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Stories about: Africa


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East Africa Reveals New Chameleon Species

A British researcher was just minding his own businesses in the jungle, surveying monkeys, when he accidentally disturbed a snake that was eating its meal. Upon inspecting the catch, the expert discovered a chameleon unlike any other species he knew. He therefore went ahead and compared the specimen to two others his...

23 November 2009
18:01 GMT

Mobile Social Networking to Rise in Latin America and Africa

A recent estimation published by Frost & Sullivan and Colibria shows that the mobile social networking is expected to register a great increase in Latin America and Africa within the following several years. By 2015, the area should have a number of around 527 million users, marking a ten-fold increase compared to t...

19 November 2009
13:31 GMT

How Shape Perception Develops in the Human Brain

Our ability to recognize shapes and patterns is something that scientists believe was an acquired trait, spawned from the environment in which a new individual was born. But a new scientific study, published this week in the online issue of the journal Psychological Science, seems to show that people have a sense...

14 November 2009
03:49 GMT

Rain Favored Humans Leaving Sahara

According to current knowledge, our ancestors first appeared in eastern Africa, where the oldest, human-like fossils were found. They are believed to have then left the continent in successive migrations, eventually spreading across the planet and beginning their domination of the world. However, historians and paleo...

10 November 2009
04:57 GMT

Africa Will Spawn a New Ocean

A rift in eastern Africa is most likely the place where a new ocean will begin to take shape in the future, scientists confirm after serious investigations. The formation started “unzipping” in 2005, when it reached its current length, of about 35 miles, within only a few days. The rip began when the Dabb...

3 November 2009
04:49 GMT

New Debate on the African Origins of Anthropoids

While excavating at a dig site in Algeria, archaeologists came across the well-preserved remains of two primate species. Both are some 50 million years old, and belong to the small primate Algeripithecus, often considered to be the oldest African anthropoid. From this group, both apes and men evolved. According to a ...

15 September 2009
10:00 GMT

Georgian Hills Reveal 1.8-Million-Year-Old Skeletons

Archaeologists working at a site in the Dmanisi hills of the former Soviet republic of Georgia have recently discovered a number of skeletons that have been dated back to 1.8 million years ago. Experts believe that the new find may change the established timelines on when the earliest humans began to move out of Afri...

10 September 2009
05:06 GMT

Using Beehives to Scare Elephants Away from Crops

In Kenya, people are encouraged by the local government to settle down on stretches of land, and to start cultivating vegetables of fruits, in small farms that have the potential to boost the national production levels considerably. However, a recent problem is that elephants have no respect for fences, and simply wa...

4 June 2009
08:34 GMT

Tower Sharing in MEA to Save $8 Billion

According to a white paper on the potential of network sharing in the MEA region published by Delta Partners, there are more than 200,000 mobile network towers in operation in Middle East and Africa, and about 100,000 more are expected to be deployed during the following 5 years. In addition, the paper also notes the...

13 April 2009
02:24 GMT

Mobile HIV Clinic Saves Thousands of Lives in Uganda

Located at the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Bwindi region was one in which people died because of HIV infections and AIDS on a daily basis less than three years ago. Because the area is so underdeveloped, people living here didn't have any access to any kind of medical faciliti...

13 April 2009
02:18 GMT

The Pope Accused of Distorting Scientific Facts

Pope Benedict XVI was recently accused by a famed international scientific publication of falsifying and distorting scientific facts to forward the Catholic religious doctrine. The Pontiff said that condoms actually helped promote HIV and AIDS, and that the international efforts that were underway in Africa at the mo...

27 March 2009
06:15 GMT

Resident Evil 5's Racism Is Comically Debated by The New York Times

Resident Evil 5 is the latest iteration in Capcom's survival horror franchise. It was set out to provide a new and unique twist on the events portrayed in the series. It teamed up the main character in the first game, Chris Redfield, with a new and lovely sidekick and dispatched him to Kijuju, a fictional Africa...

27 March 2009
04:15 GMT

Photographer Captures Pink Elephant on Tape

Mike Holding, a wildlife cameraman filming a documentary for the BBC in northern Botswana, came across one of the rarest sights in the animal world – a pink elephant. The cub, which was hiding under its mother for protection, was only sighted for a few moments, but the journalist managed to get a few snapshots ...

