Making a Brain In Silicon:Kwabena Boahen via Timbuktu Chronicles
From the TED Website:
Stanford researcher Kwabena Boahen is looking for ways to mimic the brain's supercomputing powers in silicon -- because the messy, redundant processes inside our heads actually make for a small, light, superfast......
NextEinstein recruiting via Timbuktu Chronicles
From the TED Blog:
The Next Einstein Initiative (NEI) is building a network of postgraduate centres of excellence for teaching and research in the mathematical sciences, throughout Africa.
NEI is now recruiting a Chief Executive Officer, to manage all aspects of the development and implementation of the NEI programme. The successful applicant will be strongly committed to African development and...
Real IPM via Timbuktu Chronicles
From their website:
The Real IPM company (a development marketplace finalist) mass produces beneficial insects and biopesticides for use in Integrated Pest Management programmes in Kenya and beyond, providing growers with good quality, affordable biological controls...If pesticides are not used to protect crops, the grower needs to use other methods, which could be naturally occurring biological...
Moving on via Extra Extra
“Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate.”
The delightful Frank Luntz, in a memo to the US Republican Party, 2003
“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising global average sea level.”
4th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007
“Few PR offences have been so obvious, so successful and so despicable as the attack on the scientific certainty of climate change.”
Jim Hogg, PR professional,... Appropedia via Timbuktu Chronicles
"...Appropedia is a living library of appropriate technology and open design, also covering sustainability and broader international development issues including public health, water, sanitation, community development, agriculture, renewable energy and urban...
Improving research data sharing and management via AgInfo News from IAALD
Lebônê via Timbuktu Chronicles
Lebônê's "energy from dirt" solution "...combines efficient lighting technology with a simple energy source readily available to all Africans in the form of microbial fuel cells. These inexpensive fuel cells run on animal and plant waste and naturally occurring soil microbes, and are framed around a flexible substrate (wood, steel, etc) that can vary by geographic availability. This is truly...
NextEinstein.org via Timbuktu Chronicles
"...The African Institute of Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) in collaboration with the TED (technology, entertainment design) Prize today announced the launch of NextEinstein.org, a website in support of the global campaign to unlock and nurture scientific talent across Africa.
NextEinstein is a program that provides the opportunity for Africans to develop as independent, creative problem solvers...
Learning to communicate science via AgInfo News from IAALD
The Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research just published a training manual entitled 'communicating science.' While it misses an introduction explaining its purpose and use, the manual starts by asking 'Why scientists should communicate? what is scientific writing? and why scientists must write?The core of the manual is a series of modules that explain how to structure and present scientific information, as a report or article, also in a presentation. Each module contains questions and a quick reference guide to the main points covered.Under 'structure, it introduces titles and abstracts - writing titles that give them impact; literature reviews, paraphrasing and citation, materials and methods, results, and the discussion/conclusion of an article. The final module... “An African Einstein” via Timbuktu Chronicles
Neil Turok founder The African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) whose winning of a TED prize was posted earlier, announced his prize wish.From the TED prize site:
My wish is that you help us unlock and nurture scientific talent across Africa, so that within our lifetimes we are celebrating an African Einstein.”
Continue reading...
African University of Science and Technology via Timbuktu Chronicles
LadyBrille reports on developments at the African University of Science and Technology covered earlier:
Mark your calendars for July 2008 when in the state of Abuja, capital of Nigeria, West Africa, the doors open to admit the first set of students for the African University of Science and Technology [AUST]. "The African University of Science and Technology in Abuja (AUST – Abuja) was...
Polymath Interscience–Nanotechnology via Timbuktu Chronicles
Founded by David Adebimpe Polymath Interscience's underlying philosophy is one of 'Convergent Science':Or rather a cross-disciplinary, cross-perspective approach,which is necessary in addressing emerging technologies that require a knowledge and understanding of the dimensions that are of the nanoscale (10-9 meters) and below. At the nanoscale, the macroscopic rules that modulate the properties...
Pan-African Investment Partners II via Timbuktu Chronicles
The Guardian reports:
A private equity fund whose biggest investor is Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal is raising funds to invest $500 million throughout Africa.
The fund -- Pan-African Investment Partners II -- aims to ride on the back of strong economic growth on a continent where private equity has made much fewer inroads than in Europe and the United States, a top official of the...
Cedrick Ngalande’s Power Generator via Timbuktu Chronicles
Afrigadget highlights a prototype power generator fabricated by Cedrick Ngalande:
This gadget (powered by sugar and yeast) will be very ideal to developing countries like Africa where electricity is scarce. As you know, the growth of cell phone is fastest in Africa. The problem most Africans have is that they cannot charge those cell phones due to lack of electricity. Some have to walk long...
