South Africa: Learning Statistics Through Story - Students Get Creative With Numbers

Statistics professor Johan Ferreira was feeling overwhelmed by the amount of "screen time" involved in online learning in 2021. He imagined students must be feeling the same way,… Read more »

Tanzania: Livestock and Lions Make Uneasy Neighbours - How a Fence Upgrade Helped Protect Domestic and Wild Animals in Tanzania

Protecting livestock in areas where large carnivores (like lions) live is increasingly important as human land use expands, wildlife habitat shrinks, and climatic changes reshape… Read more »

South Africa: South Africa's Police Serve the ANC Insiders, Not the People - Here's How It Happened

After South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994, there was significant optimism about police reform in the country. Impressive steps were taken to bring the South African… Read more »

Africa: Africa's Minerals Are Being Bartered for Security - Why It's a Bad Idea

A US-brokered peace deal between the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda binds the two African nations to a worrying arrangement: one where a country signs away its… Read more »

East Africa: I Watched a Simulated Oil Spill in the Indian Ocean - Here's How Island and Coastal Countries Worked Together to Avoid Disaster

The coils of black hose, drum skimmers designed to collect oil from the ocean's surface, and orangey-red containment booms all looked out of place on the white sand of Mombasa's… Read more »

Ghana: Ghana Has a Rare Treasure, a Crater Made When a Meteor Hit Earth - Why It Needs to Be Protected

Impact craters are formed when an object from space such as a meteoroid, asteroid or comet strikes the Earth at a very high velocity. This leaves an excavated circular hole on the… Read more »

Africa: African Media Are Threatened By Governments and Big Tech - Book Tracks the Latest Trends

Media capture happens when media outlets lose their independence and fall under the influence of political or financial interests. This often leads to news content that favours… Read more »

South Africa: Johannesburg's Creative Hubs Are Booming - How Artists Are Rejuvenating a Failing Inner City

Johannesburg is weathering a storm of crises. Nowhere is its complex tangle of challenges more visible than in the inner city, where crime, overcrowding, and infrastructure… Read more »

Africa: Only 3 Years Left - New Study Warns the World Is Running Out of Time to Avoid the Worst Impacts of Climate Change

Bad climate news is everywhere. Africa is being hit particularly hard by climate change and extreme weather, impacting lives and livelihoods. Read more »

Africa: Hold Up, Humans. Ants Figured Out Medicine, Farming and Engineering Long Before We Did

Think back to a time you helped someone move a heavy object, such as a couch. While at first the task may have appeared simple, it actually required a suite of advanced behaviours. Read more »

South Africa: South African University Programmes to Support Black Students Aren't Working. What Needs to Be Done

Most universities and colleges have formal and informal programmes and initiatives to support student and staff development. Their goal is to create learning experiences that help… Read more »

Nigeria: Boko Haram Conflict - Nigeria's Army Is Failing the Widows of Dead Soldiers

Nigerian soldiers' widows have been reported as lacking support from the army, and even experiencing sexual harassment while claiming their late husbands' benefits. Read more »

Uganda: Idi Amin Made Himself Out to Be the 'Liberator' of an Oppressed Majority - a Demagogic Trick That Endures Today

Fifty years ago, Ugandan President Idi Amin wrote to the governments of the British Commonwealth with a bold suggestion: Allow him to take over as head of the organization,… Read more »

Nigeria: Chimamanda's Lagos Homecoming Wasn't Just a Book Launch, It Was a Cultural Moment

When the announcement of Chimamanda Adichie Ngozi's latest novel Dream Count was made, it was regarded as a major event in African literature. The internationally celebrated… Read more »

Africa: We Detected Deep Pulses Beneath Africa - What We Learned Could Help Us Understand Volcanic Activity

Earth's continents may look fixed on a globe, but they've been drifting, splitting and reforming over billions of years - and they still are. Our new study reveals fresh evidence… Read more »

South Africa: Nelson Mandela Was a Hard Man Who Played a Hard Game. What If He Was in Ramaphosa's Shoes?

In 2023 South African author Jonny Steinberg published a book on former South African president Nelson Mandela and his tumultuous marriage to Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. To mark the… Read more »

East Africa: East African Countries and Open Borders - Great Strides, but Still a Long Way to Go

It's not uncommon to find a Ugandan taxi driver in Rwanda's capital, Kigali, just as one regularly meets Zimbabwean Uber drivers in South Africa. But there is a big difference. A… Read more »

Africa: Green Energy and Protecting Nature Get the Thumbs Up in Climate Change Study in 68 Countries

Africa has begun experiencing frequent extreme weather events. Extreme weather is defined as the kind of heatwaves, droughts, storms and floods that have historically been rare… Read more »

Sudan: Sudan's War Is an Economic Disaster - Here's How Bad It Could Get

Since April 2023, Sudan has been engulfed in a devastating war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces. What began as a struggle for power has turned into a… Read more »

Africa: Is It Okay to Boil Water More Than Once, or Should You Empty the Kettle Every Time?

The kettle is a household staple practically everywhere - how else would we make our hot drinks? Read more »

Africa: From Tea Towels to TV Remotes - Eight Everyday Bacterial Hotspots - and How to Clean Them

From your phone to your sponge, your toothbrush to your trolley handle, invisible armies of bacteria are lurking on the everyday objects you touch the most. Most of these microbes… Read more »

South Africa: Bribery in South Africa - Law Now Puts a Duty On Companies to Act

Bribery is one of the most common forms of corruption in South African companies and state institutions. This has a number of harmful outcomes. Read more »

Africa: Wafcon - 3 Signs That African Women's Football Is Finally Starting to Thrive

Women's football in Africa has been through radical changes over the past few years. From small beginnings in the late 1990s, it has grown to the point that its biggest competition… Read more »

Africa: Whose Turn Is It? the Question Is At the Heart of Language and Chimpanzees Ask It Too

When we think about what sets humans apart from other animals, language often comes to mind. Language is more than words - it also relies on the ability to build shared… Read more »

Nigeria: Lagos Is Young and Diverse, So What Shapes Ethnic and Religious Prejudice Among Teens? Our Study Tried to Find Out

Lagos State, with an estimated population of 20 million, is Africa's largest metropolis. Home to Nigeria's commercial capital, it is a magnet for internal migration, drawing in a… Read more »