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LAB GROWN VS. OWN – FIRST ARTIFICIAL BLOOD TRIAL GOES LIVE Like organs, globally there is a shortage of donated blood that is crucial for emergency and life-saving medical procedures and treatments. Hospitals are required to keep stock of blood at all times, however this is reliant on committed individuals continuing to donate blood and platelets. Unfortunately, a very small percentage of the global population actually ever donates blood. Granted, not everyone can donate blood – as there are some specific prerequisites that determine the viability and usability of the donated blood. The demand for certain blood types and platelets also differs depending on how specific the blood group is and whether it is considered a rare or common blood type. According to [...]

MEGACITIES OF THE FUTURE A megacity is as the name indicates – a city in an urban area with specific population parameters in order to qualify as a ‘megacity’ versus a standard city. A megacity must have a population of ten million people or more. According to National Geographic, more than half of the world’s population lives in cities, with a significant portion living in megacities. Based on this logic, in 2022 there are currently over 30 megacities worldwide, with the vast majority of them sitting within Asia and the Pacific, followed by Europe and the Americas. Africa at this stage has the least megacities worldwide, however based on projections of the global population rising to 9 billion by mid-century, this will certainly [...]

MOVING OVER TO MASTODON Elon Musk is certainly having a tough start to his new career as Twitter ‘boss’. As if letting go of half his Twitter workforce wasn’t bad enough – he is now also losing Twitter users (if he isn’t banning them of course) left, right and centre to competing or alternative platforms that are more than happy to pick up Elon’s slack. Many Twitter users are moving over as they aren’t enamoured with Musk’s backtracking with regards to the platform’s original advocacy of ‘freedom of speech’, which was the foundation on which Musk hoped to solidify his Twitter empire and make his mark. Unfortunately however, freedom of speech does not seem applicable to Musk himself with many Twitter accounts being [...]

BUYING THE BLUE TICK Musk is back and Twitter is finally his. After months of back and forth, legal threats and far too much drama, the world’s richest man – Elon Musk has finally acquired Twitter. Musk has certainly made his presence known, announcing himself at Twitters headquarters on his first day, walking in actually carrying a bathroom sink. Musk made quick work of cleaning out executives that he felt weren’t aligned with his new, privatised company vision. The dismissed included the likes of Twitter’s previous CEO Parag Agrawal as well and the CFO Ned Segal, as well as other top ranking executives including the Head of Legal Affairs Vijaya Gadde. Post his sacking from the company, Ned Segal was quick to update [...]

DE-EXTINCTION OR DISASTER? De-extinction, also known as resurrection biology, as the name suggests, is the process of resurrecting a species that has gone extinct. In order to qualify as extinct, there cannot be a remaining living member of that specific species or family. Although extinctions are part of Earth’s natural evolution, there has been a great increase in the number of species that have become extinct specifically in the last few centuries; many of these extinctions can be directly correlated with human interference. It is estimated that “99% of the four billion species that have evolved on earth are now gone.” Organisations such as the World Wildlife Fund assist in gauging the ‘natural rate of extinction versus the rate of extinction influenced by [...]

WARMING UP FOR INTERVIEWS THANKS TO GOOGLE Google, the multinational tech company is bringing one of its AI machine-learning based tool to Africa to assist candidates in prepping for their upcoming interviews. The tool is geared to assist candidates with their interview performances by providing them with mock interview scenarios and questions that will allow them to effectively practice ahead of the real thing. As the Company explains, the motivation behind the tool is down to the fact that “Interviewing in a new field can be hard, especially if you don’t have access to friends, family or mentors in the field who can help you practice and prepare. That’s why we’ve been collaborating with job seekers to start building a new tool called [...]