could you do it? Could you process human waste without that sewer system?”

The foundation has said they hope the reinvented toilet will first roll out in buildings like schools and apartment buildings, before costs gradually decline and they become affordable in households.

“You’re only going to pay hundreds of dollars for a toilet – if it’s really fantastic maybe $500,” Mr Gates told the BBC.

“You’re saving all the costs of the waters, the processing products, but we have to bring it down by almost a factor of 10 from what the models are like – but that’s not atypical for new product markets.”

On his trip, Mr Gates also appeared at the First China International Import Expo in Shanghai, at a time of tension between the US and China.

The world’s two largest economies have been engaged in a tit-for-tat trade war over tariffs for much of the year.

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The Cancer Walk, themed ‘Hope Beats Cancer’ and other initiatives is conceived to mark the fifth-year anniversary of the advertising and public relations firm and also to give back to the society.

The 3.4-kilometre walk (approximately 30 minutes) is supported by the Federal Road Safety Corps, the Lakeshore  Cancer Centre, and Health Maintenance Organisation partner, Roding Healthcare Management, .

It, an will commence from Four Point Hotel to Lakeshore Centre, Sanusi Fafunwa street, Victoria Island, Lagos.

Managing Partner of the firm, Meka Olowola,  that Zenera hopes to raise awareness generally on cancer, and more specifically, Multiple Myeloma, a rare form of blood cancer.

Meka Olowola, who lost a close relative to the same form of cancer some years back, expressed that Zenera Consulting is making moves to contribute its quota towards the spread of knowledge on cancer as a public relations and branding outfit.

“We are very interested in cancer as an area of focus because it is something everyone, including all employees here can relate with. One of the ways we have decided to show we care is to do something about the paucity of information on cancer as a branding company. We have seen cancer as a very valuable knowledge and awareness point for us.”

“Cancer awareness is still at a very low level in Nigeria, and for those who are aware, they look out for the most common forms. With this walk, we are identifying with those who have lost loved ones to one form of cancer or the other and encouraging those who are battling this that hope beats cancer.

“We are also creating awareness for Multiple Myeloma, a rare disease that represents about two percent of all cancers. A lot of people do not hear of it until they are diagnosed, and this makes it harder to beat. We have seen cancer as a very valuable knowledge and awareness point for us, ” Olowola added.

Dr Oge Ilegbune, the Head of Strategy at Lakeshore Cancer Centre said her organisation, which is the only private operational facility in Nigeria, dedicated solely to cancer prevention and treatment is partnering with organisations who are like-minded like Zenera and are  looking at cancer with hope and a need to drive awareness

“In Nigeria, people should not be dying from preventable forms of cancer just because they are not aware until it reaches Stage Four. As a cancer centre, we cannot be waiting for people to come through our doors at Stage Three and Four.

We need to concentrate on education and awareness. When people get the right information, and they start talking about it, then they can start asking, ‘where can I go and do a screening?”

“Roding Healthcare has been a long-time HMO partner to Zenera Consulting and we are very excited about this initiative. We will be coming in with our medical team and ambulance to support the cancer awareness walk,” Gbolade Ogunsan, a representative of Roding added.

Since inception, Zenera has initiated various social investment programmes and identified with worthy causes aimed at impacting lives and communities. Apart from the cancer walk, in December 2018, the company will be sponsoring a golf tournament at Lakowe Lakes Golf Course, Lagos.

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Tuesday he has no plans to resign, sounding defiant after a rough year for the social platform.

“That’s not the plan,” Zuckerberg told CNN Business when asked if he would consider stepping down as chairman.

He also defended Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, who has drawn criticism over her handling of the social media giant’s recent crises.

“Sheryl is a really important part of this company and is leading a lot of the efforts for a lot of the biggest issues we have,” said Zuckerberg.

“She’s been an important partner to me for 10 years. I’m really proud of the work we’ve done together and I hope that we work together for decades more to come.”

