Location: Africa

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The 7th African School of Fundamental Physics and Applications (ASP) will be held in-person at Nelson Mandela University in Gqeberha, South Africa, from November 28 to December 9, 2022. Teams of leading physicists from U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratories and universities and other institutions across the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Africa will introduce more than 70 African graduate students to physics theories, experiments, and technologies.

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A pioneering scheme to help reduce illegal waste dumping and increase plastic recycling in South Africa has begun, under the guidance of experts from the University of Portsmouth.

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While motivations change with socio-economic context, hunting intensity is more constant.

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A study led by the University of Kentucky has been selected for funding by the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) “Biodiversity on a Changing Planet” program, an international, transdisciplinary effort that addresses major challenges related to climate change. The five-year project has been awarded nearly $2.5 million.

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To feed Africa’s growing population, agricultural-food systems need to be modernized. In a new study, researchers analyzed how continental free trade and agricultural development could ensure sustainable food security for Africa.

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A portable diagnostic device designed by researchers at Cornell Engineering and Weill Cornell Medicine has been deployed in clinical tests in Uganda to identify cases of Kaposi sarcoma, a common yet difficult-to-detect cancer that often signals the presence of HIV infection.

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A new study – published in the CABI Agriculture & Bioscience journal – has reviewed progress made towards an eco-friendly insect pest management approach in subtropical agro-ecosystems in South Africa.

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A new study involving hospitalized women in 6 African countries from the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s Institute of Human Virology showed that pregnant women with SARS-CoV-2 had 2X the risk of being admitted to the ICU and 4X the risk of dying than pregnant women who didn't have COVID-19.

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To build a resource that greatly expands Alzheimer’s disease genetic studies in the currently underrepresented African ancestry populations and Hispanic/Latinx groups, the John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics (HIHG) at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine will lead a major five-year, international, multi-site initiative with Case Western Reserve University, Columbia University, Wake Forest University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Ibadan, which is the lead institution for the African Dementia Consortium (AfDC).

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Newborns, whose brains, spines or spinal cords do not properly develop in utero, can be born with neural tube defects (NTD), increasing their risk of physical disabilities, intellectual impairments and death. Newborns in eastern Africa are nearly five times more likely to have a NTD compared to those in the United States.

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Cancer cases and deaths are expected to double in Africa during the next two decades, according to findings from a new study by Penn State College of Medicine researchers.

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Historic graffiti of ships carved in an African fort were drawn by soldiers on guard duty watching the sea, University of Exeter experts believe.

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UTSW scientists identify key molecule produced by male parasitic worms that affects sexual maturity in females and leads to schistosomiasis

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Billion-pound tax dodging companies behave like ‘parasites’, robbing from the poor on a grand scale, according to new research.

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Racial hierarchies and a lack of the ‘right sort’ of social connections are hindering African-born migrants from securing meaningful employment in South Australia, according to new research by the University of South Australia.

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The fellowship is for CSUDH Professor of History Bianca Murillo's next book, Financing Africa’s Future: A Socio-Economic History of Ghana, 1950-1980.

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The African BioGenome Project (AfricaBP) published a position paper in the journal Nature highlighting the goals, priorities, and roadmap of the impressive Africa-led effort to sequence the genomes of plants, animals, fungi, and protists that are endemic to the continent of Africa.

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Ancient DNA from the remains of nearly three dozen African foragers sheds new light on how groups across sub-Saharan Africa lived, traveled and settled prior to the spread of herding and farming. The study findings, to be published in Nature, produced the earliest DNA of humans on the continent.

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African children and adolescents hospitalized with COVID-19 experience much higher mortality rates than Europeans or North Americans, according to a study conducted by the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the Institute of Human Virology Nigeria.

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University of Washington scientists and U.S. officials used genetic testing of ivory shipments seized by law enforcement to uncover the international criminal networks behind ivory trafficking out of Africa, exposing an even higher degree of connection among smugglers than previously known.

