A Newly-Discovered Fungus Could Eat Plastics In Weeks Instead Of Years

A fungus discovered on a rubbish heap in Pakistan could break down plastics in a matter of weeks instead of years. 

Aspergillus tubingensis was found to break down a type of plastic known as polyester polyurethane (PU) in just eight weeks.

Plastics normally take decades or even hundreds of years to biodegrade making them extremely harmful to the surrounding environment. 

Earlier this week a giant structure was sent into the Pacific Ocean to try and clean up some of the plastic waste that has been dumped into the sea. 

Even if it’s collected however there’s still no way of getting rid of it without using conventional rubbish dumps.

This organism is just one of several recent discoveries highlighted in a new report by Kew Gardens on the importance of fungi. 

While the humble mushroom might seem like nothing more than a breakfast staple, fungi have proven themselves to be extraordinarily useful in the fields of medicine, bio-fuel production and more recently waste disposal. 

In its report, ‘State of the World’s Fungi’, Kew Gardens outlines the global state of fungi revealing how essential they are to all organic life on Earth. 

It’s believed that there are as many as 3.8 million different fungal species, yet science has only identified 144,000 of them.

In fact 90% of all the plants we know of rely in some way on fungi to stay alive and flourish. Orchids for example are almost entirely dependant on fungi to germinate. 

Penicillin as well as a range of other life-saving drugs were all derived from fungal interactions. Washing powder uses fungi to break down stains and bring dull-looking clothes back to life. Earlier this year, a team of scientists discovered a new enzyme that could also eat some of our worst polluting plastics. 

The enzyme has only come into existence since we started producing the plastic Polythylene terephthalate (PET). Scientists were then actually able to improve its plastic-eating abilities and are hopeful that it could be produced on an industrial scale.


IPhone XR unveiled

The bright, multicoloured iPhone XR is made from aluminium and glass, and with an iPhone X-style edge-to-edge screen, it’s halfway between the iPhone 8 and iPhone X.
The display is LCD, and Schiller calls it the “most advanced LCD ever in a smartphone”. It’s branded as the “Liquid Retina” display (the iPhone XS is a “super retina”, if you’re keeping track), and measures 6.1 inches edge to edge.
But the phone doesn’t have 3D Touch, the pressure-sensitive feature found in every previous iPhone since the 5S. Instead, it’s got “haptic touch”, which basically means it will click if you hold your finger on a button for a while.
Inside is the same chip as in the iPhones XS: the A12. And the front camera is also the same.
As well as the screen, the other major cost-saving is the rear camera: just one, this time, the 12MP wide-angle camera. But the phone doesn’t need the telephoto lens for the fancy new features, because it can fake them made using just AI.
Battery life is “an hour and a half longer than the iPhone 8 Plus”. Is that longer or shorter than the iPhone XS? Give us actual numbers, Apple, don’t make me dig out your press releases from last year and do arithmetic. I’m liveblogging, here.
The iPhone XR starts from $749 for a 64GB device – a price cut on the introductory price of the iPhone 8. It’s available to order on Oct 19, and shipping Oct 26.

Apple's smart watch introduced.

The fourth generation of Apple Watch will have a face that's 30% larger and a speaker that's 50% louder, Apple said Wednesday, at a press event here.

In what was touted as a breakthrough by Apple execs here, the new watch can now do ECG heart tests, which was endorsed on stage by the American Heart Association and Apple said received FDA clearance.

"It's redefining what a watch can do for you. We have re-imagined the Watch," said Apple CEO Tim Cook.

The Series 4 edition of the Watch starts at $399, or $499 with cellular service as an add-on and will be available September 21. The price of the Series 3 watch, currently selling for $329, has been lowered to $279. effective today.

Originally, you could only get notifications on texts and read e-mails if the phone was nearby the Watch. But with the cell service add-on, announced at last year's Apple event, consumers could, say, run with the Watch, without also having the phone in their pocket.

