Science and Technology

Sunday, 11 September 2022 06:51

Nigeria to improve wheat production with locally modified seeds

Nigeria, Africa’s largest buyer of wheat, is partnering with food company Olam International Ltd. to develop seed varieties of the grain that are suitable for its climate, which will boost local output and cut dependence on imports. Olam unit Crown Flour Mill Ltd., has produced so-called nucleus seeds suitable for the West African nation’s topography and climate, Ashish Pande, the country head for Olam Agri Nigeria, said at a virtual media briefing on Friday. Bloomberg

Thursday, 08 September 2022 06:47

Apple’s iPhone 14 offers camera upgrades, satellite feature

Apple Inc. unveiled a new lineup of devices Wednesday with few surprises beyond one major one: It didn’t raise its US prices during one of the worst years for inflation in decades. At its biggest product-launch event of the year, dubbed Far Out, the company introduced the iPhone 14, fresh AirPods Pro earbuds and an Apple Watch upgrade that included a first-ever Ultra model. The iPhone retains the general look of the older version while getting camera enhancements, a long-anticipated satellite-messaging feature and -- on the higher-end models -- a new interface called the Dynamic Island. Apple is betting the…

Monday, 05 September 2022 06:36

FG, Binance in talks for Digital City to develop blockchain

Nigerian authorities and cryptocurrencies platform Binance Holdings Ltd. are in talks to establish a digital economic zone that will help entrepreneurs fast track blockchain technology in the West African nation. The partnership aims to build a digital hub, “similar to the Dubai virtual free zone,” according to statement by the Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, is targeting digital technology as a means to help diversify the economy away from crude oil, taking advantage of an increasingly connected and youthful population. Fintech startups such as Interswitch Ltd. and Flutterwave Inc. has emerged in the space and…

Friday, 02 September 2022 06:55

Jumia adopts drone delivery, pick-up for hard-to-reach areas

Africa-focused e-commerce firm Jumia Technologies has partnered with drone-delivery startup Zipline to deliver household items to remote areas of Ghana, the companies said on Thursday. The venture will combine San Francisco-based Zipline's automated, on-demand delivery system with Jumia's distribution network to enable customers from remote and rural areas to order and receive electronics, cosmetics, fashion and other products. Jumia, an online marketplace for vendors and food sellers, with associated services including logistics and payments, was the first Africa-focused tech start-up to list on the New York Stock Exchange in 2019. It has a current market capitalisation of $741 million, according…

Monday, 29 August 2022 06:45

NAFDAC: Nigeria now has capacity to produce Covid-19 vaccine

Mojisola Adeyeye, director-general of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), says Nigeria now has the capacity to produce Covid-19 vaccines of international standard. Adeyeye spoke on Saturday during the oversight visit of the House of Representatives committee on Covid-19 to the NAFDAC facilities and Covid-19 laboratory projects in Lagos. Sayo Akintola, NAFDAC media consultant, in a statement on Sunday, quoted Adeyeye as saying: “To ensure that the health sector is strengthened, NAFDAC must be strengthened, if the regulatory agency is not strengthened, the industry will not be strengthened. “We have the African Free trade Agreement…

Thursday, 25 August 2022 06:41

MTN has announced its 5G rollout plan in 7 locations across Nigeria. These are the cities to first enjoy the high speed internet tech

MTN initiated a trial of its 5G technology in the country on Wednesday with seven Nigerian cities targeted for a start when the services launch proper, the wireless operator said in a statement to the Nigerian Exchange. The pioneering feat comes more than eight months after the telecom firm and Mafab Communications Limited won a bidding for the two slots available for the start of the spectrum services in the country. Both firms had received permits to operate 5G services in the first week of May. Broadband penetration in Africa’s most populous country of over 200 million people has only…

Friday, 19 August 2022 07:32

China's new sky train levitates on a magnetic track 33 feet in the air

China is well known for its futuristic maglev trains, which use electromagnets to propel the vehicles over tracks at high speeds. Now the country has unveiled its first suspended maglev line built with permanent magnets, which engineers claim can keep a 'sky train' afloat even without a power supply. The 2,600ft experimental track, known as the Red Rail, is located in Xingguo county, Jiangxi province, in southern China. It uses powerful magnets to produce a constantly repelling force strong enough to lift a train with 88 passengers into the air, according to a report in the South China Morning Post.…

