Radioactivity Measurements of the Jos Tin Mine Tailing in Northern Nigeria

The activity concentrations of 226Ra and232Th in Jos Tin mine tailings and its environment were measured using Hyper-pure Germanium detector (HPGe). Preset counting time of 30,000s was used for each sample to avoid statistical errors. Results showed the activities varied from one site to another. The activities of 226Ra and232Th are much higher than the recommended average limit given by UNSCEAR in the mining sites and even at 500 m away from the mining site. At 1 Km away from the mining site the activity measured is within the limit for normal background. The ratio of activity of Thorium to Radium is greater by factor of 5 in all the samples in the mining site and 500 m away which should be about unity. The mean absorbed doses (1828.66, 252.08 and 171.07 nGyh-1) for Site1, Site2 and 500m from mining site respectively in air are equally high compared with (51 nGyh-1). Also, the estimated effective dose equivalents are much higher than the recommended limit except for 1 Km from the mining site. There is need to improve waste management practices in this industries in order not to expose those living and working in this environment to health hazards associated with these radionuclide

Viable Supersymmetry and Leptogenesis with Anomaly Mediation

The seesaw mechanism that explains the small neutrino masses comes naturally with supersymmetric (SUSY) grand unification and leptogenesis. However, the framework suffers from the SUSY flavor and CP problems, and has a severe cosmological gravitino problem. We propose anomaly mediation as a simple solution to all these problems, which is viable once supplemented by the D-terms for U(1)_Y and U(1)_{B-L}. Even though the right-handed neutrino mass explicitly breaks U(1)_{B-L} and hence reintroduces the flavor problem, we show that it lacks the logarithmic enhancement and poses no threat to the framework. The thermal leptogenesis is then made easily consistent with the gravitino constraint.Comment: 5 pages, one figure, uses Revtex4; Discussion on the upper bound on the LSP mass added. The version published in PR

Chronic toxicological evaluation and reversibility studies of Moringa oleifera ethanolic seed extract in Wistar rats

This study evaluated the chronic toxicity and reversibility Potential of Moringa oleifera seed in Rats. Forty-four Wistar rats were randomized into four groups of 11 rats each, three groups were treated with doses of 50, 200, and 800 mg/kg of MOESE p.o, for 90 days while one group served as control and was administered distilled water p.o. After 90 days, half of the animals were sacrificed and blood samples collected for determination of biochemical and haematological parameters; antioxidants and malondialdehyde (MDA); sperm count, motility and morphology. Organs were harvested for weight determination and histopathological assessments the liver. The other half were left for another 30 days without treatment with the extract, after which they were sacrificed. MOESE produced significant reduction in food and water intake, relative weights of liver, heart, testes, lung and spleen at all treatment dose, these changes were overall small magnitude, within the range of historical control. There was significant increase in AST (200 and 800 mg/kg), LDH (200 mg/kg), ALP (800 mg/k), albumin (800 mg/kg) and K+ (800 mg/kg), but decrease in serum Ca2+ (50 and 200 mg/kg). A significant increase in serum antioxidant was observed at all treatment doses, while semen pH were reduced. These effects on organ relative weights and all biochemical parameters except AST and ALP were reversed after 30 days of the reversibility study. Histopathological presentations showed necrosis in the liver (50 and 200 mg/kg). Our study demonstrated that ethanol extract of Moringa oleifera seeds could cause infertility in male rats due to decreased semen pH. Our results also showed that the extract may be hepatotoxic due to persistent high level of AST and ALP even after cessation of exposure to the extract, this is also consistent with the histopathological results that shows hepatic necrosis associated with chronic exposure to the extract.Keywords: Moringa oleifera seed, Toxicity, Wistar Rat