World Lung Award comes to Africa for the First Time.

A University of Cape Town professor has become the first Africa-based researcher to win the prestigious World Lung Health Award. Heather Zar, who heads UCT’s department of paediatrics, accepted the award at a ceremony in San Diego in the US on 21 May. The American Thoracic Society gives the award for outstanding contributions to the field of […]

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The problems with the arguments against GM crops

New evidence shows that arguments against GM crops are unfounded, says Margaret Karembu. The year 2013 marked the 18th consecutive year of commercial cultivation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) or now commonly referred to as biotech crops. And in just under two decades, the volume of land on which biotech crops are grown has increased from 1.7 million […]

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Nanotechnology takes on diabetes

A sensor which can be used to screen for diabetes in resource-poor settings have been developed by researchers and tested in diabetic patients, and will soon be field tested in sub-Saharan Africa. Read more A low-cost, reusable sensor which uses nanotechnology to screen for and monitor diabetes and other conditions, has been developed by an interdisciplinary […]

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Interview with Alex Pentland: Can We Use Big Data to Make Society Better?

Alex Pentland, 62, heads the Human Dynamics Lab at the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is considered one of the world’s leading data scientists. In his new book, “Social Physics: How Good Ideas Spread — The Lessons from a New Science,” he argues that human communication behaviors follow the rules of […]

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Smallholder farmers ‘remain left out of most R&D’

Smallholder farmers must be more involved in the research process to meet farmers’ needs and maximise its development impact, a meeting has heard. Individual subsistence farmers and farm organisations that represent their interests are a vital but underused link in the research and development(R&D) chain, experts said earlier this month (5-8 May) at the first meeting of Agrinatura, […]

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Africa in 50 years: what African women want for the future of their continent

This week, more than 3000 delegates are at the annual meetings of the African Development Bank (AfDB) in Kigali discussing new strategies to tackle poverty, underdevelopment, and put their weight behind global schemes that ensure Africa’s progress. To mark the occasion, UN Women Executive Director, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, published an OpEd today titled Women’s Role in the Next 50 Years – the […]

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Health and agriculture innovations win top prizes

An injectable product made from bone growth proteins for treating bone injuries has won the 2014 Innovation Prize for Africa (IPA). South African scientists Nicolaas Duneas and Nuno Peres — who created the  Altis Osteogenic Bone Matrix (OBM) — say the product is “the world’s first injectable regenerating bone graft substitute” derived from pig. Read more […]

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