Ecology and age, but not genetic ancestry, predict fetal loss in a wild baboon hybrid zone.

Objectives: Pregnancy failure represents a major fitness cost for any mammal, particularly those with slow life histories such as primates. Here, we quantified the risk of fetal loss in wild hybrid baboons, including genetic, ecological, and demographic sources of variance. We were particularly interested in testing the hypothesis that hybridization increases fetal loss rates.

Cytotoxic activity of medicinal plants of the Kakamega County (Kenya) against drug-sensitive and multidrug-resistant cancer cells.

Ethnopharmacological Relevance: The geographical location of Kakamega County proximal to the Kakamega Rain Forest in Kenya and its rich flora represents an interesting resource of traditional medicinal plants. The medicinal plants in the present study are traditionally used to treat cancer in Kakamega County as recorded in published literature.

Aim Of The Study: Due to multidrug resistance (MDR) and severe side effects of currently used drugs in clinical oncology, new candidate compounds are urgently required to improve treatment outcome.

Medicinal plants used in treatment and management of cancer in Kakamega County, Kenya.

Ethnopharmacological Relevance: Traditional medicine plays a critical role in treatment of chronic debilitating and life threatening conditions and diseases. Cancer is one such condition whose therapeutic intervention is commonly through inexpensive traditional herbal remedies. Increasingly industrialised societies are developing drugs and chemotherapeutics from these traditional herbal plants.

Trypanotolerance in N'Dama x Boran crosses under natural trypanosome challenge: effect of test-year environment, gender, and breed composition.

Background: Trypanosomosis, a protozoal disease affecting livestock, transmitted by Glossina (tsetse) flies is a major constraint to agricultural production in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is accepted that utilization of the native trypanotolerance exhibited in some of the African cattle breeds to improve trypanotolerance of more productive but susceptible breeds, will offer a cost effective and sustainable solution to the problem. The success of this approach is based on the premise that quantitative trait loci previously identified under relatively controlled situations confer useful trypanotolerance under natural field situations.