Sunday, 14 August 2022 06:45

Thinking of living up to 200 years? Scientists are working on a drug to help you achieve that longevity

Adding another 100 years to your lifespan might be the stuff of science fiction but scientists are working on a miracle drug that would make it a reality. The drug, taken in pill form, works by eliminating cells that contribute to the ageing process in the human body, thus potentially doubling our lifespan. Human ageing is hurried along by cells called ‘zombie cells’, scientifically known as senescent cells. These cells stop dividing over our lifespan, accumulate inside our bodies, and eventually release compounds that speed up ageing. The drug has been tested on mice in a 2020 trial and the…

Thursday, 11 August 2022 06:51

The big myth about charging tech you should stop believing

The average consumer will replace a smartphone 2.6 years after buying it (via Statista). If you have a laptop, you can expect it to last at least 4 to 7 years before you need an upgrade, according to Tech Guided. However, the lifespan of your smartphone, laptop, and even your electric vehicle depends on the battery's health. In fact, fewer people tend to upgrade their smartphones if they have an option to replace the battery -- Apple found this out after a loss in its revenue. Of course, batteries are not meant to last forever but you can make them…

Wednesday, 10 August 2022 06:40

WhatsApp extends time limit to delete a message, boosts privacy features

WhatsApp now allows you to delete a message for up to two days and 12 hours (60 hours in total), so you can remove an accidentally sent chat even after hours. Previously, this limit was 1 hour, 8 minutes and 16 seconds — yep, there were seconds involved. The company’s tweet about this feature just mentioned “little over two days” but didn’t specify the 12-hour part. WhatsApp first introduced the unsend feature back in 2017 with a time limit of just seven minutes but later increased it to one hour and eight minutes. Last year, WABetaInfo noted that the company…

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Sunday, 07 August 2022 05:57

Neuroscience says these 5 simple tricks will calm your anxiety instantly

We live in anxiety-ridden times. What's going to happen to the economy? Is political strife going to get worse? Am I doing the right things with my life? Fortunately, we can point to simple techniques that neuroscience suggests work effectively to make people much less anxious – quicker than you think. Here are five of them: 1. Listen to this specially designed song I'm putting this first because it's my favorite and I'm still shocked at how well it works. A decade ago, British musicians teamed up with sound therapists to record a song called Weightlessness that stimulates specific neurological…

Friday, 05 August 2022 06:59

How the Hellfire missiles used to kill al-Qaeda leader al-Zawahiri work

Photos showing the home in the heart of Kabul where al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in a CIA drone strike earlier this week show very little structural damage and U.S. officials say no one else was injured. To make that happen it appears that planners decided to use modified versions of the Hellfire missiles that are the main weapons carried by MQ-9 Reaper drones. Used in other counterterrorism drone strikes, the R9X missile is a version of the Hellfire missile that has an inert warhead and whose main feature is the deployment of metal blades that kill targets with…

Thursday, 28 July 2022 06:40

After chess robot breaks boy's finger, it's clear the machines are coming for us

I take no joy in saying this, but for our own survival, we humans must immediately destroy all robots. They drew first blood. In case you missed the news story – perhaps because you were kidnapped by a self-driving robot car – a chess-playing robot at a tournament in Russia grabbed and broke a 7-year-old boy’s finger during a game last week. Video of what I’m calling “the attack” shows a robotic arm lifting a chess piece off the board, followed by the boy quickly sliding a different piece across the board. As the human child is moving the piece,…

Tuesday, 26 July 2022 06:52

Why it's so hard to defend against cruise missiles

On July 14, the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC held a one-day conference premised on a specific threat: What if, in the future, war comes to the United States via cruise missile? Pointing to new developments in cruise missile technology, and the limitations of existing early warning systems that are focused on the high arcing trajectories of ballistic missiles, the CSIS conference and accompanying report suggests that to defend the continental United States from such a threat, the military should adapt and deploy the kind of cruise missile defenses presently used as regional weapons. Unlike ballistic…

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