Author: The Conversation

Thousands of years ago, the blacksmith led a technological leap in sub-Saharan Africa. West Africa’s Nok culture, for example, switched from using stone tools to iron around 1500BC. Imagine an innovative artisan like this re-emerging in the 21st century equipped with digital technologies. This is not Wakanda science fiction. It is the story of a real promise that 3D printing holds for an industrial revolution on the African continent. 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, is a fabrication process in which a three-dimensional object is built (printed) by adding layer upon layer of materials to a series of shapes. The material can be metal, alloys, plastics or concrete.…

Many would be familiar with Reddit as one of the largest social networking sites, with a large group of forums (“subreddits”) catering to almost any interest. Since the beginning of April, Reddit has played host to a massive collaborative art project called r/place that simultaneously shows us some of the best and worst attributes of cybercultures. Originally launched in 2017, r/place ran for 72 hours. The lifespan of the new r/place was also short – ultimately lasting for just five days. Beginning initially as a blank canvas, r/place allows users to place one coloured pixel every five minutes (or 20 minutes for unverified accounts)…

A report from the UK’s communications regulator Ofcom confirms children are avid social media users. Some 99% of children aged three to 17 used the internet in 2021. YouTube was the most popular platform, with 89% of children using it. Meanwhile, half of kids used TikTok, a popular site which allows users to watch and share short videos. Most social media platforms require users to be aged 13 or older. Nonetheless, the report found that a majority of children under 13 had their own profile on at least one social media app or site. One-third of parents of children aged five to seven…

Intel’s proposed US$30 billion (£23 billion) investment in semiconductor manufacturing capacity across Europe has the potential to significantly boost the continent’s struggling chip industry. The US giant is poised to invest an initial US$17 billion to build a cutting-edge semiconductor factory (known as a fab) in Germany, along with associated R&D facilities to develop new generations of chips in France, Ireland and Poland. It is also in negotiations with the Italian government to develop a manufacturing facility in that country. If such proposals come to fruition, the overall investment could top US$80 billion and create over 3,000 high-tech jobs and many more…

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has raised fears among the public about the use of nuclear weapons in Europe or against the United States. This level of concern has not been seen since the end of the Cold War. NATO countries have been taken aback by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s implied threats to use nuclear weapons against “whoever interferes with us” in Ukraine, and his placement of additional nuclear officers on shifts under a “special regime of combat duty.” Both Russia and the U.S. have thousands of nuclear weapons, most of which are five or more times more powerful than the atomic bombs that leveled Hiroshima…

It takes expensive tools to learn about the universe, but projects like the Very Large Array for radio astronomy in New Mexico and the Chandra X-ray Observatory, which orbits Earth, have pushed scientific knowledge forward in ways that would not have been possible without these instruments. Every 10 years, astronomers and astrophysicists outline priorities for the hardware they need in the decadal survey on astronomy and astrophysics. The newest version of the survey was published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine in late 2021, and debates about funding are in full swing for the next fiscal year. I’m a professor…

The rise in the use of smartphones and an increased adoption of mobile internet in Africa are fundamentally altering the media ecology for election campaigns. As mobile phones become commonplace, even in Africa’s poorest countries, the uptake of social media has become ubiquitous. Applications like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WhatsApp and blogs form an integral part of today’s political communication landscape in much of the continent. These platforms are becoming a dominant factor in electoral processes, playing a tremendous role in the creation, dissemination and consumption of political content. Their influence and embedded power over political content invites further scrutiny, which informed my research. Is the rise…

More than 5 million people in the United States are affected by limb loss or paralysis. Technological devices that directly interact with the brain, known as brain-computer interfaces, offer the potential to decode an individual’s thoughts and translate them into action using a robotic arm or a cursor on a screen. These neuroprosthetics can take the place of an amputated or paralyzed arm, for instance, helping the user take an action. Much research in this field to date has focused on decoding brain signals – what is it that the person wants to do? But there’s another equally important part of any real-world prosthetic system.…

As manufacturers introduce new models of electric vehicles, demand for them is growing steadily. New EV sales in the U.S. roughly doubled in 2021 and could double again in 2022, from 600,000 to 1.2 million. Auto industry leaders expect that EVs could account for at least half of all new U.S. car sales by the end of the decade. EVs appeal to different customers in different ways. Many buyers want to help protect the environment; others want to save money on gasoline or try out the latest, coolest technology. In areas like California and Texas that have suffered large weather-related power failures in recent years, consumers are starting to consider EVs…

As the global population has expanded over time, agricultural modernisation has been humanity’s prevailing approach to staving off famine. A variety of mechanical and chemical innovations delivered during the 1950s and 1960s represented the third agricultural revolution. The adoption of pesticides, fertilisers and high-yield crop breeds, among other measures, transformed agriculture and ensured a secure food supply for many millions of people over several decades. Concurrently, modern agriculture has emerged as a culprit of global warming, responsible for one-third of greenhouse gas emissions, namely carbon dioxide and methane. Meanwhile, inflation on the price of food is reaching an all-time high, while malnutrition…