Location: Africa

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UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have identified hundreds of genomic variants associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in East African families who have a markedly higher prevalence of the neurodevelopmental condition than other populations worldwide. The study, published in Cell Genomics, is the first to investigate the genetics of ASD in an African population, an important step toward decreasing racial and ethnic health disparities for this condition, the authors said.

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Stony Brook University will honor the life and legacy of eminent paleoanthropologist, conservationist and politician Richard E. Leakey by hosting “Africa: The Human Cradle: An International Conference Paying Tribute to Richard E. Leakey” from June 5 - 9, 2023 at the university’s Charles B. Wang Center. The Turkana Basin Institute (TBI) and Stony Brook are hosting the conference, in partnership with the National Geographic Society. Thought leaders from around the world will celebrate the immeasurable, life-long contributions by Leakey to furthering the appreciation of Africa’s centrality in the narrative of human evolution.

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To give the authorities a cross-sectoral view of a city’s nutrient sink status, the researchers identified and analysed a range of waste flows. Their approach distinguished four nested spatial levels: the urban area; the potential territorial recycling system; the country and the international level. Based on that analysis, the researchers focused on the origin and fate of those nutrient-containing waste flows.

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Rutgers Institute for Health researcher, Dr. Ashley Grosso, receives grant from NIH to conduct study on barriers to HIV research in Africa.

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Uganda’s anti-homosexuality bill, if signed into law, could lead to the withdrawal of foreign aid and threaten goals to end HIV/AIDS by 2030, advocates warn.

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A team of researchers from Mauritius and Manchester University has used crowd-sourced data to simulate radio leakage from mobile towers and predict what an alien civilization might detect from various nearby stars, including Barnard's star, six light years away from Earth.

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Surgeons in Zambia completed the country’s first total aortic arch replacement – guided by a team from University of Michigan Health. Zambia, a country of around 20 million people, has fewer than 10 cardiac specialists in both the government and private sector. Cardiovascular disease is the nation’s second leading cause of death.

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Researchers are helping women entrepreneurs in Uganda grow small businesses by investing in energy-efficient technology. Helping the women invest in energy-efficient equipment and appliances could benefit them and their communities as well as reduce their business’s carbon footprint.

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Using rigorous and detailed collection methods, a University of Minnesota Twin Cities-led research team was able to place the remains of fossil apes, such as Morotopithecus, within detailed habitat reconstructions.

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The disastrous flood that hit Durban in April 2022 was the most catastrophic natural disaster yet recorded in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) in collective terms of lives lost, homes and infrastructure damaged or destroyed and economic impact.

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Pests and diseases may reduce global wheat yields by over 20%. A study published April 11th in the open access journal PLOS Biology by Sergio Latorre at University College London, UK and colleagues suggest that genomic surveillance may be an effective disease management tool with the ability to trace lineages of emerging crop diseases, and to identify genetic traits for breeding disease-resistant lines.

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The Inclusive Wealth Index (IWI) is a sustainable development and economic progress metric that transcends the conventional means of measuring a nation’s prosperity.

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The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has recognized physicist and humanitarian Sekazi Mtingwa for his invaluable work in the field of intrabeam scattering and particle accelerator research as well as his tireless efforts to promote accessibility, diversity, and equity in STEM. Mtingwa’s career and achievements exemplified the theme of this year’s meeting? “Science for Humanity.

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The largest-yet analysis of ancient DNA in Africa, which includes the first ancient DNA recovered from members of the medieval Swahili civilization, has now broken the stalemate about the extent to which people from outside Africa contributed to Swahili culture and ancestry.

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A team of MIT researchers has come up with a kind of tiny, biodegradable tag that can be applied directly to the seeds themselves, and that provides a unique randomly created code that cannot be duplicated.

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Chemical and isotopic analysis of copper artifacts from southern Africa reveals new cultural connections among people living in the region between the 5th and 20th centuries according to a University of Missouri researcher and colleagues.

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AIP has selected Mahouton Norbert Hounkonnou as the winner of the 2023 John Torrence Tate Medal for International Leadership in Physics. The award committee selected Hounkonnou “for leadership in building and maintaining an enduring transnational African mathematical physics research and education community, in particular the COPROMAPH conferences and schools and Academy level international networks.” The award includes a certificate of recognition, bronze medal, and $10,000 prize and Hounkonnou will be presented with the medal during an upcoming physical sciences community event.

