Author: The Conversation

Facebook Inc, now called Meta, announced its dating application, Facebook Dating, in May 2018. There was real excitement, with people expecting a revolutionary dating app that would soon beat Tinder. And it is no wonder, when you consider the size of the company, its technical capabilities, and most importantly the large volume of data that Facebook has collected about its users. After all, research shows that Facebook knows us better than our mums, so why wouldn’t it live up to its goal of creating “meaningful relationships”? But four years later, it hasn’t taken over the market – most people have…

The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic in March 2020. But it’s only in recent days, in May 2022, that the secretive Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) has reported its first confirmed cases of the virus. While it may seem somewhat astounding that a country has managed to get so far into the pandemic without an outbreak, North Korea has reportedly had its borders sealed since January 2020, with no movement in or out of the country. So it is plausible that they’ve had no COVID until now. But now, the country, which has a population of…

Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin were meant to be used as digital cash. Instead, they’ve become popular as speculative investments. As well as being resource-intensive and inherently wasteful, cryptocurrencies are also incredibly volatile. Prices for the largest cryptocurrencies, bitcoin and ethereum, have both dropped by over 55% in six months, leading some to suggest that regulation is needed to contain the turmoil. Some are blaming sliding prices on one specific contagion, a collapsing “stablecoin” called TerraUSD which is supposed to be pegged to the US dollar. But the current cryptocurrency market crash is more likely a combination of lots of factors. For…

At first glance, it may seem as though Big Tech can’t figure out how to make money off its foray into podcasting. In early May 2022, Meta announced that it was abruptly ending Facebook’s podcast integration less a year after it launched. Facebook had offered podcasters the ability to upload their shows to the social media site. Meanwhile, Spotify’s own expensive gamble on podcast integration within its music streaming service hasn’t resulted in the surge of new listeners that it had hoped. And what about the emergence of social audio platforms like Clubhouse that promised to re-imagine podcasting as live…

Satellites help run the internet and television and are central to the Global Positioning System. They enable modern weather forecasting, help scientists track environmental degradation and play a huge role in modern military technology. Nations that don’t have their own satellites providing these services rely on other countries. For those that want to develop their own satellite infrastructure, options are running out as space fills up. I am a research fellow at Arizona State University, studying the wider benefits of space and ways to make it more accessible to developing countries. Inequity is already playing out in access to satellites.…

China has had the world’s fastest growing economy since the 1980s. A key driver of this extraordinary growth has been the country’s pragmatic system of innovation, which balances government steering and market-oriented entrepreneurs. Right now, this system is undergoing changes which may have profound implications for the global economic and political order. The Chinese government is pushing for better research and development, “smart manufacturing” facilities, and a more sophisticated digital economy. At the same time, tensions between China and the west are straining international cooperation in industries such as semiconductor and biopharmaceutical manufacturing. Taken together with the shocks of the…

Adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa have the highest rate of unplanned pregnancies. Almost half (46%) of these unintended pregnancies among adolescents end in abortion. Lack of access to family planning services contributes significantly to high rates of unplanned pregnancy and subsequent maternal death among this group. This is due to restrictive health policies, social norms, and health system barriers such as lack of privacy, and confidentiality. Mobile health interventions can help. Mobile health involves using mobile phones or devices to improve health behaviours and services. Mobile health interventions have become popular in addressing several health issues. These interventions offer convenience, confidentiality,…

In his latest book sociologist Professor Roger Southall, a prolific researcher who has written extensively about political dynamics in Southern Africa, avoids the “negative and condemnatory” approach generally seen in writing on white South Africans, the creators and beneficiaries of apartheid. In the preface to the book, Whites and Democracy in South Africa, he explains that he’s done this to instead undertake a nuanced and constructive assessment of white people’s adjustment to post-apartheid democracy. Therefore, he enters the South African debate on critical race studies by setting his study apart from whiteness scholarship that assumes the homogeneity of white practices,…