20 March 2009
11:51 GMT

Goat Arrested for Armed Robbery in Nigeria

A number of vigilantes came at the police station carrying the goat and saying that the thief, who allegedly tried to steal a Mazda 323 car, used some form of ritual to turn himself into a goat, so as to avoid detection by the police. Authorities announced that the animal is currently in custody, but that they need s...

24 January 2009
03:09 GMT

Shooter of the Year: Far Cry 2

Far Cry 2 is a game that makes you part of a war you never intended to fight, shows you how people can die around you, makes you feel helpless and very powerful at the same time, allows you to have tactical flexibility while making you do more stuff with your own hands than any game until now. It’s a shooter ai...

29 December 2008
19:01 GMT

Building a Sustainable Global Food System

Food experts agree that the way people and nations approach food needs to drastically change, if a global shortage is to be avoided over the coming decades. Although, statistically speaking, the world produces far more food than it needs, there are still billions of people who do not have access to it and starve to d...

28 December 2008
03:50 GMT

Men Led Ancient African Exodus

New scientific studies revealed the fact that men and women probably were not equal members of the largest African exodus, which is believed to be responsible for the colonization of the entire world. This massive migration accounts for all races that are currently spread outside Africa, and the mass movements began ...

22 December 2008
03:10 GMT

African Conference Promotes Progress on Water Sharing

The worsening state of the environment affects the African continent more than any other place, from a standpoint of how much humans are affected by droughts, flood, desertification, and other phenomena associated with global warming and climate change. Fortunately, government officials from many of these countries r...

18 December 2008
03:16 GMT

Spend Your Holidays Volunteering for the Endangered Species

If in doubt as to whether staying home is the best solution for the winter holidays, plenty of other tempting ideas should be considered. For the ones who love traveling as much as they love nature, there are many volunteering programs being developed, particularly aimed at animals in need or those struggling on the ...

13 December 2008
06:13 GMT

WHO Says 830,000 Kids Are Killed Annually by Accident

Accidental deaths among children total a whopping 830,000 each year, a new World Health Organization (WHO) report recently revealed. Most of these deaths occur in Africa, or in the poorest regions of the globe, where children are offered inadequate protection against car traffic, or are not safeguarded from falling i...

11 December 2008
06:58 GMT

Wishlist: Far Cry 2.5

I've been under the spell of Far Cry 2 lately. After having played it on the Xbox 360 to see how the control element felt, I switched to the PC and I am currently in the process of listening to the creepy communications tower voice in order to assassinate everyone I can. But I've been thinking that the game...

2 December 2008
20:01 GMT

International Fund Cuts Could Lead to AIDS Pandemic

The global financial crisis will also take its toll on human lives, if AIDS prevention funds are reduced by governments trying to maintain a positive economic balance, the United Nations said last week, in a news conference on HIV Awareness Day, which was on Monday. Sub-Saharan Africa will be mostly affected by lack ...

2 December 2008
06:02 GMT

Water Funding for Africa Is Critical

Millions of people in Africa do not currently have access to fresh water sources, or even safe-to-drink water sources, for that matter. And, as if this were not enough, they are also at risk of losing the only thing that gives them a drop of water to drink, which is several billions of dollars of international fundin...

27 November 2008
06:02 GMT

Far Cry 2

Far Cry 2 was one of the most expected games this holiday season, promising to bring back the same great shooter experience as well as the fabulous graphics and highly detailed world of the first title. Ubisoft heavily marketed this game and said that it would completely change the way players looked at other shooter...

18 November 2008
06:14 GMT

New Microsoft Awards and Grants Programs

On November 20, 2008, Microsoft announced the creation of a financial funding program designed to offer support for scientific research in Africa. For this endeavor, Microsoft Research partnered with TWAS (the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World) and AAS (the African Academy of Sciences) putting together a c...

11 November 2008
06:05 GMT

Famine Will Take Over African Countries by 2030

A recent scientific study revealed that the situation of Africa will drastically worsen over the next 2 decades, especially in Tanzania, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The paper extrapolated the results from agricultural production levels, economic growth patterns and population dynamics curre...