 "That really changed the value of the Watch," said analyst Gene Munster of Loup Venture.  When prices came down and word-of-mouth started to spread, sales for the Watch took off, says Munster. "People felt there was more to it than just fitness tracking."

Munster estimates that Apple has sold 15 million Watches to date, which is tiny for Apple, which sells over 200 million iPhones yearly and over 40 million iPads, but it's still a substantial number, he says.

Most beautiful ladies in Kenya in 2018

Beauty comes in all distinctions. What someone else sees as beautiful may not be beautiful to you. I guess it is for this reason they say beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. With that in mind, there are, however, some cases where certain things or even people can be labelled as beautiful by almost everyone. Kenya as a country has very beautiful ladies. Beautiful ladies in Kenya come from all parts of the country and the diversity of beauty in Kenya is on another level. Kenya has beautiful ladies everywhere. Beautiful ladies from all tribes, from all counties, of different sizes and age groups, different social classes and so on. Out of all the Kenyan woman, because all of them are beautiful, there are those that stand out from the rest. There are those that are more beautiful than the rest. Who are they? Where do they come from? What makes them beautiful? What do they do? Read on to find out more about the most beautiful ladies in Kenya and to also see the pictures of the most beautiful ladies in Kenya.

1. Brenda Wairimu
Brenda Wairimu is a model and an actress. She was born on the 3rd of May, 1989. She is 29 years old. She was born in Mombasa. She also grew up in Mombasa. She studied International B
usiness Management at United States International University. She has been a cast in some Kenyan local soaps, as well as some African TV dramas.


2. Serah Ndanu
Serah Ndanu Teshna as that is her full name is a Kenyan actress. She is currently a host in a Kenyan local channel, K24. Apart from being an actor and a TV presenter, she is also a businesswoman. She was born on the 3rd March, the year 1988. She is thirty years old. She has been a cast to many TV shows. The TV shows include:
Noose of Gold- 2010 to 2013Nairobi Law- 2010The Rugged Priest- 2011Sumu la Penzi-2013 to presentThe Skin Therapy Show- 2015 to presentTwisted- 2016 to present
She won the Best Lead Actress Award at the 2011 Kalasha Awards.
Serah studied for a Bachelor of Arts degree in Tourism Management and Sociology at the University of Nairobi. Her mother was a drama teacher and this is one of the reasons she became an actress. She is beautiful, talented and smart.

3. Eve D’Souza
She is a famous Kenyan media personality, an actress as well as a radio presenter. She was born in Mombasa in the year 1979. This 39-year-old was born on the 11th day of March. She is famous for being a radio presenter for Capital FM. As an actor she has been able to be a cast in the following TV shows:
Big Brother Africa
 3- 2008EMCEE Africa- 2008
Triple Challenge-
Vibe City- 2009
Travel Diaries- 2011 to present
Mentality- 2013
Auntie Boss- 2014 to present
Varshita- 2017.

In 2004, she won the award for Best Female Presenter at the Chat Awards.
She is also the ambassador for Store 66. Store 66 is a Kenyan clothing store. She holds a Bachelor of Education degree in English and English literature from the Catholic University of East Africa. She has been in the limelight for some time now and she has perfected her skill. She has established her spot in the industry she is in.

5. Victoria Rubadiri
She is a Kenyan TV anchor. She is a mix of numerous tribes. She has Maasai, Kalenjin, Scottish, Kikuyu and Seychelloise blood flowing in her veins. She was born on the 28th of January, 1987. She has a daughter and opened up to the world saying she got pregnant when she was eighteen years old. She did her undergraduate at Temple University. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Broadcast Journalism.

