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...
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...
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...
Russia announces positive coronavirus vaccine results from controversial trial
For the second time this week, researchers have announced positive results for the final, human stages of a coronavirus vaccine trial. This time, the results are from the Russian vaccine trial, dubbed Sputnik V.On November 9, New York City-based drug company Pfizer put out a press release on positive interim...
Game-changer: New drug more effective in preventing HIV infection in women
A single shot given every two months has proved to be more effective than a daily pill at preventing HIV in women, researchers reported this week, an advance that medical experts hailed as ground-breaking in the fight against the deadly virus that causes AIDS.The finding that the long-acting drug would...
Cheap and rapid coronavirus testing to be available soon
The imminent large-scale rollout of rapid coronavirus tests promises to aid public health responses to Covid-19 — but a rapid home test remains elusive.New SARS-CoV-2 rapid tests, which can deliver results in a matter of minutes in the field rather than taking days in clinical diagnostic laboratories, are starting to...
10,000 reasons why you are tall or short
For height, DNA is largely destiny. Studies of identical and fraternal twins suggest up to 80 per cent of variation in height is genetic. But the genes responsible have largely eluded researchers.Now, by amassing genome data for four million people—the largest such study ever—geneticists have accounted for a major share...
Racism is baked into patent systems
In July 1999, representatives of Amazonian Indigenous groups arrived at the headquarters of the US Patent and Trademark Office in Alexandria, Virginia, to challenge a patent on the ayahuasca vine.Indigenous peoples had cultivated ayahuasca for its medicinal and other properties for generations. How could someone in the United States have...
Criminal gangs thirst for control of avocado trade in Kenya, southern Africa
As Kenyan fruit farmers get ready to take advantage of the expanding avocado market in China and other Far East countries, the Global Initiative Against Organised Crime warns about the emergence of the crop as a target of the criminal underworld in eastern and southern Africa. In the past six-month...
