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Articles from The Conversation that may interest readers of this blog will occasionally be re-published here.
Given that male hippos compete fiercely for access to females, we fully expected that adult males would be significantly larger in body size and have bigger tusks. It came as a surprise to discover that males only weighed on average 5% more than females.
Marta Baltruszewicz, University of Leeds As people around the world escape poverty, you might expect their energy use to increase. But my research in Nepal, Vietnam, and Zambia found the opposite: lower levels of deprivation were linked to lower levels of energy demand. What is behind this counter-intuitive finding? After all, the prevailing strategy to…
Daniel B. le Roux, Stellenbosch University A defining characteristic of the way many people live today is persistent online connectedness. Since the introduction of smartphones about 15 years ago, the rapid and broad adoption of these devices has had an impact on people’s behaviour at all hours of the day. Forecasts suggest that the number…
Paul Haskell-Dowland, Edith Cowan University Apple recently launched the latest version of its operating system, iOS 14.5, which features the much-anticipated app tracking transparency function, bolstering the tech giant’s privacy credentials. But iOS 14.5 also introduced support for the new Apple AirTag, which risks doing the opposite. For the uninitiated, an AirTag is a small…
The Kariba Dam, a hydroelectric dam in the Kariba Gorge of the Zambezi river basin between Zambia and Zimbabwe Ellen Fungisai Chipango, University of Johannesburg Zimbabwe is one of the African countries that hopes renewable energy technologies will help to address their energy problems. About 42% of Zimbabwe’s households are connected to the electricity grid….