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A new study by UCLA researchers and colleagues demonstrates that the Ebola vaccine known as rVSVΔG-ZEBOV-GP results in a robust and enduring antibody response among vaccinated individuals in areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that are experiencing outbreaks of the disease. Among the more than 600 study participants, 95.6% demonstrated antibody persistence six months after they received the vaccine. The study is the first published research examining post–Ebola-vaccination antibody response in the DRC, a nation of nearly 90 million. While long-term analyses of the study cohort continue, the findings will help inform health officials’ approach to vaccine use for outbreak control, the researchers said.

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Baltimore, Maryland, USA, February 8, 2021: The Global Virus Network (GVN), representing 68 Centers of Excellence and 10 Affiliates in 36 countries comprising foremost experts in every class of virus causing disease in humans, and the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) in Durban announced the addition of CAPRISA as GVN’s newest Center of Excellence.

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The $45,000 award will support the Bitter Aloe Project, which uses machine learning models to extract data from records produced by South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

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A new study, led by researchers from Bar-Ilan University, Ono Academic College, The University of Tulsa, and the Israel Antiquities Authority, presents a 1.5 million-year-old human vertebra discovered in Israel's Jordan Valley.

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Researchers from University of Illinois Chicago have received funding to study a novel diagnostic kit for preeclampsia. Preeclampsia is pregnancy-related hypertension that can occur at or after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Left untreated, preeclampsia can disrupt fetal growth and lead to preterm birth and stillbirth. In mothers, it can also cause kidney and liver failure and culminate in seizures, coma and death.

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Children in sub-Saharan Africa who are hospitalized with COVID-19 are dying at a rate far greater than children in the U.S. and Europe, according to a new multicenter study published today in JAMA Pediatrics and led by a University of Pittsburgh infectious diseases epidemiologist.

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A team of scientists, led by the University of Bristol, in co-operation with colleagues from Goethe University, Frankfurt, has uncovered the first insights into the origins of West African plant-based cuisine, locked inside pottery fragments dating back some 3,500 years ago.

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Since his 2016 epilepsy diagnosis, Bright M. Bwalya has shared information about epilepsy through radio and TV interviews, education sessions, and a mobile app. He works to correct misinformation and to remind people that "you are not your epilepsy."

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The world’s very first invention of writing took place over 5000 years ago in the Middle East, before it was reinvented in China and Central America.

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More than $2 million in grants from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will allow a Penn Medicine team to further develop infrastructure and clinical capacity to address antimicrobial resistance and infectious diseases in Botswana.

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South African geneticist Ambroise Wonkam, M.D., Ph.D., D.Med.Sc., has been selected as Johns Hopkins Medicine’s director of the Department of Genetic Medicine and the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine.

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Male elephants are more aggressive when fewer older males are present, new research suggests.

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How do climate change and human-elephant conflict affect household food security in Africa? NAU wildlife conservationist Duan Biggs spent three years with an international team of researchers investigating the dynamics between wildlife, people and the environment on the African savannah to better understand how both climate change and human-elephant conflict can impact household food insecurity in the region.

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Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI), announces the publication of the scientific paper Savanna fire management can generate enough carbon revenue to help restore Africa’s rangelands and fill Protected Area funding gaps in the December issue of the journal One Earth. The new study builds on a history of collaborative and independent research by BRI, The Nature Conservancy (TNC), Soils for the Future, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), and the Wildlife Conservation Network (WCN) that has culminated in this paper, which quantifies the benefits of savanna fire management in Africa.

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The Climate Resilient Farming Systems program at Cornell is playing a key role in an initiative to make rice more resilient to climate change and increase production of the staple crop for smallholder rice farmers across 13 West African countries, thanks to a four-year, $14 million grant from the Adaptation Fund.

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The Cornell University Assistantship for Horticulture in Africa, a program that brings master’s students from sub-Saharan Africa to Cornell to complete doctorate degrees in horticulture, has now added a second assistantship for African Americans.