CUTTING EDGE>Page 3

Google has formally unveiled its Equiano project, a new undersea cable that will connect Africa with Europe to boost the continent’s connectivity. The new cable will start in Western Europe and run along the western coast of the continent to connect Portugal with South Africa. Along the way it will…

In April, partner agencies Save the Children and UNICEF, the UN children’s agency, marked a milestone in South Sudan as they reached 6,000 children reunited with their families – families torn apart for years by the ongoing civil war and displacement. Now, they have a new digital tool to continue…

Researchers in Burkina Faso and the United States say they’ve taken a big step forward in potentially reducing Africa’s malaria risk, by successfully killing off mosquitoes using a technique that relies on genetic manipulation to make an existing fungus threat more lethal to them. The researchers tested their theory in…

Scientists say they’ve discovered a new submarine volcano they believe is the cause of an unusual earthquake swarm that’s been affecting the Indian Ocean island of Mayotte for more than a year. The new volcano is located 50 kilometers east of the island and 3500 meters below the surface, standing…

Facebook says that 265 accounts that created pages and posts originating in Israel but targeting African nations and politicians have been removed – and so has a company that’s behind much of the activity. “Although the individuals behind this network attempted to conceal their identities, our investigation found that some…

The Indian Ocean island of Mayotte is marking a one-year anniversary of an unusual earthquake swarm – and it does so as another 5.0-magnitude earthquake struck early Tuesday, the largest since April 5. The swarm began on May 10, 2018, leading to hundreds and hundreds of earthquakes since then. A…

Nairobi and Lagos have been named as the first Africa Development Centre sites for Microsoft, the tech giant announced on Monday. The ADCs in Kenya and Nigeria will serve as premier engineering centers where world-class African talent can create solutions for local and global impact, the company said. “The ADC…

Malawi on Tuesday became the first African nation to launch a pilot program to administer the world’s first malaria vaccine to children ages 2 and under, according to the World Health Organization. The vaccine known as RTS,S has taken 30 years to develop and so far is the only vaccine…

Peter Tabichi is a science teacher in rural Kenya who gives away 80 percent of his salary each month to people in the community who need it more than he does. Now he’s been named the winner of the Global Teacher Prize, a USD$1 million award supported by the Varkey…

Social media giant Facebook, with more than 1.5 billion active users across the planet each day, experienced a massive failure on Wednesday that was still unresolved early Thursday morning. The outage, affecting Instagram and WhatsApp too, affected North America, parts of Europe, Russia and beyond. In Africa, frustrated users from…

The University of Cape Town (UCT) is leading a project to measure the long term effects of humans on global warming, with a view toward reducing impacts on Africans and Global South populations. UCT African Climate and Development Initiative (ACDI) director Professor Mark New is co-leader of a team that…

Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates has named 10 breakthrough technologies that will help to reinvent the future, and listed them in a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Review article published Wednesday. Gates said he first thought of the plow, in use since 4000 BCE, while contemplating how technologies create…