Facebook has stumbled from one mess to another this year as it grappled with continuing fallout from Russia’s use of the platform to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election, the Cambridge Analytica scandal in which user data was harnessed in a bid to help candidate Donald Trump, and a huge security breach involving millions of accounts.

Most recently, an investigative piece published last week by The New York Times said Facebook misled the public about what it knew about Russia’s election meddling and used a PR firm to spread negative stories about other Silicon Valley companies and thus deflect anger away from itself.

“It is not clear to me at all that the report is right,” Zuckerberg said of the Times article.

“A lot of the things that were in that report, we talked to the reporters ahead of time and told them that from everything that we’d seen, that wasn’t true and they chose to print it anyway.”

Zuckerberg also defended his company against the broader wave of flak it has taken this year.

“A lot of the criticism around the biggest issues has been fair, but I do think that if we are going to be real, there is this bigger picture as well, which is that we have a different world view than some of the folks who are covering us,” he said.

“There are big issues, and I’m not trying to say that there aren’t… But I do think that sometimes, you can get the flavor from some of the coverage that’s all there is, and I don’t think that that’s right either.”

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A scientist claims he helped create the world’s first genetically-modified babies during laboratory work in China.

The DNA of twin girls was altered with a powerful new tool capable of rewriting the very blueprint of life, researcher Dr He Jiankui says.

He said his goal was not to cure or prevent an inherited disease, but to try to bestow a trait that few people naturally have – an ability to resist possible future infection with HIV, the AIDS virus.

However, many mainstream scientists think it is too unsafe to try, and this kind of gene editing is banned in Britain and in the United States because the DNA changes can pass to future generations and risks harming other genes.

The researcher, He Jiankui of Shenzhen, said he altered embryos for seven couples during fertility treatments, with one pregnancy resulting thus far.

There is no independent confirmation of Mr He’s claim, and it has not been published in a journal, where it would be vetted by other experts.

He unveiled his research on Monday in Hong Kong to one of the organisers of an international conference on gene editing that is set to begin on Tuesday.

“I feel a strong responsibility that it’s not just to make a first, but also make it an example,” Mr He told the AP.

“Society will decide what to do next” in terms of allowing or forbidding such science, he added.

Some scientists were astounded to hear of the claim and strongly condemned it.

It is “unconscionable … an experiment on human beings that is not morally or ethically defensible”, said Dr Kiran Musunuru, a University of Pennsylvania gene editing expert and editor of a genetics journal.

Editing sperm, eggs or embryos is different – the changes can be inherited. China outlaws human cloning but not specifically gene editing.

Mr He studied at Rice and Stanford universities in the US before returning to his homeland to open a lab at Southern University of Science and Technology of China in Shenzhen, where he also has two genetics companies.

The US scientist who worked with him on this project after Mr He returned to China was physics and bioengineering professor Michael Deem, who was his adviser at Rice in Houston.

The Chinese researcher said he practised editing mice, monkey and human embryos in the lab for several years and has applied for patents on his methods.

He said he chose embryo gene editing for HIV because these infections were a big problem in China. He sought to disable a gene called CCR5 that forms a protein doorway that allows HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, to enter a cell.

All of the men in the project had HIV and all of the women did not, but the gene editing was not aimed at preventing the small risk of transmission, Mr He said.

Instead, the appeal was to offer couples affected by HIV a chance to have a child that might be protected from a similar fate.

He recruited couples through a Beijing-based AIDS advocacy group called Baihualin.

He said the gene editing occurred during IVF, or lab dish fertilisation.

First, sperm was “washed” to separate it from semen, the fluid where HIV can lurk.

A single sperm was placed into a single egg to create an embryo. Then the gene editing tool was used.

When the embryos were three to five days old, a few cells were removed and checked for editing. Couples could choose whether to use edited or unedited embryos for pregnancy attempts. Eleven embryos were used in six attempts before the twin pregnancy was achieved, Mr He said.

