Food slaves: Since AGRA’s launch, African biodiversity has been severely lost, farmers tricked into dumping nutrient-dense, drought-resistant crops
In 1999, Monsanto’s CEO Robert Shapiro bragged that the company planned to control “three of the largest industries in the world – agriculture, food and health – that now operate as separate businesses. But there are a set of changes that will lead to their integration.” Today these chemical manufacturers control a huge percentage of the world’s food supply.
Cambridge University ‘loans’ 39 traditional artifacts to Uganda in a major act of restitution
The objects, selected by Ugandan curators, represent a small fraction of about 1,500 ethnographic objects from Uganda that Cambridge has owned for a century. Cambridge acquired most as donations from private collections, and many were given by an Anglican missionary active in Uganda in the 1890s and early 20th century.
Birth of rare white buffalo in Dakota rekindles ancient religion and prophecy of better times among American Indians
The birth of the sacred calf comes as after a severe winter in 2023 drove thousands of Yellowstone buffalo, also known as bison, to lower elevations. More than 1,500 were killed, sent to slaughter or transferred to tribes seeking to reclaim stewardship over an animal their ancestors lived alongside for millennia.
Nativisation: South Africa ‘recalls’ isi-Zulu names to bolster protection of indigenous birds
IsiZulu is one of about 2,000 languages spoken in Africa, the overwhelming majority of which have been ignored by modern science. This can hamper research in many disciplines, including conservation science. Monitoring wild birds is a good way to gauge ecosystem health.
Elite Chinese scientists reveal how they engage in fraud cheat to keep jobs as they have ‘no choice’
In 2015, the Chinese government introduced the Double First-Class Initiative to establish “world-class” universities and disciplines. Universities selected for inclusion in the programme receive extra funding, whereas those that perform poorly risk being delisted, says Wang.
One year-old Ghanaian toddler enters Guinness World Records as youngest male artist ever
The Guinness World Records confirmed the record in a statement and last week declared that “at the age of 1 year 152 days, little Ace-Liam Nana Sam Ankrah from Ghana is the world’s youngest male artist.”
Pope apologises for using vulgar reference to gay men during discussion on homosexuality
The Vatican ban was articulated in a 2005 document from the Congregation for Catholic Education, and later repeated in a subsequent document in 2016, which said the church cannot admit to seminaries or ordain men who “practise homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called gay culture.”
South Dakota bans pronouns, ethnic tags by universities as it grapples with violent history of conflict with tribes
Policies targeting gender pronoun use have focused mainly on K-12 students, although some small religious colleges have also restricted pronoun use. Houghton University in western New York fired two dorm directors last year after they refused to remove gender pronouns from their work email signatures.
CNN political commentator and veteran political advisor Alice Stewart aged 58, found dead in garden
Stewart was born on March 11, 1966, in Atlanta, and began her career as a local reporter in Georgia before moving to Little Rock, Arkansas to be a news anchor. She went on to serve as the communications director in then-Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee’s office. She assumed similar roles during Huckabee’s presidential run in 2008 and served as communications director for the 2012 presidential bids of Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann and then former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. Most recently, Stewart was the communications director for Texas Senator Ted Cruz’s 2016 campaign.
How River Nile migrated eastward: Long-lost branch of the Nile finally located near Egypt’s Giza pyramids
River Nile is prone to migrating, and in the past, populations have had to relocate to keep up. Over the past few hundred years, the Nile has moved several kilometres to the east, possibly owing to shifting plate tectonics.
