Coronavirus vaccine hesitancy starting to make ‘herd immunity’ a remote possibility
As Covid-19 vaccination rates pick up around the world, people have reasonably begun to ask: how much longer will this pandemic last? It’s an issue surrounded with uncertainties. But the once-popular idea that enough people will eventually gain immunity to Covid-19 to block most transmission – a ‘herd-immunity threshold’ –...
‘Unregulated efforts that create ‘trade-offs’ harmful to global afforestation’
Ongoing research shows that most deforestation is man-made and that an effective global policy response is needed to address the disappearance of the world’s forests. The main problem is that there are currently too many uncoordinated regulatory processes that are creating trade-offs, conflicts, leakage effects and loopholes resulting in complexity...
Journalists’ organisation says use of spyware compromises press freedom
In light of dozens of incidents in which journalists and those close to them have been targeted with spyware, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) hasy launched a campaign calling on governments to stop the use of spyware and to take steps to prevent states with bad press freedom records...
Species that often mate outside a bonded pair produce larger and faster seeds – research
Starting in the late 1980s, the advent of genetic analysis put the final nail in the coffin for the idea of monogamy in birds, showing that in many species, males other than the one at the nest can father some of the offspring. Sperm competition, it appeared, is a concern...
Promiscuity: Insects, birds are as fiercely protective and jealous as humans
On a spring day in 1965, 20-year-old biology student Geoff Parker found himself lying flat on his stomach in an English meadow, staring at a pat of cow dung and the frantic activities of dung flies around it. But this was far from a case of a student grudgingly accepting...
Kenya: US copyright law, fake Gmail accounts used to censor gambling story
On February 4, Emmanuel Dogbevi turned to Twitter with a plea for help. He tagged press freedom groups and colleagues in a series of tweets, lamenting how allegations that he violated US copyright law had prompted his news website to be taken offline. Dogbevi told CPJ via phone that Ghana...
Press Freedom: Sixty-five journalists killed last year in the line of duty
The number of journalists killed last year in the line of duty rose by 17 to stand at 65 compared to 2019’s 49, bringing further to the fore questions about the safety of media professionals as well as the right of the public to access information, and Press Freedom. The...
Despair: Some African countries can’t afford shots outside the Covax system
Most African countries are almost entirely reliant on Covax – the initiative backed by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the vaccine alliance Gavi and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations that offers vaccines cheaply to developing countries. Covax began distributing vaccines to countries such as Ghana and the Ivory Coast...
Africa holds key to keeping the world free from a pandemic that’s on the rise
As the rest of the world prepares for a vaccine-driven return to normal over the next few months, at her community health centre in a poor, working class neighbourhood of Cape Town, Andrea Mendelsohn is dreading the arrival of April and May – that’s when the weather will get cooler...
Big Tech: A trade union is a strong counterweight for workers who want to speak up
Seeta Gangadharan, the cofounder of Our Data Bodies and a professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science, has proposed that tech workers need to be taught how to be whistle-blowers. Ms Gangadharan envisions summer schools for computer science graduates that would arm them with the resources for...