3 November 2008
09:55 GMT

Organic Farming Could Eradicate African Famine

All those millions of people in Africa who are suffering and dying from hunger and starvation could benefit from a drastically improved quality of life if officials and international experts advised and supported small scale agriculture, instead of pushing for large agricultural endeavors that are unsustainable in th...

31 October 2008
11:21 GMT

Resident Evil 5 Producer Talks About Africa and Racism

The Resident Evil franchise is one of the best ones in the horror survival genre, putting players against hordes of zombies or genetically mutated humans in a wide variety of scenarios and countries. Resident Evil 4 gained critical acclaim by taking the franchise to new heights in terms of gameplay and story, which b...

28 October 2008
01:39 GMT

Mice Carry African Hemorrhagic Virus

A new arenavirus has been discovered in Africa, after it infected and killed several people since last September. Scientists aren't entirely sure if this strain is a mutant or simply a previously unknown one. The fact remains that no one has ever seen such a virus thus far, although doctors have constantly been ...

14 October 2008
08:53 GMT

Color May Play a Significant Role in Fish Mating

The fish in Lake Victoria, Africa, seem to have developed an interesting way to reproduce. Apparently, the females choose their future mates not by their appearance, but rather by a dominant pigment in the skin that their eyes are sensitive to. This adaptation to their environment may very well be the way new species...

2 October 2008
04:03 GMT

Opera Mini to Conquer Africa

Opera Software announced that MTN, Uganda's largest mobile carrier, has selected the Opera Mini mobile browser to be embedded in its customers' handsets. This will allow MTN's Ugandan subscribers (almost 3 million) to access the Web with ease, wherever they might be (as long as their mobile device is f...

28 August 2008
10:19 GMT

Vodafone Forays Deeper into African Market - Buys 70% of Ghana Telecom

Vodafone, the giant global mobile operator, has announced it will acquire 70% of Ghana Telecom (also known as Ghana Telecommunications Company Limited) from the Government of Ghana, for a total of about $900 million (274 million Euros or 454 million GBP). Ghana Telecom is the main supplier of fixed telephony service...

4 July 2008
09:26 GMT

Vodacom Rolls out HSUPA Services in South Africa

Vodacom, the largest mobile operator in South Africa, has announced the availability of the country's first HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access) 3G service, accessible all over its nationwide network as of yesterday. Coming to improve the "HSDPA 3.6" service that Vodacom is currently offering, the new HSUP...

29 May 2008
11:49 GMT

Didier Drogba Signed with Samsung

Didier Drogba, the famous Chelsea FC football player, signed today a new contract with Samsung, according to ITWeb. Of course, Drogba will not play football for the South Korean company (as footballers do after signing contracts), but he will be Samsung's brand ambassador for Africa. The news must not come a...

9 April 2008
12:55 GMT

A Plant Apartheid

In 1995, the Ministry of the Environment of South Africa launched the program "Working for the Water," aiming to eliminate the "foreign plants" by cleansing 20 million of hectares for returning water to the natives, both plants and humans. Those supporting the program said the exotic species, imported or entered acci...

9 April 2008
11:26 GMT

Sausages Growing in the Trees

You may have heard about breadfruit trees. This is the sausage tree, to complete the hot dog. When thinking about the trees of the African savanna, baobabs, acacias and eventually mopane trees come into your mind. But one of the most original trees of the African savanna is the Sausage Tree (Kigelia africana), a tree...

25 March 2008
10:25 GMT

The Lake of Continuously Boiling Lava

This is like a wound that never gets closed. In one of the hottest spots of the Earth, in the desert of northern Ethiopia, where even in the winter temperatures vary between 40 to 50oC, the volcano Erta Ale was discovered by the Europeans in 1906. The volcano is active for hundreds of years. Most volcanoes manifest t...

24 March 2008
10:19 GMT

The Mystic River: Nile

This river is the maker of the oldest civilization recorded by the historical sources: 5,000 years ago, the Egyptian state emerged on its banks. It is best known as the longest river on the planet. Nile is consensually considered so as it has 6,695 km in length, even if some say that Amazon is longer (6,800 km). The ...

15 March 2008
09:05 GMT

The Largest Echolocating Bat Ever!