Tests suggest that one of the twins, born this month, had both copies of the intended gene altered and the other twin had just one altered, with no evidence of harm to other genes, Mr He said. People with one copy can still get HIV.

Several scientists reviewed materials that Mr He provided to the AP and said tests so far were insufficient to draw conclusions.

“I believe this is going to help the families and their children,” said Mr He. If it causes unwanted side effects or harm, “I would feel the same pain as they do and it’s going to be my own responsibility”, he added.

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An ancient copper jewellery may have belonged to Roman ruler, Pontius Pilate, say archaeologists after it was ignored for 50 years.

Scientists say a simple 2,000-year-old ring that was discovered 50 years ago near Bethlehem could have been worn by the man who crucified Jesus.

The ring, which is made from copper-alloy, bears the inscription ‘of Pilatus’ which experts believe refers to the infamous Pontius Pilate.

The intriguing artefact was one of many found in Herod’s burial tomb but only now have archaeologists spotted the curious inscription.

The stamping ring was found in 1969 by Professor Gideon Forster from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on the fortress built by Hing Herod.

The palace was built between 23 and 15BC after Herod defeated the Parthians.

He decided to build a town and palace on the site 10 miles (16km) south of Jerusalem to celebrate his victory.

Roman officials ruling over Judea at the time would have been buried there.

The ring was one of thousands of artefacts found there in the 1960s and it was only recently cleaned and examined, revealing the inscription for the first time.

The words ‘of Pilatus’ were surrounded by a picture of a wine vessel.

‘I don’t know of any other Pilatus from the period and the ring shows he was a person of stature and wealth,’ Professor Danny Schwartz told Haaretz.

The name was a rare one at the time.

Pilate was the Roman governor serving under Emperor Tiberius between 26CE and 36CE.

He was known as an aggressive, tactless martinet, loathed in Jerusalem for his venality, violence, theft, assaults, abuse, endless executions and savage ferocity.

Guarded by his troops and watched by a tense crowd, he tried Jesus alongside two so-called thieves (probably rebels) and Barabbas.

The ring also belonged to someone who had status within the Roman cavalry, according to the paper published in the Israel Exploration Journal.

It would have been used to seal letters and stamp official documents.

A stamping ring would have been used by the governor for day-to-day work or by officials on his behalf.

Herodium is a hilltop fortress situated in the Herodyon National Park.

Between 23 and 15BC, King Herod the Great constructed a fortress, palace and small town on the cone-shaped mound, and was later buried there.

Herod was born around 73BC and was governor of Galilee until 40BC.

The Parthian Empire then conquered Judea, which was under Roman control at the time, and Herod fled to Jerusalem.

He sought refuge in Petra, where his mother was said to have been originally from, and was later appointed King of the Jews by the Roman senate.

With Roman support, he took back the kingdom three years later, and began building the fortress a decade after that.

Archaeologists believe the palace was built by slaves and contractors and consisted of four towers – believed to have been where Herod lived – as well as frescoes, an aqueduct, elaborate mosaic floors and corridors connected by archways.

The site is the highest peak in the Judean desert, stretching 2,450ft (758 metres) above sea level.

According to biblical accounts, when news of Jesus’ arrival reached the king, he was said to have felt threatened and ordered all newborn babies in Bethlehem to be killed.

The Bible portrays him as a tyrant that would stop at nothing to keep his throne.

In Matthew 2:16, the gospel wrote: ‘When he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men.’

There were even accounts that the king killed three of his own sons, out of fear of losing his crown. However, few other historical accounts of this massacre have been reported.

Herod died in Jericho in spring 4 BC of an illness dubbed ‘Herod’s Evil’, which is thought to have been a combination of cirrhosis of the liver, hypertension, and diabetes.

His body was buried in a tomb on the site of the fortress, which archaeologists claimed to have uncovered in 2007.

However, last year, experts ruled this location out because the tomb was too small for a ruler known for his decadence and love of ambitious, large scale architectural projects.

