logo
Nigerian student happy to find himself, excellent education at MSU Texas

Nigerian student happy to find himself, excellent education at MSU Texas

Yahoo06-03-2025

When Samuel Olatunde first dreamed of coming to America to attend college, he thought basketball would be a part of it.
Duke University came to mind. But Olatunde realized after some time that he was good in basketball in his area, but it wouldn't be his future occupation. He still wanted to come to the United States and found Midwestern State University and Wichita Falls.
'My dad's plan was always to send me abroad to study. He wanted me to go to the UK, but I wanted to go to the U.S.,' Olutunde said. 'I had heard of Texas but not Wichita Falls.'
Starting college in 2020 as the world was experiencing COVID-19, it was the online presence of MSU Texas that gained his attention. But he was excited to come to campus to continue his educational journey, and he earned his bachelor of science from McCoy College of Science, Mathematics and Engineering in December 2024. And he stayed here for graduate school.
He initially didn't want many friends and admitted he wasn't the best at socializing.
'That helped me academically. I became friends with my teachers, and they were supportive,' he said.
He finished with a double major in computer science and mathematics and embraced his chances to do research. His message to others would be to try research.
'You never know until you do it, and you might enjoy it," he said.
After grad school at MSU Texas, he hopes to land a job that involves research.
'It's amazing here at MSU,' Olatunde said. 'It was a beautiful journey. One of the best things for me was it was a smaller school and I had access to (faculty). The support you get here is great. I had a lot of ups and downs and went through a lot of growth. I continued to grow in school and socially.'
His favorite professors included associate professors of computer science Eduard Colmenares-Diaz and Terry Griffin, who was Samuel's adviser and got him started in research, and Marcos Lopez, associate professor of mathematics.
His first MSU experience was an online class from Tiffany Zeigler, and he learned much about the rules for writing papers.
'I slowly picked it up. I had a very terrible relationship with writing (as a youth), but I've understood I can be really good at it. It takes a lot mentally, and I tend to spend a whole lot of time writing," Olatunde said.
Graduation in December was a milestone for him. His parents — dad Sayo and mother Bukola — came to celebrate with him.
He said they always had high goals for him. It was quite a journey, but he showed that belief in him was not misplaced. He just wasn't destined to be an NBA star.
'They would always help and support me, and here my confidence has grown socially and academically. I'm more outspoken and not afraid. (MSU) has helped me grow holistically in every aspect of my life,' Olutunde said.
More: MSU schedules health fair
More: Wichita Falls restaurant inspections: How did they do Feb. 12-24?
This article originally appeared on Wichita Falls Times Record News: Nigerian student happy to find himself, excellent education at MSU Texas

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

H5N1 bird flu ‘capable of airborne transmission'
H5N1 bird flu ‘capable of airborne transmission'

Yahoo

time35 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

H5N1 bird flu ‘capable of airborne transmission'

H5N1 bird flu is capable of spreading through the air, a new animal study from the US Centres for Disease Control (CDC) has found. H5N1 was believed to spread primarily through direct contact with infected animals or their bodily fluids, but the new findings suggest it can also be transmitted through respiratory droplets and aerosol, raising concerns about its ability to cause a future pandemic. The study, published in Emerging Infectious Diseases, was based on a sample of H5N1 extracted from a dairy worker in Michigan who contracted the virus last year. The CDC scientists then used this sample to infect a group of ferrets, which are considered a 'gold standard' in flu research due to the similarity between their respiratory system and that of human. The infected animals were placed in close proximity to six other healthy ferrets and observed for three weeks. Within 21 days, three of the previously uninfected ferrets had contracted H5N1 – without any direct physical contact – indicating that the virus can travel through the air through a 'respiratory droplet transmission model'. The researchers also collected aerosol samples from the air surrounding the ferrets, and found infectious virus and viral RNA to be present, indicating that H5N1 can, like Covid-19, be transmitted through both respiratory droplets and aerosols – smaller particles that can travel longer distances and remain suspended in the air for extended periods. Respiratory droplets, on the other hand, are larger and do not travel as far in the air, requiring closer contact with an infected person for transmission. Since 2024, at least 70 people in the US have been infected with H5N1, the majority of them workers on poultry or dairy farms where the virus was present. Bird flu has spread to more than 1,000 dairy farms across the country over the past year and is now endemic among US cattle. 'This study is important as it provides yet more evidence that the H5N1 influenza virus that is circulating in dairy cattle in the USA is, in principle, capable of respiratory transmission,' Prof Ed Hutchinson, Professor of Molecular and Cellular Virology, MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research told The Telegraph. '[The study] does this using experimental animals that experience and transmit influenza in similar ways to humans, so it warns us of what the virus could do in humans under the right circumstances,' Prof Hutchinson added. The study's authors warned that their findings underline the 'ongoing threat to public health' H5N1 poses, emphasising the need for 'continual surveillance and risk assessment… to prepare for the next influenza pandemic'. Most human cases reported in the US so far have resulted from direct physical contact with sick animals or their fluids, including cow's milk. But experts have warned that, as H5N1 continues to infect animal populations and 'jump' to humans, it is only a matter of time before the virus undergoes the mutations necessary to spread effectively from person to person. 'Because avian H5N1 viruses cross the species barrier and adapt to dairy cattle, each associated human infection presents further opportunity for mammal adaptation,' the study's authors said. Protect yourself and your family by learning more about Global Health Security Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.