The flight-adapted fragile bones of the bats are hard to fossilize. That's why scientists have been complaining about the scarce number of bat fossils, for obtaining clues about how mammals evolved for flight. After the description of the oldest known bat species, Onychonycteris finneyi, 52.5 million years old, ...

10 March 2008
04:46 GMT

Zulu, the Most Fearful Black Warriors

In Austral Africa, there is a local branch of the Bantu people called Nguni. The most famous of the Nguni tribes was Zulu, famous for its fights against the White colonists. Even if located in tropics, the high altitude of the plateau inhabited by these tribes cools down the clime. Zulu tribes were warlike, and confl...

28 February 2008
12:13 GMT

Maasai, The Lion Killers!

The Maasai are semi-nomad people inhabiting southwestern Kenya and northwestern Tanzania. The Maasai people practice cattle herding based on transhumance. The settlements of the Maasai are usually placed near a source of water and close to woodland. During the night, the livestock are kept in an enclosure made in the...

27 February 2008
16:51 GMT

Who Are the Fang People?

One of the main Bantu tribes in central Africa is represented by the Fangs, who inhabit Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon and Gabon. The Fangs came from Nigeria recently, during the Bantu expansion. Fang legends speak about terrible battles their ancestors fought against warriors covered by long clothes and riding horses. ...

26 February 2008
15:21 GMT

Who Are the Bidyogo?

The Bissagos Islands, located off the shore of Guinea Bissau (western Africa), are made of 5 main islands: Orango, Formossa, Caravela, Roxa and Boloma. The islands have shallow, sandy beaches that impede the access of medium-sized or high ships. The islands have forests and swamps, and mangroves install on many coast...

25 February 2008
16:06 GMT

Genes Show it: We Have All Come From Africa!

This study is the most impressive research so far tracking our evolutionary journey. The new research published in the Nature journal confirms that modern humans emerged in Africa and then spread into Asia to reach Europe, the Pacific and Americas. The team focused on 650,000 genetic markers in about 1,000 subjects f...

22 February 2008
05:42 GMT

Google Setting a Foothold in Africa

The Mountain View-based company has a craving for Africa. Although only five percent of the people living there are connected to the Internet, Google decided to establish a base and feel things out as they unfold, in a sort of "I was here first doing this" kind of way. Microsoft's unsolicited bid to take over Ya...

6 February 2008
04:00 GMT

Lamu, the Forgotten Kenyan Zanzibar

For the first Europeans navigating around Africa during the 15th century, these islands were vital. In those times, Africa was full of luxuries: gold, ivory, spices and slaves. These first explorers found on the middle of the east African shore a safe and deep port for their fragile boats. The port was protected by c...

19 December 2007
09:31 GMT

Wildebeests and Lions: the Amazing Migration of the African Savanna

This is the main character of all documentaries made on the savanna. We like to watch lions, hyenas or wild dogs hunting and in most cases they hunt wildebeests. That's because this is the most common African antelope of the savanna. Today wildebeests live only in eastern/southern Africa, but 300-400,000 years a...

12 December 2007
14:06 GMT

New Huge Carnivorous Dinosaur: Bigger than T-rex!

T-rex was not exactly the champ of the bullies during the dinosaur era. It was indeed up to 12.8 (38 ft) long and 7.2 tonnes heavy (more than an elephant!), but the 1993 discovered Giganotosaurus from Argentine was longer: up to 13.6 m (40 ft) long. Still, the largest carnivore dinosaur (and land carnivore in genera...

12 December 2007
05:10 GMT

The Largest Spitting Cobra Species Ever: More than 9 ft (2.7 m) Long!

Cobras are famous for their hood display, but some African species also because... they spit venom, like the black necked spitting cobra (Naja nigricollis) or ringed necked spitting cobras (Hemachatus hemachatus). They target the eyes and can spit with precision to a distance of 1.8 m (6 ft), but the venom can go eve...

10 December 2007
02:51 GMT

Three Issues About HIV

1. AIDS is a huge menace for the public health, but in Africa it also has a deep impact on the economical side. With about 28 million cases of HIV positive and 2 million annual deaths, HIV epidemic in the sub-Saharan Africa is going to cancel the progresses registered in social and economical development. African com...

3 December 2007
14:06 GMT


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