Melissa is a warning – violent storms are increasing

The Conversation|Published

Hurricane Melissa is tearing through the Caribbean, bringing record-breaking wind and torrential rain to Jamaica – the island’s first ever category 5 landfall. What ...

Africa’s air links are poor: can the G20 push for more direct flights

The Conversation|Published

In Africa, less than one in five continental airline routes are direct, so getting from one country to another often requires travellers to fly to Europe or the ...

Chimpanzees make good doctors

The Conversation|Published

Chimpanzees use insects to tend to their wounds and sometimes even help others

AI is changing who gets hired

The Conversation|Published

AI is changing who gets hired – what skills will keep you employed?

The world's first pop star: why did women go gaga for pianist Franz Liszt?

The Conversation|Published

One widely circulated drawing from the 1840s crystallises the image. Women swoon or faint, others hurl flowers toward the stage. Men also appear to be struck by ...

The dark history of medical illustrations

The Conversation|Published

They were pregnant. Some were prisoners. Others were the poorest of the poor, forgotten in death as in life. Yet dissection and depiction of their bodies have become ...

Jane Goodall, the gentle disrupter whose research redefined what it meant to be human

The Conversation|Published

Anyone proposing to offer a master class on changing the world for the better, without becoming negative, cynical, angry or narrow-minded in the process, could model ...

University ranking systems are being rejected. African institutions should take note

The Conversation|Published

The Sorbonne University, founded in Paris in 1253 and known globally as a symbol of education, science and culture, has just announced that, starting in 2026, it ...

The Ganges is drying faster than ever – here’s what it means for the region and the world

The Conversation|Published

Climate change, shifting monsoons, relentless extraction and damming are pushing the mighty river towards collapse, with consequences for food, water and livelihoods ...

Inequality in Africa: what drives it, how to end it and what some countries are getting right

The Conversation|Published

The relationship between inequality and economic growth is a complex one, especially in Africa. Inequality is the result of a host of factors, including policy choices, ...

Deadly Nepal protests reflect a wider pattern of Gen Z political activism across Asia

The Conversation|Published

Provoked by the deaths of the protesters on September 8, angry, young demonstrators burned down several government buildings across the country, including the parliament ...

Trump was once India’s best friend. How did it all go wrong?

The Conversation|Published

Trump’s actions have ordinary Indians seething and demanding action, but the Modi government does not have good options.

World maps get Africa’s size wrong: This must be fixed

The Conversation|Published

The African Union has endorsed the #CorrectTheMap Campaign, a call for the United Nations and the wider global community to use a different kind of world map.

After 4 years of repressive Taliban rule, Afghans are suffering in silence

The Conversation|Published

Despite promises of moderation and inclusion, four years later, the Taliban has established a repressive, exclusionary regime – one that has dismantled institutions ...

The international order is shifting: Africa has an opportunity to reshape global power relations

The Conversation|Published

For too long, Africa’s agency has been exercised defensively: managing expectations, preserving stability, reacting to external scripts. The continent has copied ...

Women’s rugby is booming, but safety relies on borrowed assumptions from the men’s game

The Conversation|Published

More girls and women around the world are playing rugby now than ever before. However, many systems, including coaching and medical support, have not kept pace with ...

SA reading crisis: It’s not just the learners – it’s the system

The Conversation|Published

A recent study reveals that reading comprehension in South African classrooms is often assessed using overly simple questions, out of step with curriculum policy. ...

‘Are you joking, mate?’ AI doesn’t get sarcasm in non-American varieties of English

The Conversation|Published

Research shows the difficulty of large language models being able to detect sentiment and sarcasm in three varieties of English: Australian English, Indian English ...

What makes a person cool? Global study has some answers

The Conversation|Published

Data showed that despite cultural differences, coolness is uniquely associated with the same six traits around the world: cool people tend to be extroverted, hedonistic, ...

Sudan’s war is an economic disaster: here’s how bad it could get

The Conversation|Published

Since April 2023, Sudan has been engulfed in a devastating civil war that has turned into a national catastrophe. More than 14 million people have been displaced. ...

Could Rupert Murdoch bring down Donald Trump?

The Conversation|Published

If Rupert Murdoch becomes a white knight standing up to a rampantly bullying US president, the world has moved into the upside-down.

Do women really need more sleep than men?

The Conversation|Published

If you spend any time in the wellness corners of TikTok or Instagram, you’ll see claims women need one to two hours more sleep than men. But what does the research ...

Rituals, fear and blood: the new face of SA’s gang problem

The Conversation|Published

This column unpacks the rise of occult gangs in the Free State, where ritual murders and demonic symbols aren’t urban legends — they’re part of lived experience. ...

Tax season in SA: the system is designed to tackle inequality but falls short

The Conversation|Published

In a recent study we explore how features such as tax rates, deductions, credits, and bracket adjustments shape the redistributive capacity of South Africa’s personal ...

Cloned - Researchers say using ChatGPT can rot your brain. The truth is a little more complicated

The Conversation|Published

Is that really the case? According to a recent study by scientists from MIT, it appears so. Using ChatGPT to help write essays, the researchers say, can lead to ...