Tag Archives: science

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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. …

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 …

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 …

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Scientists have created a tiny new sensor that can continuously monitor levels of alcohol in the blood. The device, which measures roughly one cubic millimeter, is injected beneath the skin and can be linked up to a smartphone. Alcohol levels in the blood can …