Egypt moved one step closer toward establishing its space agency on Wednesday, as the Council of Ministers approved a plan that’s been slow to move forward but now has a big boost from China. The space agency plan, now headed for parliament, builds on an initial phase in the space…
Africa’s endangered rhinoceros population is getting help from its animal friends and neighbors in a new high-tech program designed to protect the rhino from poachers. The system relies on the Internet of Things to monitor conditions on the Welgevonden Game Reserve in South Africa by fitting zebra, wildebeest and impala…
Relief efforts continue in Sierra Leone following an August 14 landslide and flooding at Freetown that claimed more than 1,000 lives, and left up to 10,000 more displaced. Those efforts involve a number of humanitarian aid agencies, including UNICEF, which is working to resettle the homeless who have voluntarily relocated…
Ghana has now converted the fuel at its only nuclear research reactor in Accra, successfully completing an international project meant to replace the use of high enriched uranium (HEU) to low enriched uranium (LEU) fuel. The three-year effort completed last week makes Ghana the first of five countries outside of…
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…