Fossil frogs are a particularly useful group to track climatic change as their breeding habits are tied to rainfall patterns. Their fossils have taught us something interesting – that the current pattern of winter rainfall in the area is a relatively new phenomenon. This finding contradicts what’s been commonly accepted among scientists for decades; that the […]

by Chris Szabo, defenceWeb The ship’s bell of the ill-fated SS Mendi has been recovered after decades of uncertainty about its whereabouts. The bell was left anonymously for a well-known local television personality in the southern English coastal town of Swanage. BBC reporter Steve Humphrey, one of the longest-serving journalists for BBC TV South, told defenceWeb […]

Tony Carnie, News24 Correspondent, News24 – 19 June 2017 Trailed by great clouds of dust, a massive convoy of noisy diesel trucks rumbles out of Zimbabwe this week starting on Monday to begin one of Africa’s largest-ever wildlife relocation projects. The aim is to shift more than 6 000 wild animals from Zimbabwe to neighbouring Mozambique […]

Both Sunnis and Shias agree on most of the fundamentals of Islam. The differences are related more to historical events, ideological heritage and issues of leadership. The first and central difference emerged after the death of Prophet Muhammad in A.D. 632. The issue was who would be the caliph – the “deputy of God” – […]

Keratolytic Winter Erythema (KWE) doesn’t affect the whole body but results in redness followed by peeling of thick pieces of skin on the palms and soles. Michèle Ramsay, Director of the Sydney Brenner Institute for Molecular Bioscience, Professor in the Division of Human Genetics , University of the Witwatersrand and Thandiswa Ngcungcu, PhD candidate in […]

  We must face our fears if we want to get the most out of technology — and we must conquer those fears if we want to get the best out of humanity, says Garry Kasparov. One of the greatest chess players in history, Kasparov lost a memorable match to IBM supercomputer Deep Blue in […]

Chimpanzees and the Gorilla are also from Africa. Our last common ancestors lived somewhere between eight and 12 million years ago, which strongly suggests that the origin of humankind is deeply rooted in Africa. This leave little room for a putative European origin. Julien Benoit, Postdoc in Vertebrate Palaeontology, University of the Witwatersrand Africa is […]

The researchers discovered that the genes that were the strongest linked to intelligence are ones involved in pathways that play a part in the regulation of the nervous system’s development and apoptosis (a normal form of cell death that is needed in development). Raffaele Ferrari, Research Associate of Molecular Neuroscience, UCL Exactly what constitutes intelligence, […]

  How can humans be so compassionate and altruistic — and also so brutal and violent? To understand why we do what we do, neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky looks at extreme context, examining actions on timescales from seconds to millions of years before they occurred. In this fascinating talk, he shares his cutting edge research into […]

Copts are fiercely proud of their Egyptian heritage that dates back to the age of the pyramids as early as 3000 B.C. Nonetheless they have faced systemic discrimination in employment and limitations on their ability to access public services and education ever since the establishment of the modern republic of Egypt in 1952. Paul Rowe, Professor […]