The first three coronavirus vaccines earned Emergency Use Authorization more than a year ago. To date, no other vaccines have been put into use in the U.S – but that will soon change. More than 40 vaccines are undergoing clinical trials in the U.S., employing a number of different approaches to protecting people from the coronavirus. Vaibhav Upadhyay and Krishna Mallela have been studying the coronavirus spike protein since the outbreak of the pandemic and are developing COVID-19 therapeutics. Together, they explain what vaccines are in development and why some of the vaccines should be better than what’s available now.…

President Cyril Ramaphosa recently appointed a senior South African politician, Ayanda Dlodlo, to serve a two-year term as a member of the World Bank’s 25-person Board of executive directors. She will represent a constituency consisting of Angola, Nigeria and South Africa. Dlodlo has previously held two cabinet positions – as minister of public service and administration and state security. The appointment of such a senior politician to executive director position offers South Africa an opportunity to influence the World Bank’s relations with Africa. The 25 executive directors of the bank fulfil a dual function. Firstly, they operate as the governing…

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is much more than just a buzzword nowadays. It powers facial recognition in smartphones and computers, translation between foreign languages, systems which filter spam emails and identify toxic content on social media, and can even detect cancerous tumours. These examples, along with countless other existing and emerging applications of AI, help make people’s daily lives easier, especially in the developed world. As of October 2021, 44 countries were reported to have their own national AI strategic plans, showing their willingness to forge ahead in the global AI race. These include emerging economies like China and India, which…

Agenda 2063 is the African Union’s long-term framework for socio-economic development, regional integration and the preservation of history and culture. The agenda has 15 flagship projects. These have been identified as necessary for meeting the continent’s aspirations. They are wide-ranging and include constructing a network of high-speed trains; ending violence and creating continental financial institutions. But, in my view, the core of Agenda 2063 is the Africa outer space programme. It has direct or indirect impacts on the other flagship programmes. The outer space programme seeks to enable Africa to obtain maximum benefits from space science, technology and applications. It…

Clothing retailers sell their shoppers more than jeans and sweaters. Major apparel companies also sell credit, often with very high fees, like The Gap’s 21.7% starting interest rate, and US$27 to $37 late payment charge. In 2019, Macy’s store credit card revenue of $771 million accounted for more than half of Macy’s operating income. As researchers studying retail clothing workers, we never expected to learn about credit cards. When we asked the workers about the worst part of their jobs, we expected to hear about low wages, inconsistent schedules and rude shoppers. Those things matter, but many workers identified mandates…

When astronomers dream of their ideal telescopes, it’s not that different to what people want from their TVs and computer monitors. Images they produce should be large and high definition, such as those from the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), which have ~10k resolution (beyond the typical quality you get from digital TVs and digital cinematography). And they should have a high dynamic range, indicating high quality imaging with deep sensitivity to faint objects. But not every telescope can do it all. That’s why complementary science – using some telescopes for some tasks, others for different but related tasks,…

Thousands of years ago, the blacksmith led a technological leap in sub-Saharan Africa. West Africa’s Nok culture, for example, switched from using stone tools to iron around 1500BC. Imagine an innovative artisan like this re-emerging in the 21st century equipped with digital technologies. This is not Wakanda science fiction. It is the story of a real promise that 3D printing holds for an industrial revolution on the African continent. 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, is a fabrication process in which a three-dimensional object is built (printed) by adding layer upon layer of materials to a series of shapes.…

The growth of the internet and smartphones has led to the widespread global use of dating apps, such as Tinder, Bumble and OKCupid. These location-based apps have become a popular and acceptable way to meet new potential romantic partners. With over 6.5 million monthly downloads Tinder is the most popular dating app in the world, including in South Africa. But Tinder still has a reputation for being a “hook-up” app. Most people perceive it as a way to search for casual dating or short-term sexual partners. Owing to its focus on pictures, physical attractiveness is the main way that users…

On Sept. 1 and 2, 1859, telegraph systems around the world failed catastrophically. The operators of the telegraphs reported receiving electrical shocks, telegraph paper catching fire, and being able to operate equipment with batteries disconnected. During the evenings, the aurora borealis, more commonly known as the northern lights, could be seen as far south as Colombia. Typically, these lights are only visible at higher latitudes, in northern Canada, Scandinavia and Siberia. What the world experienced that day, now known as the Carrington Event, was a massive geomagnetic storm. These storms occur when a large bubble of superheated gas called plasma…

