Author: The Conversation

Sixty six million years ago, sea monsters really existed. They were mosasaurs, huge marine lizards that lived at the same time as the last dinosaurs. Growing up to 12 metres long, mosasaurs looked like a Komodo dragon with flippers and a shark-like tail. They were also wildly diverse, evolving dozens of species that filled different niches. Some ate fish and squid, some ate shellfish or ammonites. Now we’ve found a new mosasaur preying on large marine animals, including other mosasaurs. The new species, Thalassotitan atrox, was dug up in the Oulad Abdoun Basin of Khouribga Province, an hour outside Casablanca in Morocco. At the end…

Russia’s Sputnik kicked off the space age in 1957. But Africa didn’t join until 1999. Why? Sputnik happened partly due to the cold war rivalry between the US and the former Soviet Union. During this period, most African countries were still under colonial rule. Only Ghana had gained independence, earlier that year. Through the colonial systems and structures put in place then, African countries had no control over their natural and human resources. The colonies were made to focus on the labour, raw materials and agricultural crops that were needed by their colonial masters. They could not pay attention to research and development,…

As data storage has become more accessible than ever, the amount of digital “stuff” we all have stashed away is on the rise, too – for many of us, it’s becoming more unwieldy by the day. In a recent paper published in the journal Information & Management, we have investigated a rising phenomenon called “digital hoarding” – the need to acquire and hold onto digital content without an intended purpose. The way we interact with digital content through easily available smartphones, social media and messaging apps only exacerbates the behaviour. Social media platforms especially encourage us to hoard, as our emotions…

Ontario recently announced a partial reform of its elementary and secondary school curricula to include mandatory learning on coding, as of September 2022. As researchers with combined expertise in teaching computer programming and curriculum development, it’s clear to us that this curricula is about computer programming, despite the fact that the province only uses the term “coding.” Coding is a most basic aspect of learning programming. Ontario’s decision is in line with those taken by Nova Scotia and British Columbia, which were the first and only Canadian provinces to make learning computer programming compulsory at the primary and secondary levels in 2015 and 2016…

Sputnik 1 was launched by the former Soviet Union on October 4, 1957, marking the start of the space age. Since then space activity has delivered many benefits. For instance, satellite imagery can be used in agriculture to predict food shortages and surplus harvests. It can also be used to forecast and monitor natural disasters like flooding. In recognition of this, by the second decade of the 21st century, more than 50 countries had space agencies, or other government bodies, carrying out space activities. Some African countries are also making their mark. The continent’s evolving space sector is reportedly worth USD$400 billion today. Various experts from across the…

Data breaches are becoming commonplace in both small and big tech companies. The most recent victim was Australian telecommunications company Optus, resulting in unauthorised access to the identity data of roughly 10 million people. Adding to the misery of the victims, this cyber-attack further unleashed a plethora of subsequent phishing and fraud attempts using the data obtained from this breach. Having more rigorous security measures when logging in can help to protect your accounts, and significantly reduces the likelihood of many automated cyber attacks. Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is a security measure that requires the user to provide two (also known as two-step verification or two-step authentication) or more…

Venus, often called Earth’s “evil twin” planet, formed closer to the Sun and has since evolved quite differently from our own planet. It has a “runaway” greenhouse effect (meaning heat is completely trapped), a thick carbon-dioxide-rich atmosphere, no magnetic field and a surface hot enough to melt lead. Several uncrewed scientific missions will study how and why that happened in the next decade. But now some scientists want to send a crewed mission there as well for a flyby. Is that a good idea? With a slightly smaller diameter than Earth, Venus orbits closer to the Sun. This means that any water on the surface…

We live in a world characterised by inequality, poverty, economic volatility, globalisation, climate change and ambiguity. In my own country, South Africa, residents have to navigate socioeconomic and political instability, power and water cuts, homelessness, unethical governance and mediocre or no service delivery. It is a far cry from what the country could be if we brought its best talent and resources to bear for the benefit of humanity. Innovation will be key to any positive changes – and research-intensive universities have a central to play in that innovation. As the University of the Witwatersrand (or Wits, as it’s commonly known) turns 100, my colleagues and I have been thinking…

Telecommuting has the potential to reduce traffic congestion, but other factors, such as increasing the distance between home and work or adding new trips, can contribute to producing more congestion. Studies conducted prior to the COVID-19 pandemic have shown that telecommuting can help reduce traffic congestion by decreasing the number of vehicles on roads at peak hours and the amount of time commuters spend on roads. For example, a 2004 study in Waterloo, Ont., showed that telecommuting could potentially reduce traffic congestion without affecting other household activities, such as errands, children’s activities or social outings. Yet the potential impacts of telecommuting…

Hundreds of kilometres from shore, and covering two-thirds of the Earth’s surface, the high seas are a world that few of us will ever see. After more than a year in the field, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ian Urbina concluded: “There are few remaining frontiers on our planet. Perhaps the wildest, and the least understood, are the world’s oceans.” Governed by no single country or authority, the high seas represent a literal and figurative final frontier. And in this age of information — where we can access livestreams from Mars, for example — we know shockingly little about the ocean. The race for oceanic…