Experts at the time also said the said the building where the tomb was said to have been found has an awkward layout with two staircases above the tomb, and is not symmetrically aligned with the rest of the complex, which would have been a design faux pas not fit for a king.

They also believe that the ruler, known for his expensive taste, would not have settled for a coffin made of local stones.

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The Joint Health Sector Union (JOHESU) has issued a threat to take industrial actions over what it describes as indifference on the part of the Federal Government to resolve their labour dispute.

In a press statement by JOHESU’s President, Mr Josiah Biobelemonye, the health workers threatened to resume their industrial action any time from now.

The development comes two weeks after the union issued a 15-day ultimatum, asking the government to implement a new salary adjustment structure.

They also want the government to pay all salaries of members withheld between April and May last year.

The five affiliate unions of JOHESU are the National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives, Nigeria Union of Allied Health Professionals and Medical and Health Workers’ Union.

Others include the Senior Staff Association of Universities, Teaching Hospitals, Research Institutes and Associated Institutions and Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria.

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Smoking cannabis occasionally may improve men’s fertility by stimulating sperm production, a study by Harvard University suggests.

Analysis of more than 662 men found that those who had never taken the drug were more than twice as likely to have sperm concentrations below a “normal” threshold.

Published in the journal Human Reproduction, the results have taken the scientific community by surprise because previous research pointed to a negative effect for cannabis on fertility.

However, the scientists pointed out that most studies have hitherto focused on heavy drug users or animals.

They believe improved fertility in moderate users may be explained by a boost to the endocannabinoid system, known to play a role in sperm levels, from smoking cannabis.

Dr Jorge Chavarro, from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said: “These unexpected findings highlight how little we know about the reproductive health effects of marijuana, and in fact of the health effects of marijuana in general.

“Our results need to be interpreted with caution and they highlight the need to further study the health effects of marijuana use.”

or the new study, investigators collected 1,143 semen samples from 662 men between 2000 and 2017.

On average the men were 36 years old, mostly white and college educated.

Analysis of the semen samples showed that men who had smoked marijuana had average sperm concentrations of 62.7 million sperm per millilitre (million/mL).

Those who had never smoked a joint had an average count of 45.4 million/mL.

Only 5 per cent of cannabis users had sperm counts below 15 million/mL, the World Health Organisation’s threshold for “normal” levels, compared with 12 per cent of men who had never smoked cannabis.

The authors cautioned that their study does not prove cannabis improves fertility.

They said it was possible that men with more testosterone and better fertility are more likely to try drugs.

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Cash strapped university students are being paid as much as £3,500 to be infected with dangerous tropical diseases including typhoid, malaria and pneumonia.

The UK students are among a growing number of healthy volunteers being paid to be infected with exotic bacteria and viruses for scientific research at institutions including Oxford University and Imperial College London.

The UK is a world leader in the study of infectious diseases and the experiments – known as “challenge trials” where human guinea pigs, mainly students, are “challenged” with an infectious disease – have become a popular way to progress the development of new vaccines at a fraction of the cost of field studies.

With the risk of a global pandemic growing, experts say a better understanding of  infectious illnesses and how to combat them is urgently needed.

Matthew Speight, a 27-year-old zoology student at Oxford University, earned almost £6,000 in two typhoid challenge trials organised by the Oxford Vaccine Group in 2016 and 2017. Undeterred, this week he is taking part in another trial in which he could contract malaria.

“I am a PhD student, the income I get is significantly below the minimum wage, so the financial incentive is strong,” he told The Telegraph. “The trials pay quite well and Oxford is very expensive. I used the money for my rent.”

Not all participants become ill but in both the typhoid trials Mr Speight took part in he contracted the disease. He described the experience as “the worst of my life”.

“You swallow a cup of bacteria”, said Mr Speight. “[There was] a bit of trepidation, but also a resolve. I thought, I’m here, so bring it on.”

