Blogs
-
Consumer demand for Black brands is rising
Monday 29th of November 2021
This article was originally published by McKinsey & Company, www.mckinsey.com. Copyright (c) 2021 All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.
-
Climate change: 3 natural wonders that could disappear
Monday 29th of November 2021
Snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef often appears on travelers’ bucket lists.
-
Everything we know so far about the Omicron COVID-19 variant
Monday 29th of November 2021
Scientists in South Africa and around the world are working at pace to discover more about a newly identified strain of the COVID-19 virus.
-
Is working from home harming women’s careers?
Monday 29th of November 2021
As workers around the world return to the office, women still working from home may find their careers begin to stall, according to Bank of England policymaker Catherine Mann.
-
This global directory can help give your old furniture a second chance
Monday 29th of November 2021
Upholsterers from 12 countries are united in a directory developed by Swedish furniture brand Massproductions to help customers extend the lifespan of their soft furnishings.
-
Here’s how LGBT+ businesses are helping the UK’s COVID-19 recovery
Monday 29th of November 2021
Being a successful entrepreneur is not always about being in the right place at the right time.
-
Here’s what Omicron can tell us about how COVID-19 variants are discovered
Monday 29th of November 2021
Since early in the COVID pandemic, the Network for Genomics Surveillance in South Africa has been monitoring changes in SARS-CoV-2. This was a valuable tool to understand better how the virus spread. In late 2020, the network detected a new virus lineage, 501Y.V2, which later became known as the beta variant. Now a new SARS-CoV-2 variant has been identified – B.1.1.529. The World Health Organisation has declared it a variant of concern, and assigned it the name Omicron. To help us understand more, The Conversation Africa’s Ozayr Patel asked scientists to share what they know.
-
COP26: The world has seen more progress on climate change than you think
Monday 29th of November 2021
It must be painful for Boris Johnson to be a footnote, especially a footnote in French, but at the end of a very long two weeks, there were always only two outcomes possible at the UN climate summit in Glasgow. A Copenhagen-style meltdown, putting the implementation of the Paris Agreement on hold for years. Or a footnote.
-
These scientists are attempting to answer the phenomenon of tuskless African elephants
Monday 29th of November 2021
In regions of Africa wracked by heavy poaching, people have observed an increased incidence of African elephants without their iconic white tusks, which are prized in the multibillion-dollar wildlife black market. But there has been no direct genetic evidence indicating how this was happening, or why this trait was occurring exclusively in female elephants.
-
4 reasons why museums aren’t cashing in on NFTs
Monday 29th of November 2021
The eye-popping sale price of US$69 million on March 11, 2021, for a non-fungible token created by the digital artist Beeple sent shock waves through the art world. More multimillion-dollar sales of these digital assets that exist on a blockchain and are maintained on networked computers soon followed.
-
Lyme disease: How a new mRNA vaccine could prevent against tick-borne diseases
Monday 29th of November 2021
A new laboratory-stage mRNA vaccine that teaches the immune system to recognize the saliva from tick bites could prevent these bugs from feeding on and transmitting tick-borne diseases to people, according to a recent study my colleagues and I conducted in the Fikrig Lab at the Yale School of Medicine.
-
COVID-19: What you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic on 29 November
Monday 29th of November 2021
Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have passed 261.5 million globally, according to Johns Hopkins University. The number of confirmed deaths has now passed 5.19 million. More than 7.9 billion vaccination doses have been administered globally, according to Our World in Data.
-
What is ‘The Great Resignation’? An expert explains
Monday 29th of November 2021
The Great Resignation is an idea proposed by Professor Anthony Klotz of Texas A&M University that predicts a large number of people leaving their jobs after the COVID pandemic ends and life returns to “normal.” Managers are now navigating the ripple effects from the pandemic, as employees re-evaluate their careers and leave their jobs in record numbers. Companies have a record number of open positions in the US, and to explore what has been driving this recent shift, a recent in depth analysis by Ian Cook and his team of more than 9 million employee records at 4,000 global companies revealed two trends:
-
What to expect from the next WTO Conference
Monday 29th of November 2021
This article was previously published on 24 November 2021.
-
How can we reduce the impact of climate disasters?
Sunday 28th of November 2021
Climate-related disasters are frequent and severe, but there is encouraging evidence that we can prepare for and manage them. If we look back to South Asia’s Cyclone Bhola in 1970 or Hurricane Katrina in the United States in 2005, we see disasters that cost thousands of lives and inflicted damage in the billions. By comparison, some recent storms – Cyclone Fani in 2019 and last month’s Hurricane Ida – have hit communities hard but caused far less damage to lives and economies.
-
Want to avoid procrastination? Don’t set deadlines
Sunday 28th of November 2021
They say procrastination is the thief of time—actually deadlines are.
-
Why local action is key in the fight against climate change
Sunday 28th of November 2021
Rising temperatures and sea levels, droughts and floods, and more frequent and intense natural disasters are impacting billions of people around the world. In response, the World Bank Group—which provides more than half of multilateral climate finance to developing countries and more than two-thirds of adaptation finance—continues to prioritize climate across all its operations.
-
How has COVID-19 impacted people in the Democratic Republic of Congo?
Saturday 27th of November 2021
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been exploring its effects in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) through household high-frequency phone surveys implemented in Kinshasa, Kasai and Central Kasai, and East DRC (Beni, Bunia, Goma, and Lubero). Overall, we have found that COVID-19 pandemic-related shocks have adverse social and economic impacts, such as declined labor and non-labor income and the resulting harmful coping strategies, as well as disruptions in goods and services markets and health and education services.
-
This light-powered catalyst mimics photosynthesis
Saturday 27th of November 2021
By mimicking photosynthesis, the light-driven process that plants use to produce sugars, MIT researchers have designed a new type of photocatalyst that can absorb light and use it to drive a variety of chemical reactions.
-
Are these the best science books of 2021?
Friday 26th of November 2021
What do breathing, mushrooms and stargazing all have in common? Books about them have all made it onto the shortlist for the Royal Society Science Book Prize 2021.
-
Climate change: How wildfires are causing tree species to relocate
Friday 26th of November 2021
A new analysis provides some of the first empirical evidence that wildfire is accelerating the process of tree species shifting their ranges, likely by reducing competition from established species.
-
Smart ‘metamaterial’ can make decisions on its own
Friday 26th of November 2021
Scientists have developed an artificial material called a metamaterial that can respond to its environment, independently make a decision, and perform an action without direction from a human.
-
From Amazon to Zoom: This is what happens on the internet every minute
Friday 26th of November 2021
In our everyday lives, not much may happen in a minute. But when gauging the depth of internet activity occurring all at once, it can be extraordinary. Today, around five billion internet users exist across the globe.
-
UK bank introduces 4-day work week without cutting pay: TOP 5 trends from the world of work
Friday 26th of November 2021
One UK bank is diving headfirst into the new world of work. Atom Bank has officially become the UK’s largest employer to introduce the four-day work week – without cutting employees’ pay.
-
Ransomware attacks are on the rise. These are the industries most a risk
Friday 26th of November 2021
Yaroslav Vasinskyi, a member of now-defunct hacker group REvil and alleged orchestrator behind the ransomware attack against U.S. tech company Kaseya, has been charged by the Department of Justice after his arrest in Poland last month. The hack, which targeted approximately 1,500 businesses and resulted in ransom demands totaling $70 million according to TechCrunch, is only one of several hundred publicized ransomware attacks in 2021 as our chart indicates.