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Afrigen’s Moderna magic Since the onset of COVID, there has been a major disparity in shared resources worldwide, predominantly when it came to the purchasing and distribution of vaccinations as they were first developed. ‘First world’ countries and continents such as the US, the United Kingdom and Europe bought off as many vaccines as possible as they came off factory lines – so much so that many had purchased so many that they would be able to vaccinate their entire populations multiple times over, leaving many African countries without vaccines, or with the only option being to purchase them and surcharge rates.  This was largely due to the intense demand worldwide created by over purchasing. However, now that South Africa has a consistent [...]

Tech-giant Google Tech-giant Google has decided to get on board the blockchain train. In the company’s latest move, they have opted to create a unit that specifically focuses on blockchain technology. In the past, this has been an area that Google has determinately avoided, however this move is indicative of the company’s intention to expand its horizons into the cryptocurrency space. The unit will be headed up by Shivakumar Venkataraman, who is well known to the company and has spent most of his career working within one of Google’s core business functionalities, namely its ad business which is one of its largest income generators. Up until the end of last year, Google was is resistant to the idea of crypto-currencies within the Google-sphere [...]

Biobots – a feat in bioelectric coding & more Biobots are by definition “hybrid machines that have muscles and nerves”. Biobots are an exciting, more recent development as they have numerous potential applications in the medical and environmental fields, with one idea being that biobots will be utilised to carry out specified tasks and explorations within the human body. Many universities have been actively researching and developing multiple forms of biobots in order to explore their potential of successfully carrying out the intended theorised use cases. In 2019 researchers at the University of Illinois developed “soft, biological robotic devices that are self-driven using light-stimulated neuromuscular tissue and have intelligence, memory, and learning ability. The work brings researchers a step closer toward the development [...]

Is South Africa ready for the eMobility movement? Electric vehicles (EVs) and modes of transport have been in existence since the late 1800s. However understandably this was a rudimentary and crude example of what the modern day versions would come to look like. It is hard to identify exactly who was responsible for the first ever electric vehicle due to the fact that there were a number of electric vehicle pioneers worldwide all trying their hand at producing a successful model in and around the 19th century. Some historians believe that Robert Anderson should be credited for this, as he created his version of an electric vehicle between 1832 and 1839. Outside of Robert Anderson, Hungarian engineer Anyos Jedlik as well as Gaston [...]

Flu or Corona? Now you can have ‘flurona’ A new year has begun, and our third year as part of the Corona virus pandemic. It has been a long and tough three years filled with much uncertainty and seemingly endless new COVID-19 variants. We ended 2021 with the contentious discovery of the Omicron variant which was first identified in South Africa. The reason it was contentious was due to the fact that South African scientists and epidemiologists alerted the world to the discovery of the new variant, not one that necessarily originated in the country but just discovered there – and the world in turn responded by red-listing South Africa and blocking travel to and from the country. Luckily, a large number of [...]

A 2021 TikTok Recap For those who have found TikTok to be your main social 'bae', or at the very least the host of your social media escapism these past two years (or more perhaps), you will most likely already know who the top or most popular content creators are, and why. However, if like some of us, you have also been hibernating and avoiding TikTok because you are concerned that you will fall completely down the TikTok rabbit hole and never emerge, never fear as the video-focussed social media network has just released its top creators for the year. This list also factors in what the app qualifies or defines as ‘breakthrough’ creators or stars. The list contained some interesting contenders – [...]