CO2 levels just broke another record. Here's what that means
CO2 levels just broke another record. Here's what that means

Yahoo

time5 hours ago

  • Yahoo

CO2 levels just broke another record. Here's what that means

When man first walked on the moon, the carbon dioxide concentration in Earth's atmosphere was 325 parts per million (ppm). By 9/11, it was 369 ppm, and when COVID-19 shut down normal life in 2020, it had shot up to 414 parts ppm. This week, our planet hit the highest levels ever directly recorded: 430 parts per million. For 67 years, the observatory on Hawaii's Mauna Loa volcano has been taking these measurements daily — tracking the invisible gas that is building up in our atmosphere and changing life on Earth. The record is known as the Keeling Curve. Charles David Keeling began those recordings, some of the first in the world to measure CO2 concentration over time. His son, Ralph Keeling, born one year before the observatory opened, has witnessed the rapid increase firsthand over his lifetime. "I was a teenager when I first started to appreciate what my father was doing and how it might be significant," Keeling told CBC News. Back then it was around 330 ppm. Keeling, a geochemistry professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, took over the research once his father passed away in 2005. "This problem is not going away, and we're moving further and further into uncharted territory, and almost certainly, very dangerous territory." The build up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere isn't visible to the naked eye, but its concentration matters because of the greenhouse effect. Like the glass walls that trap heat from the sun in an actual greenhouse, gases in our atmosphere such as CO2 and methane also trap heat from the sun. At the start of the Industrial Revolution, ice core samples show CO2 levels were around 280 parts per million but as they rose, warming has increased by about 1.3 C over the pre-industrial average. That's led to rising temperatures and leading to more frequent and extreme weather, like heat waves, floods, wildfires and droughts. While many have heard about the goals of limiting warming to 1.5 C or 2 C above pre-industrial levels, there have also been efforts to return CO2 levels to below 350 parts per million, as a key part of limiting the damage from climate change. The record highs have continued though. Just in the last year, CO2 readings from May have increased more than three parts per million — that many more molecules of CO2 trapping heat and contributing to warming. "We know why it's rising faster than ever, it's because we're burning more fossil fuels each year," said Keeling. Damon Matthews, a climate scientist and professor at Concordia University in Quebec, also says he's concerned and isn't surprised that there are new records every year. "If we want to actually stabilize CO2 levels in the atmosphere, we would need to cut global emissions by more than 50 per cent, and we're nowhere near doing that," he said, adding that there are other gases at play but CO2 is the dominant influence. "Every May, we're going to see a new record of atmospheric CO2, until we actually make a lot more progress on climate mitigation than we have today." The annual cycle, peaking in late spring in the northern hemisphere, is tied to plant photosynthesis — CO2 concentrations drop in the summer as plants absorb the gas and release oxygen. In 2021, the International Energy Agency said that if the world wants to limit global warming and reach net-zero by 2050, there could be no new coal, oil or gas projects. Matthews is part of Canada's net-zero advisory body and says he's seen some progress in decreasing CO2 emissions the last few years, but not enough. He says Europe's emissions have been going down for decades, and that last year CO2 emissions in China didn't increase. However, he says Canada still lags behind other countries, and the U.S. is trending the other way. "There's lots of policy options, certainly focusing on expanding the oil and gas industry in Canada right now is not going to get us where we need to go in terms of climate," he said. "We just need to stop arguing about whether it's a priority and start doing the things that we know will help to solve the problem."

Why has there been a global surge of new Covid variant NB.1.8.1?
Why has there been a global surge of new Covid variant NB.1.8.1?

Yahoo

time8 hours ago

  • Yahoo

Why has there been a global surge of new Covid variant NB.1.8.1?

India is the latest country to report a surge in new Covid cases, as the latest variant, NB.1.8.1, spreads across the globe. Cases have now been reported in Asian countries such as Thailand, Indonesia and China, while the UK Health Security Agency recorded the first 13 cases in England last week. But the true numbers are unlikely to be known, given the significant decrease in the number of people testing compared to the figures seen during the global pandemic five years ago. NB.1.8.1 stemmed from the Omicron variant and was first detected in January this year. It has quickly spread across China and Hong Kong, and has now been recorded in several states across the United States and Australia. By late April, NB.1.8.1 comprised about 10.7 per cent of submitted sequences globally, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). This rose from just 2.5 per cent a month before. The WHO declared the NB.1.8.1 strain a 'variant under monitoring' on 23 May, which means scientists believe it could potentially affect the behaviour of the virus. Lara Herrero, a virologist from Griffith University in Australia, suspects that NB.1.8.1 spreads more easily than other variants. 'Using lab-based models, researchers found NB.1.8.1 had the strongest binding affinity to the human ACE2 receptor of several variants tested, suggesting it may infect cells more efficiently than earlier strains,' Dr Herrero wrote last month in The Conversation. Dr Chun Tang, GP at UK private healthcare centre Pall Mall Medical, said: 'NB.1.8.1 isn't too different from the Omicron variant, but it does have some tweaks to its spike protein, which might make it spread a bit more easily or slip past some of our existing immunity. 'That said, early signs suggest it doesn't seem to cause more serious illness, but of course, we're still learning more about it.' 'Its spread has been identified in around 22 countries,' said Dr Naveed Asif, GP at The London General Practice. 'The WHO assesses the additional risk to the global public as currently low, and existing Covid-19 vaccines are considered effective in preventing severe disease.' However, the 'Nimbus' variant, as it has been dubbed, does appear to be more transmissible than previous strains, with notable increases reported in India, Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand, notes Dr Asif. Common symptoms of Nimbus include a severe sore throat, fatigue, mild cough, fever, muscle aches and congestion. It has also been reported that some patients have experienced gastrointestinal symptoms such as nausea and diarrhoea. Healthcare experts have stressed, however, that there is no evidence that the new strain is more deadly or serious than previous variants, and that current Covid vaccines are expected to remain effective and protect anyone infected from severe illness.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store