Julien Benoit, Senior Researcher in Vertebrate Palaeontology, University of the Witwatersrand – 9 March 2021 Some 260 million to 265 million years ago, a huge creature called Anteosaurus roamed what is today the African continent. This period was known as the middle Permian – and Anteosaurus was one of its most ferocious carnivores. It had […]
South African astronomy has a long, rich history of discovery – and promising future
Ian Glass, Associate Research Astronomer, South African Astronomical Observatory January 2021 The South African Astronomical Observatory in Cape Town is the oldest permanent observatory in the southern hemisphere: it turned 200 in 2020. This observatory is a fundamental part of South Africa’s long history of astronomical research, which began when French academic Nicolas-Louis de La […]
Discovery of two new giant radio galaxies offers fresh insights into the universe
Jacinta Delhaize, SARAO Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Cape Town Two giant radio galaxies have been discovered with South Africa’s powerful MeerKAT telescope, located in the Karoo region, a semi-arid area in the south west of the country. Radio galaxies get their name from the fact that they release huge beams, or ‘jets’, of radio […]
New fossil tracks belonging to human ancestors found in South Africa
Charles Helm, Research Associate, African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience, Nelson Mandela University – 23 October 2020 Around a hundred thousand years ago, South Africa’s Cape south coast was a busy place. Giraffes, crocodiles, hatchling sea turtles and large bird species populated the landscape. Early humans were there, too. We know all of this because of […]
How much do our genes restrict free will?
Social media algorithms, artificial intelligence, and our own genetics are among the factors influencing us beyond our awareness. This raises an ancient question: do we have control over our own lives? Hannah Critchlow, Science Outreach Fellow at Magdalene College, University of Cambridge – 14 October 2020 Many of us believe we are masters of own […]
Life on Venus? Traces of phosphine may be a sign of biological activity
Laura McKemmish, Lecturer, UNSW; Brendan Paul Burns, Senior Lecturer, UNSW, and Lucyna Kedziora-Chudczer, Program Manager / Adjunct Research Fellow, Swinburne University of Technology The discovery that the atmosphere of Venus absorbs a precise frequency of microwave radiation has just turned planetary science on its head. An international team of scientists used radio telescopes in […]
What fossils and DNA tell us about the evolution of modern intelligence
When did we become fully human? Nick Longrich, Sen. Lecturer in Evolutionary Biology and Paleontology, University of Bath 12 September 2020 When did something like us first appear on the planet? It turns out there’s remarkably little agreement on this question. Fossils and DNA suggest people looking like us, anatomically modern Homo sapiens, evolved […]
Meteorites from Mars contain clues about the red planet’s geology
Arya Udry, Assistant Professor of Igneous Petrology, Planetary Science, University of Nevada, Las Vegas – 16 June 2020 Despite the pandemic, NASA is on track to launch its Mars rover, Perseverance, this July from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Its central mission will be to search for evidence of previous life on Mars. An exciting component of […]
Fossil find suggests Homo erectus emerged 200,000 years earlier than thought
April 2020 The human evolutionary path is complicated. It’s almost impossible to say exactly when we modern humans became “us”. This quandary is best articulated by the famous naturalist Charles Darwin in his book The Descent of Man: In a series of forms graduating insensibly from some apelike creature to man as he now exists, […]
How the moon formed – new research
Christian Schroeder, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Science and Planetary Exploration, University of Stirling – March 2020 How the Earth got its moon is a long debated question. The giant impact theory – which states that the Moon formed from the a collision between the early Earth and a rocky body called Theia – has become […]