Tag: Science Stories
When A is not for Apple
We learn to read by connecting letters and words with sounds and ideas we already know—so why do we teach African children using texts about marshmallows and ponies, asks Connie Nshemereirwe? In the village surrounding the university where I used to work in rural Uganda, I regularly met neatly dressed boys and girls walking home […]
The Birdman of Ibadan: ‘Small actions can yield big results’
Adewale Awoyemi is a Nigerian ornithologist who coordinates the Ibadan Bird Club and manages the city’s International Institute of Tropical Agriculture Forest Center. Here he writes about his passion for conservation and how he earned the nickname ‘father of birds’. ————– Ibadan is one of sub-Saharan Africa’s largest cities by surface area. Anthropogenic activities in […]
Mending a broken world with the help of science—and Madame Curie
Amal Amin, a polymer scientist at Egypt’s National Research Center, explains how the 9/11 terror attacks inspired her lifelong drive to build unity and peace through science. The world turned upside down the day after I returned to Egypt. I had just completed the lab work for my chemistry PhD in Germany, and on 10 […]
Helping little girls grow tall, one dead weevil at a time
Weevils create a horrible sight. They cause mould to grow which produces poisonous substances that can make people sick.” When I was a little girl, I could abandon a whole meal at the sight of an insect on my plate. My mother would do her best to make sure that our meals were kept away […]
Scientists fight drug-resistant fungal infections with light
A group of scientists hailing from India, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa are using light to fight drug-resistant infections. Their work, published this month in Scientific African, is part of a global dash to come up with new antimicrobial therapies. Antimicrobial resistance means that some of the relatively routine complaints that we successfully treat with […]
Exposing radioactivity in the building blocks that make up Accra
African cities are growing rapidly, with buildings mushrooming in major centers around the continent. But scientists in Ghana are concerned that building materials could be radioactive and play havoc with occupants’ health. “Normally, when you mention radiation, people think about a bomb,” says Francis Otoo, a scientist with the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission based in Accra. […]
Understanding how tsetse flies smell their prey could save lives
Scientists are examining how tsetse flies, which transmit deadly sleeping sickness in humans and nagana its animal counterpart in Africa, located their prey using their sense of smell, raising hope for better ways to control the deadly pest. Before the 18th century, sleeping sickness, or Human African trypanosomiasis was a manageable threat on the Africa […]
Scientists predict that African countries
Will be among the worst affected by human-induced climate change. But what exactly is going to happen? And what can we do to prepare for the flooding, droughts, biodiversity loss, and human migration coming our way? These urgent questions need evidence-based answers. In this issue of Scientific African Magazine, two of the feature stories explore […]
On the lookout for oil-eating microbes
In Nigeria, once thriving ecosystems have been devastated by decades of oil exploitation including oil spills caused by sabotage or illegal refining. But Chioma Chikere, an environmental microbiologist at the University of Port Harcourt in Rivers State, is working on a solution. She speaks to Linda Nordling about her work using oil consuming microbes found […]
Investigating barriers between potato farmers and markets in Uganda
With its verdant mountainous slopes, Kabale in western Uganda is well-suited to potato cultivation. But simply because potatoes will grow there does not mean that it is possible to thrive as a farmer. This is a problem. The root vegetable features prominently in the Ugandan government’s agricultural ambitions. Its Development Strategy and Investment Plan for […]