REMEMBERING MADIBA 10 YEARS ON

The 5^th of December 2023 marks the ten-year anniversary of the passing of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, our former president, politician, and anti-Apartheid activist. Mr. Mandela is famous globally for his historic achievements and firsts – he was the first black president of South Africa, serving from 1994 to 1999, but was also fundamental in leading South Africa’s transition from Apartheid to a multi-racial democracy. In 1993, Mr. Mandela also won the Nobel Peace Prize alongside former president F.W. de Klerk “for their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa.” The road to the Nobel Peace Prize and democracy was far […]

AFRICA’S BILLIONAIRES FOR 2023

Africa has no shortage of exceptionally wealthy individuals and families across all countries, with the accumulated wealth of Africa’s wealthiest equating to almost $81.5 billion dollars. To put this in rand value based on December 2023’s exchange rate, is R153 trillion rand which to put it into context, is twelve figures. This is almost three billion down in comparison to last year’s $84.9 billion, even though one more billionaire was added to the list. Last year was a good year for Africa’s 19 billionaires, whereas this year their fortunes took a knock, along with the rest of the world due to the current economic crisis and the impact that this has had on stock […]

THE BEST CV FORMATS FOR THE SOUTH AFRICAN JOB MARKET

The new year is around the corner, and with that hopefully also comes fresh employment opportunities too. Despite the status of South Africa’s current job market and the dismal youth employment statistics, there are many companies who look to hire new talent of varying levels of experience at the start of each year. In order to put your best foot forward and be competitive, a great resume (CV) is required as for the most part, this is the first thing that your potential future employers will see. This will tell them all they need to know before the recruiter decides whether or not to take your application any […]

DELHI’S DISASTROUS AIR POLLUTION INDICATIVE OF GLOBAL AIR ISSUES

Air Pollution presents a major global issue and threat to both developed and in particular, developing countries and nations. Air pollution can be classified as a type of disaster depending on its severity. So many of our daily activities contribute to air pollution locally, which in turn has a significant global impact. In particular, the cars we drive, industries we support through general consumer goods consumption as well as other man-made or natural disasters such as forest and wildfires are also major contributors to air pollutants. Air pollutants can include substances like carbon monoxide, nitrogen and sulfur dioxide and ozone, as well as particulate matter, which are essentially any […]

DEEP FAKES KEEP GETTING DEEPER

Deepfakes are permeating society quicker than photoshopped celeb Instagram images these days. However, often the intention behind generating and posting a deepfake goes much deeper than some face-tuned Kardashian insecurities. Unlike photoshop though, deepfakes are essentially synthetic media, typically videos that have been created using a form of artificial intelligence known as deep learning to almost-imperceptibly mimic the chosen person for nefarious or malicious reasons. Usually, it is done over a face or video of person, which is then altered to come off as someone else. Due to the convincing and realistic nature of deepfakes, they can and have been used to spread misinformation, this is especially true when it comes to politics […]

THE WEBB ELLIS CUP – THE HISTORY OF THE CUP THAT THE SPRINGBOKS HAVE WON MORE THAN ANY OTHER COUNTRY

The Webb Ellis Cup is something that everything South African has seen splashed across their televisions and across social media in the last few weeks, after the Springboks made history and made their country exceptionally proud by winning it for the fourth time in a nail-biting victory over the New Zealand All Blacks, which is more than any other country. It was also a back-to-back win, as South Africa was the previous world champions and cup holders after our 2019 win over England. New Zealand were also fighting for the status of four-time world cup holders, however fell […]

GLOBAL TAXES TO FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE

In September 2023, African heads of state met in Nairobi for the Africa Climate Summit. The result of the meeting of the minds was the Nairobi Declaration which in essence “demands that major polluters commit more resources to help poorer nations.” The idea is for this declaration to form the basis of the continent’s position at the COP28 summit in November. Africa is amongst the world’s most vulnerable continents when it comes to climate change, however even though this is a globally acknowledged fact – Africa receives only about 12% of the $300 billion required to sufficiently manage and cope with the impacts of rampant climate change.

The declaration urges world leaders to […]

AVIAN FLU AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR SOUTH AFRICA’S POULTRY INDUSTRY

Avian influenza, otherwise known as ‘avian’ or ‘bird flu’ is an infection caused by a disease derived from Type A viruses. Typically, these viruses spread predominantly through aquatic birds, however that being said they can also infect domestic poultry as well as other species of birds too. For the most part, humans don’t need to worry about contracting avian flu as the human infection rate is relatively low, although it has and can occur. Interestingly avian flu and human flu are essentially the same virus as they share the same ‘viral structure’, however they differ in terms of their H and N proteins.

Currently in South Africa, we […]

‘MONK MODE’ ACTIVATED

‘Monk mode’ was a term originally coined by a software engineer by the name of Ben Orenstein in 2002 as an alternative to multitasking. Multitasking, as the name suggests, entails switching between multiple tasks simultaneously, or in quick succession. ‘Monk mode’ on the other hand, promotes a single task focus through the elimination of all external distractions in order to see it through to completion. The idea behind ‘monk mode’, also know as ‘deep work’ is to increase and drive productivity and focus in a world full of distractions in order to achieve success in professional and personal lives. This is something that a lot of people globally are looking to employ as a means […]

EMBRYO MODELLING WITHOUT THE EGG

For the first time ever, scientists have managed to grow what they are referring to as an “entity that closely resembles a human embryo” without using an egg, sperm or a womb.  The “embryo model” was created by the Weizmann Institute using stem cells in order to try and replicate the creation process of an embryo. Outside of its shocking likeness to a 14 day old embryo, it was also responsible for emitting hormones that triggered a positive result in a pregnancy test. The idea behind the embryo modelling is really to help us better understand the earliest stages of conception and embryo development and the biological and ethical implications this stage has […]