The discipline of physical anthropology has a dark, often fraught past. It was misused to justify slavery and even genocide. In this edited extract from the introduction of his new book, Bones and Bodies: How South African Scientists Studied Race (Wits University Press, 2022), Alan G. Morris examines the discipline’s South African history. He points out that modern academics struggle to find ways to balance the roles of sociology and genetics in their research – and that understanding how scientists previously understood the relationship between social and physical characteristics will guide them in navigating this tricky balance. The aphorism first…

The importance of whistleblowers was highlighted again recently in South Africa. In one of the reports released by Judge Raymond Zondo, who has headed up a commission of inquiry into state capture, he recommended that whistleblowers should be protected. He also recommended that they should be given an incentive to make disclosures – a monetary reward based on a percentage of the proceeds recovered on the strength of such information. Academics, myself among them, have called for similar treatment of tax whistleblowers. The logic of these calls is that whistleblowers play a role in exposing corruption. In addition, they can…

Today more than half of the world’s population is connected to the internet. In Africa, there are over 590 million internet users and over 800 million mobile phone subscribers. Some observers note that such diffusion of digital tools and connectivity is bringing political, economic, social and cultural transformations on the African continent. One such change is that workers from Lagos to Johannesburg to Nairobi are carrying out various forms of digital work. These are activities which involve manipulation of digital data using tools such as mobile phones, computers and the internet. Examples are transcription, article writing, image tagging, search engine…

Have you looked at the international rankings of the world’s happiest countries lately? Measuring a country’s subjective levels of happiness has become something of an international sport. People look with interest (and a little jealousy) to nations such as Denmark, which consistently tops the world happiness rankings. It has also led to Danish practices such as the “hygge” lifestyle gaining popularity elsewhere. If only we could add more cosiness to our lives, perhaps we would be as happy as the Danish! But is living in one of the worlds happiest nations all it’s cracked up to be? What happens if…

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has announced the first six African countries that will receive technology to produce messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines. This comes off the back of the news that a South African consortium – part of the WHO’s technology transfer hub set up in 2021– had successfully replicated Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine. Ina Skosana spoke to Professor Kelly Chibale about the significance of the replication of the vaccine and what the next steps are. What does the WHO technology-transfer hub do, and why is it significant? The World Health Organisation (WHO) technology transfer hub initiative aims to fight COVID-19…

Economists and policy-makers seem to have a blind spot when thinking about how the economy functions and what determines success. Analytical frameworks and government policies consistently neglect the role of space and geography in favour of national averages and sectoral plans. Yet growing evidence from around the world shows the importance of place and location for productivity, growth and development. Intuitively, it is obvious that economic progress depends on the quality of local skills, capable public institutions, reliable infrastructure, and proximity to markets and suppliers. But just how important are these factors compared with the particular mix of local industries…

The U.S. has been warning for weeks about the possibility of Russia invading Ukraine, and threatening retaliation if it does. Just eight years after Russia’s incursion into eastern Ukraine and invasion of Crimea, Russian forces are once again mobilizing along Ukraine’s borders. As the U.S. and other NATO member governments monitor Russia’s activities and determine appropriate policy responses, the timely intelligence they rely on no longer comes solely from multimillion-dollar spy satellites and spies on the ground. Social media, big data, smartphones and low-cost satellites have taken center stage, and scraping Twitter has become as important as anything else in…

As historians, we have both been immersed for many years in trying to understand and write about South Africa’s complex, conflictual history. Conquest, colonial domination and racial division in the shape of apartheid played a central role. So too did the rise of black opposition and the transition in 1994 to an African National Congress government. There were many strands in the weaving of this history, some neglected in the focus on race and political power. These include the profound role that science and technology played in shaping South Africa’s history. In our new book, The Scientific Imagination in South…