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Geophagy
Geophagia (), also known as geophagy (), is the intentional practice of consuming earth or soil-like substances such as clay, chalk, or termite mounds. It is a behavioural adaptation that occurs in many non-human animals and has been documented in more than 100 primate species. Geophagy in non-human primates is primarily used for protection from parasites, to provide mineral supplements and to help metabolize toxic compounds from leaves. Geophagy also occurs in humans and is most commonly reported among children and pregnant women. Human geophagia is a form of pica – the craving and purposive consumption of non-food items – and is classified as an eating disorder in the ''Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders'' (DSM) if not socially or culturally appropriate. Sometimes geophagy is a consequence of carrying a hookworm infection. Although its etiology remains unknown, geophagy has many potential adaptive health benefits as well as negative consequences. Anima ...
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Pica (disorder)
Pica ("PIE-kuh"; IPA: /ˈpaɪkə/) is the craving or consumption of objects that are not normally intended to be consumed. It is classified as an eating disorder but can also be the result of an existing mental disorder. The ingested or craved substance may be biological, natural, or manmade. The term was drawn directly from the medieval Latin word for magpie, a bird subject to much folklore regarding its opportunistic feeding behaviors. According to the '' Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition'' (DSM-5), pica as a standalone eating disorder must persist for more than one month at an age when eating such objects is considered developmentally inappropriate, not part of culturally sanctioned practice, and sufficiently severe to warrant clinical attention. Pica may lead to intoxication in children, which can result in an impairment of both physical and mental development. In addition, it can cause surgical emergencies to address intestinal obstruction ...
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Clay
Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impurities, such as a reddish or brownish colour from small amounts of iron oxide. Clays develop plasticity (physics), plasticity when wet but can be hardened through Pottery#Firing, firing. Clay is the longest-known ceramic material. Prehistoric humans discovered the useful properties of clay and used it for making pottery. Some of the earliest pottery shards have been radiocarbon dating, dated to around 14,000 BCE, and Clay tablet, clay tablets were the first known writing medium. Clay is used in many modern industrial processes, such as paper making, cement production, and chemical filtration, filtering. Between one-half and two-thirds of the world's population live or work in buildings made with clay, often baked into brick, as an essenti ...
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Kaolin
Kaolinite ( ; also called kaolin) is a clay mineral, with the chemical composition Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4. It is a layered silicate mineral, with one tetrahedral sheet of silica () linked through oxygen atoms to one octahedral sheet of alumina (). Kaolinite is a soft, earthy, usually white, mineral (dioctahedral phyllosilicate clay), produced by the chemical weathering of aluminium silicate minerals like feldspar. It has a low shrink–swell capacity and a low cation-exchange capacity (1–15 meq/100 g). Rocks that are rich in kaolinite, and halloysite, are known as kaolin () or china clay. In many parts of the world kaolin is colored pink-orange-red by iron oxide, giving it a distinct rust hue. Lower concentrations of iron oxide yield the white, yellow, or light orange colors of kaolin. Alternating lighter and darker layers are sometimes found, as at Providence Canyon State Park in Georgia, United States. Kaolin is an important raw material in many industries and appli ...
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Kaolinite
Kaolinite ( ; also called kaolin) is a clay mineral, with the chemical composition Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4. It is a layered silicate mineral, with one tetrahedral sheet of silica () linked through oxygen atoms to one octahedral sheet of alumina (). Kaolinite is a soft, earthy, usually white, mineral (dioctahedral phyllosilicate clay), produced by the chemical weathering of aluminium silicate minerals like feldspar. It has a low shrink–swell capacity and a low cation-exchange capacity (1–15 meq/100 g). Rocks that are rich in kaolinite, and halloysite, are known as kaolin () or china clay. In many parts of the world kaolin is colored pink-orange-red by iron oxide, giving it a distinct rust hue. Lower concentrations of iron oxide yield the white, yellow, or light orange colors of kaolin. Alternating lighter and darker layers are sometimes found, as at Providence Canyon State Park in Georgia, United States. Kaolin is an important raw material in many industries and app ...
