As the world celebrated Earth Day 2009,China Jerseys Free Shipping, Professor Suresh Narine, yesterday said that Guyana should place more emphasis on ‘Bio-prospecting,’ and processing of renewable agricultural commodities into tertiary materials,Cheap Jerseys Free Shipping, platform chemicals, nutraceuticals, cosmetics and functional foods.Dr. Narine, who is a professor and Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Chair at the University of Alberta and the Director of Institute of Applied Sciences and Technology, shared his opinion during an enthralling one-hour lecture on ‘Guyana and the Biological Revolution: Carbon as a Commodity and Opportunities for Guyana.’The Earth Day 2009 lecture was organised by the Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Guyana.During the lecture, which was attended by Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, professors and students at Guyana’s lone university, Dr. Narine explained that in addition to President Jagdeo’s international campaign to avoid deforestation,? Guyana can significantly impact the reduction of carbon in the atmosphere by utilising its abundant natural resources in arable land, fresh water and agricultural know-how.Prime Minister, Samuel Hinds plants the Supari palm outside the Faculty of Education yesterday at the University of Guyana By utilising the carbon fixed by the process of photosynthesis in crop materials to produce polymers, fuel, chemicals and other materials, the subsequent release of this renewable carbon into the atmosphere allows it to be automatically fixed and sequestered again by the crops in the following one to 10 years.This process ensures that there is a reduction in the amount of carbon which persists in the atmosphere due to the use of fossil sources of carbon.In a presentation which simplified the concept of the carbon cycle, and the sources of carbon and potential ways of sequestering carbon to a level easily understandable by the lay person, Professor Narine took the mixed audience through a fun journey of scientific discovery and economic promise.? Refreshingly, the lecture also paid significant attention to the need for economic sustainability when environmentally sustainable projects such as those proposed by the Professor are pursued.Strong arguments were proffered for the economic benefits that would accrue from the processing of agricultural crops into platform chemicals, polymers and plastics and biofuels.Supporting President Jagdeo’s stance on avoided deforestation,NFL Jerseys Outlet From China, the Professor opined that one way of justifying avoided deforestation was to engage in bio-prospecting.This term refers to the collection of biological material and the analysis of its material properties, chemical content or genetic content, for the purpose of determining its biological, chemical and or material functionalities.“Instead of looking for minerals in the ground, we look for minerals in plants…we look for gold in plants…‘green gold’ so to speak,” the Professor said.He referred to 7000 years of anthropological wealth in the form of indigenous medicine, which can be harnessed from not only the rainforest,Cheap NFL Jerseys Free Shipping, but also the variety of flora on the coast of Guyana,Wholesale Authentic Jerseys, to produce cosmoceuticals, nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals.Outlining a project in which he was engaged to teach indigenous women to produce chocolate from cacao grown organically in the North West of Guyana, which led to the launching of the Green Gold Chocolate brand, he pointed out that the project had all of the requirements for justification of avoided deforestation – the cacao is produced by trees which require the shade and humidity of the rainforest; it is harvested in sustainable ways and supports an indigenous lifestyle which would be threatened by deforestation.The audience was treated to a humorous and mouth-watering description of the first three seconds of sensory impressions a person experiences when he eats a piece of chocolate.One of the most recent research projects being undertaken by the Institute of Applied Sciences and Technology (IAST), he said, is the extraction of actives from the Carilla (or bitter melon) plant’s leaves.The actives have been clinically proven to be an excellent treatment for type-two diabetes.The Institute is currently examining models for the marketing of this active as well as investigating the most efficient methods for extraction of the actives.Following the presentation,Custom NFL Jerseys, Prime Minister Samuel Hinds planted a Supari palm outside of the Faculty of Education, University of Guyana to mark Earth Day