Category: Technology

Orla/Shutterstock I recently asked myself if I’ll still have a healthy brain as I get older. I hold a professorship at a neurology department. Nevertheless, it is difficult for me to judge if a particular brain, including my own, suffers from early neurodegeneration. My new study, however, shows that part of your brain increases in […]

News media shape public understanding of artificial intelligence (AI) and influence how society interacts with these technologies. For many people, especially those who have not sought more knowledge about AI elsewhere, media platforms are a primary source of information. This is particularly significant in Africa, where historical and socioeconomic contexts like colonial legacies and uneven […]

Magellanic penguins in the surf. Ondrej Prosicky/Shutterstock Poohsticks, the game in which Piglet and Winnie the Pooh throw sticks into the river from one side of a bridge, and then rush over to the other side to see whose stick appears first, is all about current flow. Disappointingly, neither Piglet nor Pooh mention fluid dynamics […]

You might have noticed that humanoid robots are having a bit of a moment. From Tesla’s Optimus to Figure AI’s Figure 02, these machines are no longer just science fiction – they’re walking, and in some cases, cartwheeling into the real world. Now China’s Unitree Robotics, best known for its nimble quadruped robots, has unveiled […]

Krakenimages.com/Shutterstock When I ask a lecture theatre full of students how they would feel if they could never listen to a piece of music again, most are horrified. Many have been plugged into their headphones until the moment the class begins. But without fail, one or two will shyly admit that their lives would not […]

People stop trusting science when it doesn’t meet high expectations. Billion Photos/Shutterstock When people trust science, they can make better decisions, follow helpful rules and work together on big problems like health, climate change and new technology. But if people stop trusting science, it’s easier for false information to spread, and harder to solve those […]

Barillo_Images/Shutterstock Many people find that their sleep and moods are linked to the seasons. Those living in temperate zones may feel like hibernating in winter and staying out all night in summer, though even those in the tropics can be affected by changing seasons. That’s because we are seasonal animals and adjust our behaviour according […]

Svitlana Hulko/Shutterstock A baby born in the US has made headlines for a surprising reason: they came from an embryo that had been frozen for more than 30 years — setting a new world record. The embryo was created and stored in 1994, back when Bill Clinton was US president and the internet, email and […]

OpenAI claims that its new flagship model, GPT-5, marks “a significant step along the path to AGI” – that is, the artificial general intelligence that AI bosses and self-proclaimed experts often claim is around the corner. According to OpenAI’s own definition, AGI would be “a highly autonomous system that outperforms humans at most economically valuable […]

Global standards for heating comfort are largely based on cooler, northern hemisphere climates. How relevant are these benchmarks in low-cost housing in warmer African regions? Mak Okay-Ikenegbu did his doctoral research on thermal comfort in low-cost housing for warm and humid climates in Nigeria. His research showed that people in tropical environments can withstand higher […]