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For the past few years, how a virus triggered a global pandemic has dominated conversations. Now, thanks to the TV show “The Last of Us” (about an apocalypse triggered by brain-eating ’shrooms), fungi have infected popular culture.

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A first-of-its-kind study in the March 2023 issue of JNCCN highlights how the lack of genomic research for people with African ancestry, particularly those from the Sub-Saharan region, is hampering efforts to reduce disparities for people with advanced prostate cancer.

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New research led by the University of Delaware shows transnational agricultural large-scale land acquisitions (TALSLAs), and the forest loss associated with them, pose a threat to biodiversity in the Global South — broadly defined as the nations of the world with low levels of economic and industrial development that are typically located to the south of more industrialized nations.

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Using a new dataset, Rafael Prieto-Curiel of the Complexity Science Hub and colleagues analyzed the coordinates and surface of 183 million buildings in nearly 6,000 cities across all 52 countries in Africa.

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Endangered great apes get malaria, just like humans. New evidence from wild bonobos shows us the infection harms them, too.

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UMD Smith's Lemma Senbet, an advisor to the G20 Compact with Africa, describes the impetus and economic implications of South Africa joining a 10-day naval exercise with Russia and China.

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Figshare has formed a new partnership with the African Library and Information Associations and Institutions (AfLIA), which is committed to open data and information sharing across Africa.

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More than 1.1 million African American men are imprisoned in the U.S., and about 500,000 are fathers. Many of their fathers also served time in jail or prison, and many of their children will as well. A new study illustrates how incarceration is a destructive force in the African American community, especially for fathers. Researchers mined the feelings, perceptions and experiences of formerly imprisoned African American men to identify how incarceration has impacted their relationships with their fathers and sons; their definitions of fatherhood; and their perceived roles within families, communities and society.

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A recent study performed in Zambia by University of Maryland School of Medicine’s (UMSOM) Institute of Human Virology researchers found that high uptake of HIV preventative medicine, known as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), is possible in prison populations with adequate resources and support from the criminal justice health system.

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Based on data that span the past 120 years, scientists at Georgetown University Medical Center have found that the mosquitoes responsible for transmitting malaria in Africa are spreading deeper into southern Africa and to higher elevations than previously recorded. The researchers estimate that Anopheles mosquito populations in sub-Saharan Africa have gained an average of 6.5 meters (21 feet) of elevation per year, and the southern limits of their ranges moved south of the equator by 4.7 kilometers (nearly 3 miles) per year.

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Along the shores of Africa’s Lake Victoria in Kenya roughly 2.9 million years ago, early human ancestors used some of the oldest stone tools ever found to butcher hippos and pound plant material, according to new research led by scientists with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and Queens College, CUNY, as well as the National Museums of Kenya, Liverpool John Moores University and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

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Replacing traditional biomass-burning cookstoves across sub-Saharan Africa could save more than 463,000 lives and US $66 billion in health costs annually, according to a new analysis of the most socially optimal cooking technologies in Africa.

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The EU regularly exports large quantities of poultry meat to West African countries. These exports have been criticized for harming importing countries in West Africa and exacerbating poverty there.

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Half a million lives could be saved each year in sub-Saharan Africa by taking action to reduce reliance on traditional wood- and charcoal-burning stoves, a new study shows.

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A $50 million gift from Woburn, Mass.-based Cummings Foundation will build upon and amplify the work of the late Paul Farmer, a champion of global health. The gift establishes the Paul Farmer Collaborative of Harvard Medical School and the University of Global Health Equity (UGHE) in Rwanda. It will be divided equally between the two institutions.

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A three-dose regimen of a whole-parasite vaccine against malaria – called Plasmodium falciparum sporozoite (PfSPZ) vaccine – demonstrated safety and efficacy when tested in adults living in Burkina Faso, West Africa, which has endemic malaria.

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An international team of researchers has mapped out the values and benefits of elephants to help overcome conservation challenges and conflict.

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First discovered a year ago in South Africa, the SARS-CoV-2 variant later dubbed “Omicron” spread across the globe at incredible speed.