Despite having had a trial vaccine two weeks ahead of time, the student contracted the disease. “Three or four days later I had this crazy fever. It was the height of summer, during the 2016 heatwave. My body and joints ached, I had a strong headache, and I was profusely sweating – I remember the bed being soaked, I had a lot of laundry to do that week. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.”

Typhoid, a highly contagious disease which spreads rapidly in areas with poor sanitation and dirty drinking water, affects nearly 12 million people a year and kills roughly 160,000.

Although typhoid vaccines do exist, current options do not work well in young children and provide protection for only a few years.

“In the last decade, there has been a recognition that these [trials] are a tool to deal with international challenges in health more rapidly,” said Andrew Pollard, professor of paediatric infection and immunity at Oxford University and director of the Oxford Vaccine Group.

“In a controlled and managed environment you can gain an answer about whether to proceed with a [new] vaccine.”

Over the last eight years, the Oxford study has enrolled more than 450 people, about half of them students. The vaccine developed as a result of the trial is now in the next phase of testing. It has been given to 89,000 children in Nepal, Bangladesh and Malawi and full results are expected later this year.

However, trials on healthy human volunteers have been controversial. A UK drug trial in 2006 went disastrously wrong when six healthy young men ended up in intensive care after reacting badly to an experimental medicine.

But while risk can never be entirely eradicated, scientists behind today’s challenge trials say the risks are minimal and the ethical standards watertight.

Participants are not technically paid for taking a risk but for their time and discomfort. A trial which involves a hospital stay, for instance, will pay significantly more than a study in which participants have to attend short check-up appointments.

“Consent of volunteers has to be central,” said Prof Pollard. “It’s also appropriate that pay is not linked to danger, or we may encourage the vulnerable to take more risks.”

Volunteers have extensive medical checks and are fully informed of the risks before participating. Doctors are also on hand 24 hours a day to monitor all participants and step in as required.

At the end of the trial, volunteers receive a course of antibiotics to eradicate any remaining bacteria, irrespective of whether they became unwell.

Typhoid is not the only disease volunteers are risking in the name of science. At the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM), around 1,250 volunteers have inhaled live pneumococcal bacteria – which can cause pneumonia – as part of a challenge trial.

“There are 90-plus strains of pneumococcal bacteria,” said Dr Andrea Collins, senior clinical lecturer at the LSTM. “Current vaccines in the UK protect adults against 23 strains, and children 13. We are still very much exposed. Our aim is to develop a vaccine with all 90 serotypes.”

Pneumonia is the leading killer of children under five worldwide, with 1.4 million dying from the preventable disease last year.

Volunteers in the study, who are predominantly students from Liverpool’s universities, are paid between £200 and £600 for taking part. But nobody has ever become ill in the trial, which tracks natural and vaccine-derived immunity based on whether participants become carriers of the disease.

Hannah Browne, a 23-year-old medical student at Liverpool University, is currently taking part in one of the pneumococcal vaccine trials in return for £380.

“I was intrigued about rising [disease] resistance so got involved,” she told The Telegraph. “But I’m a student so there was also a strong financial incentive. Every little helps.”

She added that having the bacteria squirted up her nose “tickled a bit” but was not painful.

Similar studies are likely to become more common. The Medical Research Council has established a new programme, Hic-Vac, which provides £100,000 grants to support scientists setting up challenge trials. The project is also creating a global network of researchers to share advice and insights about how to run a successful study.

Back in Oxford, Mr Speight was this week volunteering in yet another trial. This time he will be bitten by a malaria-ridden mosquito during a vaccine study run by the Jenner Institute.

The trial will involve around 40 volunteers, with each person paid between £1,700 and £3,000 for their participation.

“I’m a bit anxious, but even if I get ill, people will be on hand to treat me,” said Mr Speight. “Most people who get malaria don’t have that option. I want to contribute to tackling diseases in any way I can. It’s rewarding, even if it can be a terrible experience.”

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