Author: The Conversation

About 85% of South Africa’s electricity is produced by burning coal. The country’s move to renewable energy means that the coal industry will be phased out. To this end, the South African cabinet recently approved the country’s first renewable energy masterplan, which sets out what’s needed to establish new renewable energy industries. Ricardo Amansure of the Centre for Sustainability Transitions researches the move towards renewable energy and how communities can benefit from this. He explains what the masterplan aims to achieve, what problems it might face, and how it can succeed. What is the South African Renewable Energy Masterplan? It is an industrial strategy that sets out how…

Could we be on the verge of an era where fighter jets take flight without pilots – and are controlled by artificial intelligence (AI)? US R Adm Michael Donnelly recently said that an upcoming combat jet could be the Navy’s last one with a pilot in the cockpit. That marks a striking, if not entirely surprising, shift in thinking about the future of aerial warfare. The US Navy is not alone. Other programmes to develop next-generation fighter jets are also touting uncrewed options as a distinct possibility. However, we have been here before. Senior leaders in the US Navy said they believed the…

The active and ongoing global spread of avian influenza virus has impacted more than 14 million birds in Canada and 160 million in the USA. This recent outbreak has resulted in major economic losses, and a rise in egg prices in the past few years. This trend can cause disruptions in the poultry supply chain and significant increases in the price of other poultry products. A virus like avian influenza is carried by birds, but it can “jump” species and infect livestock such as dairy or sheep or even pets like dogs and cats. And most, if not all, human pandemic influenza viruses have had an…

In late 2017, a mysterious object tore through our solar system at breakneck speed. Astronomers scrambled to observe the fast moving body using the world’s most powerful telescopes. It was found to be one quarter mile (400m) long and very elongated – perhaps 10 times as long as it was wide. Researchers named it ‘Oumuamua, Hawaiian for “scout”. ‘Oumuamua was later confirmed to be the first object from another star known to have visited our solar system. While these interstellar objects (ISO) originate around a star, they end up as cosmic nomads, wandering through space. They are essentially planetary shrapnel, having been blasted…

Lithium-ion batteries are quietly powering large parts of the world, including electric vehicles and smartphones. They have revolutionized how people store and use energy. But as these batteries become more central to daily life, they bring more attention to the challenges of managing them and the energy they store safely, efficiently and intelligently. I’m a mechanical engineer who studies these nearly ubiquitous batteries. They have been around for decades, yet researchers like me are still trying to fully understand how these batteries behave – especially when they are working hard. Batteries may seem simple, but they are as complicated as the real-world uses…

In the heart of New York City’s Times Square, there are signs of an artificial intelligence (AI) revolution in marketing. In a health supplement store, a pop-up by British tech startup, Hypervsn, showcases life-size holograms. From behind the glass, a virtual humanoid avatar with spunky pink hair waves to passersby. Down the street, H&M — the Swedish fast-fashion giant — offers a new kind of immersive shopping experience. The flagship store showcases a room covered in mirrors equipped with virtual environments, encouraging shoppers to make social media content while they try on merchandise. And last month, H&M made waves with its newest AI…

Video game adaptations are having a moment. On television, shows like HBO’s The Last of Us and Amazon Prime’s Fallout — each based on popular game franchises — have been gigantic hits. On the big screen, 2023’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie broke box office records, and at the time of writing, A Minecraft Movie looks to be well on its way to generating one billion dollars in ticket sales. With these recent successes, it can be hard to remember that movie adaptations of video games have historically been notoriously bad, typically failing to win over audiences and critics alike. My first experience with adaptation disappointment came from the 1993 adaptation of…

As television grew rapidly in popularity in the second half of the 20th century, many people assumed it would cause a knock-on crisis for the film industry. After all, it meant that viewers no longer had to leave their sofas to enjoy onscreen entertainment. But the reality was far more nuanced. The “death of cinema” has been habitually touted ever since the introduction of the TV, but never really came to pass. Instead, cinema found ways to work with new competition through technological innovation, aesthetic invention and engaging with challenging subject matters. Today, lessons from the introduction of TV demonstrate…

What if your work self didn’t know about your personal life, and your home self had no idea what you did for a living? In Apple TV’s Severance, that’s exactly the deal: a surgical procedure splits the memories of employees into “innies” (who only exist at work) and “outies” (who never recall what they do from nine to five). On the surface, it sounds like an ideal solution to a growing cyber security problem of insider threats, such as leaks or sabotage by employees. After all, if an employee can’t remember what they accessed at work, how can they leak it,…

A team of astronomers announced on April 16, 2025, that in the process of studying a planet around another star, they had found evidence for an unexpected atmospheric gas. On Earth, that gas – called dimethyl sulfide – is mostly produced by living organisms. In April 2024, the James Webb Space Telescope stared at the host star of the planet K2-18b for nearly six hours. During that time, the orbiting planet passed in front of the star. Starlight filtered through its atmosphere, carrying the fingerprints of atmospheric molecules to the telescope. By comparing those fingerprints to 20 different molecules that they would potentially expect to observe in…