As Kenya mulls facial recognition technology, resistance builds up in Europe, US
In Belgrade’s Republic Square, dome-shaped cameras hang prominently on wall fixtures, silently scanning people walking across the central plaza.It is one of 800 locations in the city that Serbia’s government said last year it would monitor using cameras equipped with facial-recognition software, purchased from electronics firm Huawei in Shenzhen, China.The...
Puzzle of Kenya’s ‘mysteriously low Covid death toll’
One of the first large SARS‑CoV-2 antibody studies in Africa suggests that by mid-2020, the virus had infected four per cent of people in Kenya — a surprisingly high figure in view of Kenya’s small number of Covid-19 deaths.The presence of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 indicates a history of infection with...
ISIS terrorist released by feds in Oregon town after grand jury indictment
An ISIS terrorist indicted by a federal grand jury for providing material support to the militant Islamist group has been released by federal authorities in Oregon in the United States of America.Even for the famously liberal west coast it may seem unbelievable, especially since a Republican appointee heads the Department...
The Big Bang: Franco and Verckys split that reshaped rhumba music forever
A rebellion in Orchestra Oscar Kashama (OK) in 1968 gave Africa rich a cultural diversity that lives on to this day.It happened when OK – later renamed Orchestra Kinshasa – band leader Luambo Luanzo Makiadi (Francois) was away on a business trip in Europe and forever changed the course, tenor...
Key genes evolve surprisingly swiftly – scientists
Essential genes are often thought to be frozen in evolutionary time — evolving only very slowly if at all, because changing or dying would lead to the death of the organism.Hundreds of millions of years of evolution separate insects and mammals, but experiments show that the Hox genes guiding the...
Islamic jihadists behead dozens in Mozambique
Mozambican police have confirmed that at least 50 people in the country’s northernmost province were beheaded this month by suspected Islamist militants.The horrific attacks in gas-rich Cabo Delgado province took place in three villages in the districts of Muidumbe and Macomia over a week, according to commander-general of Mozambique’s police,...
What forecasters can learn from climate models to simulate the Covid pandemic
Epidemiologists predicting the spread of Covid-19 should adopt climate-modelling methods to make forecasts more reliable, say computer scientists who have spent months auditing one of the most influential models of the pandemic.In a study that was uploaded to the preprint platform Research Square on November 6, researchers commissioned by London’s...
Covid vaccine excitement builds as Moderna reports third positive result
They say good news comes in threes. For the third time in a week, a coronavirus vaccine developer has reported preliminary results suggesting that its vaccine is highly effective.Today, biotech company Moderna in Cambridge, Massachusetts, reported that its RNA-based vaccine is more than 94 per cent effective at preventing Covid-19,...
Trade: Synthetic alternatives to endangered wildlife products being developed
Roughly a million species are threatened with extinction, according to a major international study published last year. And trade and personal use by people is the second leading driver behind habitat destruction, the research established.Conservation agency, Cites (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora)...
CITES is a terminally ill patient in need of serious attention – conservationists
Customs officials in Singapore made a grisly discovery last April at a port on the island’s southern coast. Inside shipping containers supposedly transporting frozen beef from Nigeria to Vietnam, they found bloodstained sacks stuffed with 14 tonnes of scales stripped illegally from pangolins — scaly anteaters endemic to Africa and...
