Alex Pentland, 62, heads the Human Dynamics Lab at the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is considered one of the world’s leading data scientists. In his new book, “Social Physics: How Good Ideas Spread — The Lessons from a New Science,” he argues that human communication behaviors follow the rules of […]
Read More… from Interview with Alex Pentland: Can We Use Big Data to Make Society Better?
Smallholder farmers must be more involved in the research process to meet farmers’ needs and maximise its development impact, a meeting has heard. Individual subsistence farmers and farm organisations that represent their interests are a vital but underused link in the research and development(R&D) chain, experts said earlier this month (5-8 May) at the first meeting of Agrinatura, […]
Read More… from Smallholder farmers ‘remain left out of most R&D’
This week, more than 3000 delegates are at the annual meetings of the African Development Bank (AfDB) in Kigali discussing new strategies to tackle poverty, underdevelopment, and put their weight behind global schemes that ensure Africa’s progress. To mark the occasion, UN Women Executive Director, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, published an OpEd today titled Women’s Role in the Next 50 Years – the […]
Read More… from Africa in 50 years: what African women want for the future of their continent
An injectable product made from bone growth proteins for treating bone injuries has won the 2014 Innovation Prize for Africa (IPA). South African scientists Nicolaas Duneas and Nuno Peres — who created the Altis Osteogenic Bone Matrix (OBM) — say the product is “the world’s first injectable regenerating bone graft substitute” derived from pig. Read more […]
Read More… from Health and agriculture innovations win top prizes
Africa’s fastest growing economies could offer a radical alternative to the West’s current reliance on national capitalism according to an academic who helped coin the term “informal economy”. Read more […]
The Senegalese government is satisfied with progress in carrying out its reforms under the Presidential Council on the Future of Higher Education and Research, or CNEAS. But there are delays in accomplishing some important measures, according to press reports. The rate of carrying out the reforms according to the schedule was ‘very satisfactory’, according to […]
Read More… from Government ‘satisfied’ with reforms, despite delays
For centuries, the drought-tolerant argan tree, endemic to Morocco, has acted as a ‘green curtain’ against desertification by the encroaching Sahara. Argan oil is the tree’s most valuable product. Known for its light, nutty flavour, the oil is used for salad dressing and cooking, and is also reputed to have medicinal and cosmetic properties. But over the twentieth […]
Read More… from Research turns oil into market hit, empowers women
A vast majority of Nigeria’s scientists are sceptical about using genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes to tackle malaria in the country, a study suggests. Nearly 90 per cent of surveyed scientists were concerned that such mosquitoes could spread in an uncontrolled way beyond their release sites, while more than 94 per cent feared they could mate with other […]
Read More… from Nigerian scientists wary of anti-malarial GM mosquitoes
Combining meteorology and traditional methods of weather prediction could increase uptake of weather information by local communities in rural areas of Tanzania, experts say. Scientists from Tanzania Meteorological Agency (TMA), Hakikazi Catalyst — a non-profit organisation in Tanzania that empowers people with information — and the UK-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), indicate that such […]
Read More… from Project mixes local, expert know-how to predict weather
About 30 million smallholder cassava farmers in East and Central Africa could benefit from a project that has mass-produced small plants of 19 varieties resistant to the crop’s two devastating viral diseases. Cassava mosaic disease (CMD) and cassava brown streak disease (CBSD) cause losses estimated at US$1 billion every year worldwide, placing farmers at risk of […]
Read More… from Project releases disease-resistant cassava plantlets
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