Author: The Conversation

Facebook has faced a lot of criticism over the years for failing to moderate hate speech. Its policies have come under increasing scrutiny in recent weeks thanks to the Stop Hate for Profit campaign. Started by civil rights groups in the US, the campaign has led to some of Facebook’s biggest customers pulling their ads from the social media platform for the month of July. As much as 99% of Facebook’s US$70.7 billion (£55 billion) in revenues come through advertising and the boycott initially resulted in an 8% knock to Facebook’s market value (amounting to US$72 billion). Yet, even with the hundreds of companies that…

The Crew Dragon spacecraft, produced by private company SpaceX, is scheduled to return from the International Space Station (ISS) and splash down in the Atlantic ocean on August 2. Contingent on a favourable weather forecast and a successful final week at the ISS, NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley will begin the undocking procedure on August 1, and re-enter Earth’s atmosphere the next day – a total of 64 days since lift off. The historic launch took place on May 30 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, marking the first time a commercial space company has carried humans into orbit around Earth. But while the…

If a surgeon arrived at the operating theatre wearing a mask they had made that morning from a tea towel, they would probably be sacked. This is because the equipment used for important tasks, such as surgery, must be tested and certified to ensure compliance with specific standards. But anyone can design and make a face covering to meet new public health requirements for using public transport or going to the shops. Indeed, arguments about the quality and standard of face coverings underlie recent controversies and explain why many people think they are not effective for protecting against COVID-19. Even the…

This year, NASA is taking the next giant leap in the search for signs of life beyond Earth. On July 30, if the weather in Florida holds, NASA will launch its most sophisticated and ambitious spacecraft to Mars: the aptly named Perseverance rover. This will be the third launch to Mars this month, following the UAE’s Hope and China’s Tianwen-1 spacecraft. Perseverance will look for signatures of ancient life preserved in Mars rocks. And, for the first time, this rover will collect rock samples that will be brought back to Earth, where they can be scrutinized in laboratories for decades to come. Mars is one the…

Elite sports events are still largely closed to the world – but July 2020 has still been an unprecedented month for the global sporting calendar thanks to the world’s first Virtual Tour de France, which – despite the name – was based nowhere in particular, as riders took part from their homes in all parts of the world. It’s historic, not just because the event brought together the world of esports cycling and the iconic and gruelling race – this was also the first time that women competed in a multistage Tour. There were some key differences. Rather than being…

Drones of all sizes are being used by environmental advocates to monitor deforestation, by conservationists to track poachers, and by journalists and activists to document large protests. As a political sociologist who studies social movements and drones, I document a wide range of nonviolent and pro-social drone uses in my new book, “The Good Drone.” I show that these efforts have the potential to democratize surveillance. But when the Department of Homeland Security redirects large, fixed-wing drones from the U.S.-Mexico border to monitor protests, and when towns experiment with using drones to test people for fevers, it’s time to think about how many eyes…

It’s broadly accepted that there’s a close relationship between development and access to information. One of the first economists to make the link was Amartya Sen, who won the Nobel Prize in 1998 for his contributions to welfare economics. Increasingly over the past two decades, the internet has been a major factor affecting the right to development. The United Nations definition of this right is that: Every human person and all peoples are entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development. Today, all African countries have access to the internet, though the digital divide remains huge within…

We have developed four-winged bird-like robots, called ornithopters, that can take off and fly with the agility of swifts, hummingbirds and insects. We did this by reverse engineering the aerodynamics and biomechanics of these creatures. Our ornithopters have the potential to outperform and outmanoeuvre existing drone configurations with static wings or propellers. What are ornithopters? Ornithopters are flying machines based on the design of birds. Existing drone configurations rely on propellers and static wings. Ornithopters flap their wings to generate forward thrust. The complex relationship between aerodynamics and wing movements allows birds and insects to fly in ways that are impossible…

In countries like South Africa that face severe resource shortages, the burden of fighting COVID-19 falls heavily on citizens to change their behaviour and follow preventative measures. These include avoiding mass gatherings, physical distancing and wearing masks. But a crucial determinant of whether people will change their behaviour includes having access to credible health information that’s trusted and that people can adopt. Inadequate sources of information carry a number of risks. One of the biggest is that people who don’t have credible information will be more exposed to the virus because they are less likely to abide by these behaviour changes. The…

Massive open online classes, or MOOCs, have seen a surge in enrollments since March. Enrollment at Coursera – an online platform that offers MOOCs, has skyrocketed and was 640% higher from mid-March to mid-April than during the same period last year, growing from 1.6 to 10.3 million. The surge was driven in part by giving free catalog access for 3,800 courses to their university partners. Enrollment at Udemy – another MOOC provider – was up over 400% between February and March. These surges correspond to lock downs across the world as the pandemic started to rage. As an astronomy professor who teaches and studies…