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Mineral Lick
A mineral lick (also known as a salt lick) is a place where animals can go to lick essential mineral nutrients from a deposit of salts and other minerals. Mineral licks can be naturally occurring or artificial (such as blocks of salt that farmers place in pastures for livestock to lick). Natural licks are common, and they provide essential elements such as phosphorus and the biometals (sodium, calcium, iron, zinc, and trace elements) required for bone, muscle and other growth in herbivorous mammals such as deer, moose, elephants, hippos, rhinos, giraffes, zebras, wildebeests, tapirs, woodchucks, fox squirrels, mountain goats, porcupines, and frugivorous bats. Such licks are especially important in ecosystems such as tropical rainforests and grasslands with poor general availability of nutrients. Harsh weather exposes salty mineral deposits that draw animals from miles away for a taste of needed nutrients. It is thought that certain fauna can detect calcium in salt licks. ...
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Antimalarial
Antimalarial medications or simply antimalarials are a type of antiparasitic chemical agent, often naturally derived, that can be used to treat or to prevent malaria, in the latter case, most often aiming at two susceptible target groups, young children and pregnant women. As of 2018, modern treatments, including for severe malaria, continued to depend on therapies deriving historically from quinine and artesunate, both parenteral (injectable) drugs, expanding from there into the many classes of available modern drugs. Incidence and distribution of the disease ("malaria burden") is expected to remain high, globally, for many years to come; moreover, known antimalarial drugs have repeatedly been observed to elicit resistance in the malaria parasite—including for combination therapies featuring artemisinin, a drug of last resort, where resistance has now been observed in Southeast Asia. As such, the needs for new antimalarial agents and new strategies of treatment (e.g., new c ...
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Trichilia Rubescens
''Trichilia rubescens'' is a species of plant in the family Meliaceae Meliaceae, the mahogany family, is a flowering plant family of mostly trees and shrubs (and a few herbaceous plants, mangroves) in the order Sapindales. They are characterised by alternate, usually pinnate leaves without stipules, and by syncarp .... It is native from Nigeria to northwest Tanzania. References rubescens {{meliaceae-stub ...
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In Vivo
Studies that are ''in vivo'' (Latin for "within the living"; often not italicized in English) are those in which the effects of various biological entities are tested on whole, living organisms or cells, usually animals, including humans, and plants, as opposed to a tissue extract or dead organism. Examples of investigations ''in vivo'' include: the pathogenesis of disease by comparing the effects of bacterial infection with the effects of purified bacterial toxins; the development of non-antibiotics, antiviral drugs, and new drugs generally; and new surgical procedures. Consequently, animal testing and clinical trials are major elements of ''in vivo'' research. ''In vivo'' testing is often employed over ''in vitro'' because it is better suited for observing the overall effects of an experiment on a living subject. In drug discovery, for example, verification of efficacy ''in vivo'' is crucial, because ''in vitro'' assays can sometimes yield misleading results with drug c ...
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Uganda
Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania. The southern part includes a substantial portion of Lake Victoria, shared with Kenya and Tanzania. Uganda is in the African Great Lakes region, lies within the Nile basin, and has a varied equatorial climate. , it has a population of 49.3 million, of whom 8.5 million live in the capital and largest city, Kampala. Uganda is named after the Buganda, Buganda kingdom, which encompasses a large portion of the south, including Kampala, and whose language Luganda is widely spoken; the official language is English. The region was populated by various ethnic groups, before Bantu and Nilotic groups arrived around 3,000 years ago. These groups established influential kingdoms such as the Empire of Kitara. The arrival of Arab trade ...
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Kibale National Park
Kibale National Park is a national park in western Uganda, protecting moist evergreen rainforest. It is in size and ranges between and in elevation. Despite encompassing primarily moist evergreen forest, it contains a diverse array of landscapes.McGrew, William, ''et al''. ''Great Ape Societies''. Cambridge University Press, 1996. Print. Kibale is one of the last remaining expanses to contain both lowland and montane forests. In eastern Africa, it sustains the last significant expanse of pre-montane forest. The park was gazetted in 1932 and formally established in 1993 to protect a large area of forest previously managed as a logged forest reserve. The park forms a continuous forest with Queen Elizabeth National Park. This adjoining of the parks creates a wildlife corridor. It is an important ecotourism and safari destination, well-known for its population of habituated chimpanzees and twelve other species of primates. It is also the location of the Makerere University B ...
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