6. Huddah Monroe
She is a Kenyan socialite who gained fame after participating in Big brother eight which was held in South Africa. This socialite has been in the limelight for various controversies including the one against fellow socialite, Vera Sidika. The two had a beef for quite some time. Huddah Monroe was born on the 10th of October the year 1991. This 27-year-old, as of October 2018 was born in Eastleigh in Nairobi. She is from a Somalian father and a Kikuyu mother. She was raised up in one of the shady settlements of Nairobi, in Huruma. To add salt to the wound, she lost her father while she was still young. After her father died, her mother soon remarried and she ended up getting four stepbrothers. She had a tough childhood to the point of her running away from home in some cases. This did not stop her ambition to take her family out of the jaws of poverty. While still young, she was able to do freelance modelling to help ends meet for her family. She is claimed to have a net worth of $3 million. Apart from work, she also loves partying. She is a beautiful Kenyan lady who has had to work to make ends meet.

7. Sarah Hassan
Sarah Hassan an only child, was born in Mombasa. She was born on the September 5th, 1988. She started acting at the age of five. She rose into fame after her role in Tahidi High. Tahidi High is a local Kenyan TV show that is acted in a high school setting and illustrates the life of a Kenyan high schooler. This includes the mischief, the relationship dramas, teacher-pupil scandals and the likes. Her role in Tahidi high saw her scoop the award for Best Actress award in the Chat Awards two times in a row. She was a host for a famous Kenyan wedding show before she left for New York to pursue further studies. The wedding show would show on Citizen Television on Sunday at 6 pm. Apart from being the host of the wedding show, she has also hosted other shows. The shows include the Mashariki Max at Startimes Tanzania, Discovery +254 at Nation Media Group, Mashariki Mix at Mnet Africa. She is married to Martin Dale. The two got married on the 25th February 2017. They two had a garden wedding.
Apart from the award she got as an actress for Tahidi high, she has also been able to win a couple of other awards. In 2014, she won the best actress in Kenya 2014, after her role in a short film,’Now That You’re here’ which was part of the 48Hour Film Challenge. In October 2015, her host and she were awarded the award of the Best TV Hosts at the Kalasha awards for their show Discovery +254. On the 6th of December 2015, she won the award for Best East African Journalist of the Year at the Swahili Fashion Week held in Dar es Salaam. She won this award for her work at Mashariki Mix and Maisha Max for showing the beauty of East Africa to the world. She was the most googled actress in Kenya in 2013. Besides from all that, Sarah Hassan holds a degree in Actuarial Science.

8. Betty Kyalo
I don’t think there is anybody who owns a television set who doesn’t know Betty Kyalo. From her news anchoring job to her controversial marriage and dating life, she truly has had her fair share of the limelight. Betty Mutei Kyalo was born in Kajiado in the year 1989. She did her primary school education at Olerai Primary School and Uhuru Gardens Primary School. She then went ahead to get her high school education at Kangundo Girls Secondary School and then she finally went on ahead to pursue a degree in Mass communication from Daystar University. Her parents divorced early in her life, but her father was still part of her life despite living with the mother. She is the second child. She has a big brother and two younger sisters. She makes this list of top ten beautiful ladies in Kenya, despite having had a disastrous accident while she was still young. She was knocked by a Double M bus while she was making a transition from Railways to Gill House in Kenya’s capital city, Nairobi. She was going to meet up with a buddy of hers for lunch.

The accident was so tragic that she couldn’t do even the basic things like going to the toilet by herself. During this time, her family was scared about how she would handle the situation. Their biggest concern was actually what was going to happen if she saw her face as she was seriously bruised. One day when she was going for an X-ray, she saw her reflection and she entered into a period of depression. This is because she wanted to be a news anchor from way back when she was a child. But after so many successful surgeries, finally letting God handle everything, her skin grew back and now she is the hottie we’ve come to love and admire.

Betty started her career as an intern at Kenya Television Network(KTN). She gained ranks there to the point she became the face of the station. She recently left KTN to join K24. This will come as a shocker but Betty Kyalo is a lover of cars. She loves cars to the point that she has a test-driving part-time job. She said she does not do that job for the money but for the love, she has for cars.

