Biden terms social media public enemies that kill people, subvert democracy and invade privacy
The federal government’s campaign to reform internet platforms dramatically escalated this week. The Surgeon General cited disinformation as a public health menace. The White House press secretary called on Facebook to remove 12 accounts that may be responsible for as much as 65 per cent of the Covid disinformation on...
Caste barriers scientists from ‘Untouchables’ in India’s top universities must confront every day
In the summer of 1976, 26-year-old Raosaheb Kale entered the School of Life Sciences at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, alongside about 34 other incoming doctoral students. At the time, a committee of teachers at the school would review the students’ records and assign each to a PhD supervisor to...
Unplayed Kenyan derby in 100 years turns searchlight on deep-seated rot in country’s football
The graft-infested Federation Kenya Football has worked itself into an intractable strait after its president Nick Mwendwa slapped hefty punishments on the East African nation’s most successful clubs – AFC Leopards and Gor Mahia – for boycotting a league match to protest non-settlement or delayed payment of prize money. Hours...
Media blackout: Burkina Faso official said ‘women request sex because their husbands had been killed’
Some displaced people in Burkina Faso have expressed fear of sexual abuse and exploitation will be further ignored and marginalised after the national government banned journalists from visiting and reporting on situation in displacement camps. Aid workers say the ban, effective from around last October, was stems from reports in...
Is there really a link between obesity and health problems? Question asked more regularly today
Rising obesity rates have set off alarm bells for years. In 2018, 42 per cent of US adults were obese, up from about 30 per cent two decades earlier, and prevalence is climbing rapidly in other countries, as well. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines obesity...
How confusing government messaging landed displaced Burkinabe women into hands of sex predators
Metsi Makhetha, the UN’s highest ranking official in Burkina Faso says the refugee situation in the West African is “getting more complex” and that aid agencies “simply must and will do more” to protect women and girls from sexual exploitation. A senior aid official, whose name is being withheld as...
Scientists discover fungus and bacteria that can ‘eat’ up and break down plastics
Samantha Jenkins was studying a number of types of fungus in a research project for her company, when one of the fungi made a bid for freedom. “Imagine a jar full of grain with a kind of lump of mushroom coming out of the top,” says the lead biotech engineer...
‘Lose weight’ mantra is misguided therapy, many obese people live long and healthy lives
They rose to fame as the world’s fattest mice. At about 130 grammes, the rodents were “the equivalent of 600 pounds in humans,” says diabetes researcher Philipp Scherer. They were born to genetically engineered mouse parents in his lab at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. One set of...
Burkinabe women displaced by Islamist militants tell of how they pay for food with ‘survival sex’ in UN camps
Women who escaped deadly attacks by Islamist militants, who have triggered one of the world’s fastest-growing displacement crises, say they go for weeks without food. But their ordeal, they said, didn’t end there: in places of supposed refuge, local men demanded sex from them in exchange for humanitarian assistance. Eight...
Modern cuisine researchers revisit ancient cookery to unlock secrets of past recipes
To better understand how past cooking relates to modern data, researchers have dived into experimental archaeology. Starting in 2014, researchers cooked various recipes in store-bought unglazed ceramic pots every week. Over the course of a year, they used the same pot to cook the same recipe 50 times, then switched...
