Cape Town, South Africa | AFP | One day, when nature calls, your urine could be put to better use than to be flushed down the loo. Instead it could be a key ingredient in the construction of a greener office or new home. In one of the latest innovations …
Read More »Somalia summit talks tech and apps, not guns and bombs
Mogadishu, Somalia | AFP | Tech entrepreneurs in Somalia are holding a first ever summit in battle-scarred Mogadishu, attracting hundreds to talk about business and innovation in a city more used to conflict and suffering. The three-day event that began Tuesday was conceived by a group of young Somalis to …
Read More »You look familiar: humans recognise 5,000 faces, study says
Paris, France | AFP | From family and friends to strangers on the subway and public figures on 24-hour news cycles, humans recognise an astonishing 5,000 faces, scientists said Wednesday in the first study of its kind. Through most of history humans lived in small groups of a hundred or …
Read More »ENTEBBE: DNA sleuths bolster case against three ivory cartels
Tampa, United States | AFP | DNA tests on smuggled elephant tusks have identified three major ivory cartels in Africa and are helping investigators bolster the criminal cases against some of the most dangerous traffickers, researchers said Wednesday. Around 40,000 African elephants are killed every year for their tusks, which …
Read More »COMMENT: What is threatening science?
Scientists in recent decades have felt increasingly compelled to oversell their research for funding COMMENT | JEREMY J.BAUMBERG | Scientific knowledge and technological innovation, as Yuval Noah Harariemphasises in hisbookSapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, are among the key drivers of economic progress. Yet there is remarkably little reflection taking …
Read More »Candidate AIDS vaccine passes key early test
Paris, France | AFP | The near 40-year quest for an AIDS vaccine received a hopeful boost Saturday when scientists announced that a trial drug triggered an immune response in humans and shielded monkeys from infection. Shown to be safe in humans, the candidate vaccine has now advanced to the …
Read More »Did you know? Scientists have made silicon beating heart
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | It looks like a real heart. And this is the goal of the first entirely soft artificial heart: to mimic its natural model as closely as possible. The silicone heart has been developed by Nicholas Cohrs, a doctoral student in the group led by …
Read More »Should I stay or go? Birds migrate to save energy: study
Paris, France | AFP | Why have some birds opted for a taxing life of constant migration — seeking out temperate climes to feed as winter arrives, only to return months later to breed? Seemingly paradoxically, the behaviour is driven by a quest for energy efficiency, a study said Monday. …
Read More »Father of nine finds he has been sterile for most of his Life
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | A professor in the small Moroccan city of Sidi Slimane recently had his whole world turned upside down by an urologist. He was undergoing a routine health checkup when he was told that he had been sterile for most of his life. But there was …
Read More »Scientists keep pigs’ brains alive for 36 hours
Paris, France | AFP | US-based researchers have successfully kept alive the brain cells of decapitated pigs for 36 hours, sparking concerns over the ethics involved in such frontline research. The MIT Technology Review said a team at Yale University led by neuro-scientist Nenad Sestan had carried out experiments on …
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