Winston Oluwole Soboyejo-Materials Researcher via Timbuktu Chronicles
Winston Oluwole Soboyejo is the founder of the US-Africa Materials Institute which seeks "...To promote interdisciplinary collaboration between U.S. and African researchers in the areas of materials research and education..."
Its researchers have done work in the following areas:
-Metallic thin films/MEMS structures and organic electronics (MEMS, microelectronics, alternative energy)...
Announcing TEDAfrica 2008! via Timbuktu Chronicles
From the TED Blog
Chris Anderson and Emeka Okafor write: We're delighted to tell you that there will be another TED conference in Africa next year, and that we hope to make it an annual event on the continent! TEDAfrica will be held in Cape Town, South Africa, September 29-October 1, 2008 (save the date!), and will follow the format of this year's TEDGlobal conference in Arusha, Tanzania....
Evans Medical via Timbuktu Chronicles
One of Nigeria's largest pharmaceutical manufacturer's Evans Medical was one of the pioneers in manufacturing from local raw materials its product line includes:...
Undermanaged Resources: Citropsis Articulata via Timbuktu Chronicles
Described as Uganda's "sex tree", Citropsis Articulata is under threat from over-exploitation. Other than being an underutilized resource what we have here is an under managed and non-value added one. Beyond the rudimentary methods of processing the naturally occurring aphrodisiac,are there any efforts being made to manufacture or brand its active ingredient?
via...
Madagascar Orchids via Timbuktu Chronicles
Frederic Garlan reports on the Madagascan Orchid industry:
Angraecum eburneum longicalcar had all but disappeared from its natural habitat when much of its forest home was destroyed, but for this project will be grown commercially in partnership with Madagascar farmers, and then exported to France. "These orchids can be grown for use as either cut flowers or for their cosmetic value," said Alban...
Green Chemistry via Timbuktu Chronicles
EthioBlog reports:
Green Chemistry focuses on greener ways of creating chemicals, and is now regarded as one of the major routes to more environmentally-friendly production of the chemicals that underpin modern society...it provides a unique opportunity for African chemists because it combines the search for new science with the development of sustainable chemical technologies appropriate to the...
Wind Pumps via Timbuktu Chronicles
Farming Solutions reports:
In the semi-arid Mwingi District in Eastern Kenya, Joseph Ututu and his three brothers have revolutionized the local water supply by digging wells and constructing a wind-pump. The ingenious pump, constructed from old bicycle parts and roofing materials was designed by Joseph Ututu after spending four years at a technical college...Evidence suggests that in rural...
Revisiting Traditional Medicine via Timbuktu Chronicles
SIU reports on the work of the Department of Traditional Medicine in Bamako(Mali):
In the capital Bamako there is a laboratory where researchers spend their working days studying the medicinal effects of plants brought in from around the country – selected on the advice of traditional healers. The laboratory has been established by the Malian government which is convinced that traditional...
Open Access and the Progress of Science via AgInfo News from IAALD
In the May-June 2007 issue of American Scientist, Alma Swan asks if open access can advance science? She argues that the answer is yes, and that the "advance of science is the prime reason that access is an imperative." Further, "open access can advance science and will do so more and more effectively as more scientists make their work freely available."
How to do this? While...
Name That Life Saver! via TIME.com: The TIME Global Health Blog
Forget Myspace. You should see what the Web 2.0 revolution is doing to medical journals. There’s a contest to name the most important medical advance since 1840 over at the venerable British Medical Journal. (Results to be posted on Jan. 18) The ultra-exclusive New England Journal of Medicine has a betablog in which they ask doctors and other readers how often they turn to Wikipedia for medical information. And Nature’s experiment in the social bookmarking of research articles just keeps growing.
But first prize still has to go to the Public Library of Science journals (plos.org), which jumped on the open-access research bandwagon early, and has been shaking up the paid-subscription journals ever since. No special licenses are required for doctors in poor countries to read...
Dissemination key to science uptake by policy-makers via AgInfo News from IAALD
A recent publication by DEFRA (www.defra,gov.uk) reports on a 2005 science meets policy workshop that discussed ways to improve linkages between policy needs and research programmes; and the accessibility of scientific knowledge to policy makers [in Europe]. Findings and recommendations on the accessibility and uptake of research in policy processes included:
The need for more effective processes aimed at 'translating' research results into inputs that could be useful and accessible to policy-makers. There is therefore great potential for various types of intermediaries and ‘translators’ to work at the science-policy interface.
New forms of communication for research need to include: policy briefs from policy-relevant research projects; the use of science cafes; and work with media...