Scientists who study the Ol Doinyo Lengai volcano in Tanzania say that based on readings from sensors placed there in 2016, there’s activity suggesting the potential for eruption that needs to be closely watched. Sarah Stamps, an expert on the East African Rift System and assistant professor of geosciences at…
The Petya-based ransomware attack Tuesday swept across much of Asia and Europe with unprecedented fury, shutting down government agencies, banks, utilities, and global companies including Merck pharmaceutical company and DLA Piper, a law firm based in the United States. Ukraine was especially hard-hit, with virtually all entities one might characterize…
A South African startup based in Cape Town has been named as an Innovation Prize for Africa finalist. Social entrepreneurs Nokwethu Khojane, left, and Lauren Drake envisioned Lakheni in 2015, when designing a food buying cooperative that helps families to pool their resources and purchase food in bulk within their…
Architect Diébédo Francis Kéré of Burkina Faso has unveiled his Serpentine Pavilion 2017 in London’s Kensington Gardens, which will be open to the public beginning on Friday. Kéré, who heads up the Berlin-based Kéré Architecture firm, has designed the temporary structure based on influences drawn from Gondo, the village where…
There are 170 million Facebook users on the African continent, including some 70 percent of people who are online, and most of them are familiar with features like “Safety Check” in times of a natural disaster or emergency. That’s true, for example, in the ongoing Western Cape wildfires where Facebook Safety…
Scientists working in Morocco say they have found the oldest known Homo sapiens fossils, a research discovery that potentially rewrites what humans know about their history and longevity as a species. A research team led by Jean-Jacques Hublin of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and Abdelouahed…
There are tiny pieces of Madagascar in orbit, and Russian scientists on the International Space Station (ISS) think they may be evidence for why the upper limit of Earth’s biosphere could be raised higher. Russian cosmonauts aboard the ISS have taken 19 different samples, on missions across the years between…
The “ransomeware” attack Friday that involved compromised computer systems in a reported 99 countries – at last count – may be among the largest reported in years, but it’s not a new problem and some experts say African businesses and organizations are especially vulnerable. The ransomware strain WannaCry (also known…
About 200 experts and policy decision makers wrapped up a conference on science and technology in Nairobi on Friday. Kenya hosted leaders from 19 countries across sub-Saharan Africa who connected with their counterparts from China and other “innovation nations.” The Partnership for Skills in the Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology (PASET)’s…
The Geeks on a Plane Africa tour heads for Johannesburg and Cape Town this week, after successful meetings with tech entrepreneurs and startups in Ghana and Nigeria. Beginning Tuesday in Johannesburg, they’ll be visiting the Braamonfontein Cluster tech hub and the Sw7 tech accelerator. More than 20 participants also will…
Within two weeks, German authorities plan to use automated software to analyze speech patterns of asylum seekers to verify their claimed place of origin, according to a Deutsche Welle report. The software is based on similar authentication programs used in the finance and insurance industries to assess speech patterns when…
African businesses and communities will soon be able to choose a “dotAfrica” website, now that the domain names will be available for registration in the global Internet community. The .africa address went live last month after ICANN, the organization responsible for coordinating the global Internet’s systems of unique identifiers, launched…
The SKA is an international effort to build the world’s largest radio telescope, one that listens to space signals with a sensitivity that’s 100 times greater than any current radio telescope on earth. The project in South Africa just got another big financial boost of USD$5.8 million (R75 million) from…
Top Facebook executive Chris Cox visited Ghana on Wednesday, part of a weeklong visit to three West African nations to connect with tech entrepreneurs. Cox, the Chief Product Officer for Facebook, checked out the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST) in Accra to share ideas about innovation and business development….
Having trouble logging on to some websites based in the United States? You’re not alone, because Amazon Web Services experienced a massive blackout Tuesday that’s affected many of their own products and a number of clients. While the outage is concentrated on the East Coast of the United States, it’s…