Betty Kyalo was briefly married to another news anchor, Dennis Okari. The two have a daughter by the name Ivana Okari. After dating for such a long time, their marriage did not even stay for more than a year. There are many rumours as to why Betty left Dennis with the most common being how Dennis is a womanizer and thus they broke up due to his infidelity.
She also opened a state of the art spa place and beauty spot with her “former” best friend, Susan Kaittany. However, sometime early this year, they got into differences to the point that Betty took two police officers to arrest her, after accusing Susan of keeping her passport and failing to give it back to her. This saw Betty later denounce her partnership with her. That is a little sneak peek into who Betty Kyalo is just in case you live in some hole.


9. Joyce Omondi
Little is known about this Kenyan gospel artist. She studied in Kenya before going to Knox College in the United States of America where she majored in Economics and Integrated International Studies (IIS). Joyce also holds a masters in Foreign affairs.

Joyce came back to Kenya and released very interesting gospel songs. She learnt how to sing and play the piano at a very young age. This would see her perform in her church and went on ahead to join the church choir. She has many known songs. Her songs are inspired by her own personal events. These are the things she has gone through and what she personally stands for. She is not limited to any specific genre as her gospel tracks range from reggae to neo-soul to smooth jazz to Western and worshory. She was also a host to a popular Sunday morning show which airs every Sunday morning by the name Rauka. She quit the show to go do her masters. Some of the songs under her name include:
ConquerorUinuliweKweliNificheSitaogopaHere I Am to WorshipNakukimbiliaYour PresenceThere You AreGreat GodLihimidi Jina LakePerfect Gift
She won a Groove award in 2013 in the Video of the Year category. She was married on the 18th of December 201.5 She is married to another TV personality; Waihiga Mwaura. The wedding was held at Sawela Lodge in Naivasha.


10. Lupita Nyong’o
She is one of the beauties putting Kenya on the world map. Lupita Nyong’o was born in Mexico City in the year 1983. She is the daughter of KenyaN politician Peter Anyang' Nyong'o. Her mother is called Dorothy Ogada Buyu. She attended college in the United States, earning a bachelor's degree in Film and Theatre Studies from Hampshire College. Lupita Nyong’o is an actress and a fashion icon. She started while still in Kenya and African included before she took the world stage. She is the first Kenyan to ever win an Academy Award. Lupita Nyong'o was nominated for several awards for 12 Years a Slave, including a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress, a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards, including Best Supporting Actress, which she won. She was also awarded the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, becoming the sixth black actress to win the award. She is the first African actress to win the award, the first Kenyan actress to win an Oscar, and the first Mexican to win the award. She was the fifteenth actress to win an Oscar for a debut performance in a feature film. Apart from 12 years a Slave, which opened the way for her, she was also in this year’s Marvel blockbuster movie; Black Panther.

Here, she took on the role of Nakia. Nakia is the woman T’challa (the Black Panther) is interested in. Let’s wait and see if this movie also gets her another award. She also co-starred in Star wars and Non-stop which are also big Hollywood releases. Lupita Nyong’o currently stays in Brooklyn, New York. She has been on the cover of many world known magazines. Truly showing if the world sees her as being beautiful who are we not to. 

Meet the New Tablet That Rolls-up Like an Ancient Scroll


The slow crawl towards flexible displays that can fold or wrap have become a holy grail for tech futurists, but this new concept device has its inspiration rooted very much in history. Researchers have created a prototype touchscreen tablet that rolls-ups up into a cylinder and can be unfurled like an ancient parchment.

Dubbed the MagicScroll, the prototype device from Queens University’s Human Media department features a 7.5-inch touchscreen that sits neatly inside a housing. Users can rotate the display using a physical rotary wheel on either end of the device, while there’s also a pop-out button to reveal the 2K resolution screen in all its glory.

The partially 3D-printed device can also be used to make phone calls, even when the display is housed within the casing. There’s also a camera, while the motion sensors enable the MagicScroll to use gestures akin to Nintendo’s Wiimote. You can see it in action in the video below

http://v.duta.us/6qdMUQAA