How mysterious microbes might have triggered evolution of life on Earth
At some point in evolution, scientists say some archaea assigned the cell-division job to a different set of proteins. This is where cell biologist Buzz Baum’s latest work comes in. Evolutionary biologist David Baum’s group has been studying the archaeon Sulfolobus acidocaldarius – a protein. In this case, the scientific...
US intelligence community rocked by insider threat – yet again
A federal grand jury has charged an FBI employee for stealing classified documents and keeping them in her home between 2004 and 2017, the FBI announced Friday. The employee, Kendra Kingsley, allegedly took documents that detailed the FBI’s sources and methods the FBI uses to counter cyber threats, as well...
DR Congo government struggles to rescue citizens in Goma as Mt Nyiragongo volcano erupts
The government in the Democratic Republic of Congo has launched an urgent evacuation plan for the eastern city of Goma after a large volcano erupted. Fountains of high lava burst from the Mount Nyiragongo into the night sky forming a thick orange cloud over Goma, which has a population of...
Hearts of darkness: Tales of well-paid UN staff preying on poor Congolese women
Months of media investigations into the vulturous behaviour of United Nations humanitarian corps deployed in the Democratic Republic of Congo has brought to the fore the rot in philanthropy for people in distress in Africa. According United Nations media agency The New Humanitarian and Thomson Reuters Foundation World Health Organization’s...
Mysterious microbes that might be key to understanding how life evolved on Earth
Evolutionary biologist David Baum was thrilled to flick through a preprint in August 2019 and come face-to-face – well, face-to-cell – with a distant cousin. Baum, who works at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, was looking at an archaeon: a type of microorganism best known for living in extreme environments, such...
Report: Sexual exploitation and abuse are endemic in UN humanitarian division
In September last year, during investigations by The New Humanitarian and the Thomson Reuters Foundation in Beni – 60 kilometres northeast of Butembo – the 51 women said dozens of men, mostly foreigners, had coerced them into having sex in exchange for jobs. The majority of those claims were also...
Cement: The polluter environmentalists hate, builders and building owners love
Cement is everywhere, but few people notice the impact it has on the environment. A standard building material used everywhere it is often confused with concrete. Cement is a key component in making concrete. By burning limestone at extremely high temperatures, this process turns the stone into a fine powder...
Cement-based batteries to turn concrete buildings into giant energy reserves
Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden have published unique research into the idea of rechargeable batteries made from cement. The team, led by Dr Emma Zhang and Prof Luping Tang at the institution’s Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, believes the development of this technology may yield a...
America’s largest forestry research Africa can copy in its Great Green Wall plan
Despite lingering tensions among environmentalists and loggers, a plan to launch the largest forestry experiment in the United States – and perhaps the world – last month cleared a major hurdle. Controversially, the study would allow logging in a new research forest, in an attempt to answer a grand question:...
Bill Gates: Microsoft’s philanthropic serial philanderer hemmed in by a soft dress
When the news first broke that Bill and Melinda French Gates were getting divorced, it punctured the public image many of us had of the glossy magazine-cover power couple, seemingly as committed to each other as they were to saving the world. That revelation, however, probably barely registers in your...
