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Future females becoming females present Kamala Harris made history on the 7th of November 2020 when she was elected as America’s first female Vice President. Not only is Kamala Harris to be the first woman to hold the title of Vice President in the United States, but she is also the first African and Southern-Asian American to do so. America’s political history has long been dominated by white males, with Barack Obama being the first to break the mould as the first African-American president of the United States. Obama served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017, and was succeeded by one of America’s most controversial presidents – Donald Trump. President-elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ victory over [...]

Making Uber sure that you wear your mask In South Africa, like most of the world currently, wearing a mask in public is compulsory and has become an essential part of life and of our routines when even contemplating the house. Masks have proven to be effective in reducing and slowing the spread of COVID-19 by ensuring that both the exposure to and the emission of bodily fluids or moisture droplets inadvertently and unavoidably emitted by the body while doing everyday things such as talking or sneezing is drastically reduced. By limiting our exposure to the virus as much as possible by wearing a mask, sanitising and practicing social distancing – the chances of contracting the virus are significantly reduced. According to a [...]

A Decade of Instagram The 6th of October 2020 marked Instagram’s tenth birthday. A lot has happened in the last ten years for the social media networking giant. Instagram’s origin story begins in San Francisco with the app originally developed by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. The app that Systrom initially had envisioned differed substantially from the app that we know and love today. The original app was called Burbn and was designed to allow people to check-in at different locations by using the mobile web app. Given the app idea’s similarity to multiple apps already in existence, Systrom and Krieger decided to remove some of the originally intended features and developed an app that focused on being able to upload photos that [...]

Herd immunity vs. herd mentality – which one will trump COVID-19? COVID-19, much like other historic pandemics, has been demonstrative of both a herd mentality – also known as a mob mentality as well as the hopes of establishing herd immunity. Herd mentality is something that US President Donald Trump hinted at very recently during an interview, where he specifically refers to ‘herd mentality’ as a way of overcoming the pandemic. “You'll develop, you'll develop herd, like a herd mentality,” says Trump. “It's going to be, it’s going to be herd-developed, and that's going to happen. That will all happen. But with a vaccine, I think it will go away very quickly.” If you are confused by that statement, don’t worry – you [...]

Prominent VUT Scientist on Steering Committee of International Science Forum The Vaal University of Technology’s Dr Tozama Qwebani-Ogunleye has been selected on to the Steering Committee of the World Science Forum (WSF) 2021 being held in Cape Town. The WSF is an international conference series on global science policy inaugurated in Budapest, Hungary in 1999 under the auspices of UNESCO and the International Council for Science. It was initially held biennially only in Hungary but now takes place outside that country every second year. The Forum provides an opportunity for scientists, policy-makers, representatives of civil society and industry, and science communicators, to discuss the social and economic relevance, influence and responsibilities of science globally. Qwebani-Ogunleye said she was thrilled at the announcement made [...]

Cancelling “Cancel Culture” – what does it mean and how can we do it? Cancel Culture is a term that is thrown around a lot these days, particularly on social media, and its one which brings about an interesting idea – that a person can essentially be “cancelled”, but what on earth does this actually mean? The notion of ‘cancelling’ a person largely revolves around their social media presence, and through the act of ‘cancelling’ them, they are “culturally blocked from having a prominent public platform or career” (Vox). The emergence of cancel culture has unsurprisingly  had a divisive effect with some believing that cancel culture is a necessary method of keeping people, particularly public figures, or celebrities in check by calling out [...]