Category: Technology

Have you ever suffered through tales of greatness from a self-absorbed “friend” who reminds you of Michael Scott from “The Office” – and not in a good way? Have you been betrayed by a colleague out of the blue, undermined on a project by the office mean girl, or had a work friendship dropped altogether […]

A new body suit to control period pain is in the pipeline – and it’s called Artemis. Named after the Greek goddess of chastity, hunting, childbirth and the moon, it works by combining a tens machine (which provides pain relief through the use of a mild electrical current) and heat panels. If it proves effective, […]

That humans originated in Africa is widely accepted. But it’s not generally recognised how unique features of Africa’s ecology were responsible for the crucial evolutionary transitions from forest-inhabiting fruit-eater to savanna-dwelling hunter. These were founded on earth movements and aided physically by Africa’s seasonal aridity, bedrock-derived soils and absence of barriers to movements between north […]

Twitter is ending free access to its application programming interface, or API. An API serves as a software “middleman” allowing two applications to talk to each other. An API is an accessible way to collect and share data within and across organizations. For example, researchers at universities unaffiliated with Twitter can collect tweets and other […]

The earthquakes that struck in Turkey and Syria in the early hours of February 6 have led to terrible destruction on a scale not seen in Europe for many decades. At the time of writing, the death toll has risen beyond 11,000 people and will continue to rise over the coming days and weeks. Hundreds […]

Most of us have felt either too hot or too cold at some point in our lives. Depending on where we live, we may feel too cold quite often each winter, and too hot for a few days in summer. As we’re writing this in late January 2023 many southern Africans are probably feeling very […]

The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea Despite the common lesson that it’s paramount to tell the truth, adults judged children who told blunt polite truths more negatively than they did liars in a recent study my colleague and I conducted. We asked 171 adults to watch videos […]

Listening to people talk about views that clash with your own can be galling. Families all over the world avoid controversial topics. In the UK, for example, mention Brexit and watch everyone in the room tense up. But if you only speak to people who think the same way you do, you live in an […]

The African continent is bursting with biodiversity. In a 2016 report, the United Nations Environment Programme wrote: Africa’s biomes extend from mangroves to deserts, from Mediterranean to tropical forests, from temperate to sub-tropical and montane grasslands and savannas, and even to ice-capped mountains. About a quarter of the world’s species of plants and animals are […]

Twitter was blocked in Turkey on Feb. 8, 2023, according to internet monitoring service NetBlocks. The outage came amid the massive rescue operation and humanitarian crisis in the aftermath of the earthquakes in southern Turkey and northern Syria two days earlier. Access to Twitter appeared to be restored about 12 hours after it was first […]