April 09
Africa: Flowers May Be More Ancient Than Dinosaurs - but Scientists Can't Agree On When They Evolved
Flowers may look delicate - but flowering plants, what scientists call angiosperms, are one of the most successful evolutionary organisms on the planet. Including more than 350,000… Read more »
Africa: Fossilized Dinosaur Eggshells Can Preserve Amino Acids, the Building Blocks of Proteins, Over Millions of Years
As a scientist, lab work can sometimes get monotonous. But in 2017, while a Ph.D. student of paleobiology at the University of Bristol in the U.K., I heard a gleeful exclamation… Read more »
April 12
Africa: Young, Black Woman Scientist Discovered Pivotal Leprosy Treatment in 1920s But Someone Took the Credit
Hansen's disease, also called leprosy, is treatable today - and that's partly thanks to a curious tree and the work of a pioneering young scientist in the 1920s. Centuries prior to… Read more »
April 08
Africa: US Media Coverage of New Science Less Likely to Mention Researchers With African and East Asian Names
When one Chinese national recently petitioned the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to become a permanent resident, he thought his chances were pretty good. As an… Read more »
February 23
Africa: Early Covid-19 Research Is Riddled With Poor Methods and Low-Quality Results - a Problem for Science the Pandemic Worsened but Didn't Create
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers flooded journals with studies about the then-novel coronavirus. Many publications streamlined the peer-review process for COVID-19… Read more »
February 21
Kenya: Antibiotic Use On Kenya's Dairy Farms Is Putting Consumers and Animals At Risk
Farmers often use antibiotics to keep their livestock healthy. They're sometimes used as "quick fixes", to avoid more costly management measures like regular disinfection, waste… Read more »
February 11
Morocco: Morocco Dinosaur Discovery Gives Clues On Why They Went Extinct
66 million years ago, the last dinosaurs vanished from Earth. We're still trying to understand why. New fossils of abelisaurs - distant relatives of the tyrannosaurs - from north… Read more »
January 29
Africa: That Sharp, Green Smell of Freshly Cut Grass? It's a Plant's Cry for Help - and It May Work As a Less Toxic Pesticide for Farmers
Have you ever wondered about that sharp, green note that hits your nose when you mow the lawn or cut flower stems? Those are green leaf volatiles, or GLVs: easily evaporated oils… Read more »
January 30
Africa: The Surprising Reason Why Insects Circle Lights At Night - They Lose Track of the Sky
It's an observation as old as humans gathering around campfires: Light at night can draw an erratically circling crowd of insects. In art, music and literature, this spectacle is… Read more »
January 26
Africa: Humans Are Going Back to the Moon to Stay, but When That Will Be Is Becoming Less Clear
A 2019 Time magazine cover portrayed four astronauts running towards the Moon. Pictured alongside the headline "The Next Space Race", one of the astronauts carried an American… Read more »
January 25
Africa: The Emergence of Jn.1 Is an Evolutionary 'Step Change' in the Covid Pandemic. Why Is This Significant?
Since it was detected in August 2023, the JN.1 variant of COVID has spread widely. It has become dominant in Australia and around the world, driving the biggest COVID wave seen in… Read more »
January 15
Africa: First Polar Bear to Die of Bird Flu - What Are the Implications?
Climate change is a threat to polar bear's survival. Now they have a new deadly challenge facing them: bird flu. It was recently confirmed that a polar bear from northern Alaska… Read more »
January 22
Africa: Tiny Water-Walking Bugs Provide Scientists With Insights On How Microplastics Are Pushed Underwater
Microplastics are tiny plastic particles that can cause big problems when they enter the water supply. One way my fluid dynamics lab explores microplastic movement is by studying… Read more »
January 21
Africa: The Solar System Used to Have Nine Planets. Maybe It Still Does? Here's Your Catch-Up On Space Today
Some of us remember August 24 2006 like it was yesterday. It was the day Pluto got booted from the exclusive "planets club". Read more »
January 15
Africa: Ultra-Processed Foods - Here's What the Evidence Actually Says About Them
The perils of ultra-processed foods received widespread coverage in recent months - thanks in no small part to the publication and promotion of TV presenter and doctor of virology… Read more »
South Africa: 20 Years Ago South Africa Had 40 Qualified Astronomers - All White. How It's Opened Space Science and Developed Skills Since Then
South African astronomy started an important journey two decades ago, when an initiative to attract and train future scientists in the field welcomed its first group of students… Read more »
January 09
Africa: Some Believe the 1889 Russian Flu Pandemic Was Actually Caused By a Coronavirus - Here's Why That's Unlikely
COVID-19 was the first coronavirus pandemic. The original Sars virus from 2003 and the Mers virus that created a health emergency in South Korea in 2015 were both coronaviruses,… Read more »
Africa: Viruses Aren't Always Harmful. 6 Ways They're Used in Health Care and Pest Control
We tend to just think of viruses in terms of their damaging impacts on human health and lives. The 1918 flu pandemic killed around 50 million people. Smallpox claimed 30% of those… Read more »
January 04
Africa: Africans Discovered Dinosaur Fossils Long Before the Term 'Palaeontology' Existed
Credit for discovering the first dinosaur bones usually goes to British gentlemen for their finds between the 17th and 19th centuries in England. Robert Plot, an English natural… Read more »
December 08, 2023
Africa: The Disagreement Between Two Climate Scientists That Will Decide Our Future
Getting to net zero emissions by mid-century is conventionally understood as humanity's best hope for keeping Earth's surface temperature (already 1.2°C above its… Read more »
December 05, 2023
Africa: Could Antivirals Reduce Your Risk of Long Covid? Where the Research Is Up to On Prevention and Treatment
Evidence is continuing to accumulate on the burden and frequency of chronic effects after a COVID infection, which fall under the umbrella term "long COVID". Read more »
November 27, 2023
Africa: Earth's Magnetic Field Protects Life On Earth From Radiation, but It Can Move, and the Magnetic Poles Can Even Flip
The Earth's magnetic field plays a big role in protecting people from hazardous radiation and geomagnetic activity that could affect satellite communication and the operation of… Read more »
November 24, 2023
Africa: The Way a Sperm Tail Moves Can Be Explained By Mathematics Worked Out By Alan Turing
Alan Turing might be best known for his work helping to crack Germany's "Enigma" communications code during the second world war. But he also came up with a theory where patterns… Read more »
November 17, 2023
Africa: Physiological and Archaeological Evidence Rewrites Assumptions About Gendered Division of Labour in Prehistoric Times
Prehistoric men hunted; prehistoric women gathered. At least this is the standard narrative written by and about men to the exclusion of women. Read more »
November 20, 2023
Libya: Libyan Desert's Yellow Glass - How We Discovered the Origin of These Rare and Mysterious Shards
The Great Sand Sea Desert stretches over an area of 72,000km2 linking Egypt and Libya. If you find yourself in a particular part of the desert in south-east Libya and south-western… Read more »