Why US paused Johnson & Johnson Covid vaccine use after blood clotting cases
Federal authorities on Tuesday recommended that states stop using Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine while an investigation is conducted into six serious cases of clotting problems – one of which was fatal – that were reported among women who received the vaccine. The blood clots are similar to those reported...
Needed: Global drive to set agenda for 2b people for ‘minimally adequate toilets’
Since the sixth century BC, when the Romans began building their Cloaca Maxima (Greatest Sewer), a safe sewage system has epitomised civilisation. More than two millennia later, one Victorian novelist called a good sewer “nobler” and “holier” than the most admired Madonna ever painted. For sound reasons: the construction of...
Science espionage: China in a corner as US ‘varsities tighten rules on research
The US government is converging on a long-awaited set of rules designed to protect American science from theft by foreign spies. A series of announcements this year describe steps that US universities and researchers must take when reporting foreign financing and collaborations to US science funders. But university groups say...
English is big and baggy, a good language of science, but precision is tough
English is the international language of science, for better or for worse, but most of the world’s scientists speak it as a second language. We shoulder an extra career challenge: not only must we gain command of our science, but we must also be able to write to professional standards...
Kenyan filmmakers, artistes pile pressure on president to relax rigid Covid protocols
Rendered helpless and idle by the recent rigid Covid-19 containment measures, stakeholders in Kenya’s entertainment and hospitality industries want the government through the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth to bail out artistes and film-makers who depend on them for a living. In a statement, Kisima Music and Film Awards,...
AstraZeneca vaccine causes blood clots but cases are few and far between: regulators
The European Medicines Agency has concluded there is a link between AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine and “very rare” but dangerous clotting events reported in a number of countries where the vaccine has been used, events which in some cases have been fatal. A safety committee, the agency said on Wednesday (April...
Sorry state of reforestation: ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few’
After collecting seeds, they are usually sent to nurseries, where they are grown into seedlings for planting. The number and size of nurseries around the world are becoming fewer and smaller, raising the concerns about the future vegetation cover and some tree species. A study in which we interviewed over...
In race to raise forest cover, scientists discover the world’s running out of seeds
Dean Swift has gotten really good at spotting where squirrels hide their seeds. In the forests of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and South Dakota, he looks for a moist shaded area with a small grove of trees, sometimes near a ravine. Here, he will find a cache of chewed cones...
Africa’s urban rot: ‘We treat human beings like waste by ignoring or brutalising them’
A report presented to South African Tswane city in June 2019 highlighted the need for economic growth and job creation. It specifically addressed “the problem of informal recyclers sorting waste in an uncoordinated manner across the City,” and made a commitment to “extend their waste management systems in order to...
Human ‘scavengers’ in Africa exist because cities, residents create ‘garbage economy’
For the “Bagerezi” – informal recyclable material reclaimers – Covid-19 was just one extra thing to worry about. They face many more immediate dangers every day and are subject to every kind of disadvantage: homelessness, hunger and exposure to the elements, ostracism, exploitation, harassment and threats of eviction. The Bagerezi...
