As dawn breaks, nine Kenya Wildlife Service rangers dressed in camouflage and brandishing rifles assemble at an airstrip. They are equipped with a Cessna, a helicopter, and a caravan of Toyota Land Cruisers. Their mission: find, tranquilize, and collar Tsavo’s savanna elephants to see how well they traverse a new rail line that has recently split their habitat in two. It is the first time in history that elephants are being collared specifically to study how they interact with human infrastructure.
How Africa’s vaccine hesitancy came from the West
BBC“If I can be provocative, shouldn’t we be doing this study in Africa, where there are no masks, no treatments, no resuscitation?” said Jean-Paul Mira, head of intensive care at Cochin hospital in Paris. “A bit like as it is done elsewhere for some studies on Aids. In prostitutes, we try things because we know that they are highly exposed and that they do not protect themselves.”
Read: BBC Future
With support from the Pulitzer Center
Into Africa
TortoiseCancel The Museum? | Germany’s Game of Thrones
If restitution advocates have their way, Berlin’s new Humboldt Forum may mark the beginning of the end of an era in which western museums served as humble custodians of other peoples’ things.
“Hermann Baumann wasn’t yet a Nazi when he set sail to Angola in search of Chokwe treasure.”
Read the full feature story: Tortoise
Can Virtual Reality Reduce Crime?
Stanford Social Innovation ReviewMAXLab Freiburg—the virtual reality (VR) arm of the criminology department at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security, and Law in Freiburg, Germany—is at the forefront of a movement to use VR technology to understand, deter, and prevent crime.
Scientists hope a new vaccine will reduce malaria in Africa. But is it worth the cost?
National GeographicVaccinate the Monkeys.
BBCThat’s how to prevent the next pandemic–if these scientists are right.
Move over, Covid-19. Another, far more lethal disease is in danger of erupting once again. Yellow fever infects some 200,000 people and kills 30,000 of them each year–more than terrorist attacks and plane crashes combined. Stopping the next outbreak from jumping from monkeys to humans may require a novel approach: vaccinating our hairy, banana-loving brethren.
Part of our BBC Future series, Stopping The Next One, with Harriet Constable and The Pulitzer Center.
Read: BBC
Stopping The Next One
BBCRead and watch our BBC Future series Stopping The Next One, with Harriet Constable and The Pulitzer Center.
Read: BBC
The coronavirus 10 times more deadly than Covid
Articles, BBCIn northern Kenya, researchers are working to prevent a dangerous coronavirus – MERS – from jumping from camels to humans. But climate change is complicating their task.
Part of our BBC Future series, Stopping The Next One, with Harriet Constable and The Pulitzer Center.
READ: BBC
Stopping mankind’s #1 killer
Articles, BBCThe discovery of a novel mosquito on Guantanamo Bay reveals how globalization is threatening to unleash the next pandemic. Part of our BBC Future series, Stopping The Next One, with Harriet Constable and The Pulitzer Center.
READ: BBC
A U.S. State Department Travel Warning for Visitors to the United States [Satire]
VocativTypically, the U.S. Department of State issues travel warnings for people heading overseas. Erring on the side of extreme caution, they are often alarmist, comically inflating the risks posed to Americans abroad.
There’s only one country the State Department won’t warn you about. It’s a country where there are almost as many guns as people and where sectarian political divisions cause complete shutdowns of the federal government. Here’s how a State Department travel advisory might look for the land of the free.
Read the full satire – originally published by Vocativ.
‘They paid a guy to kill me’
The GuardianIn Uganda, a lesbian activist helps straight people fight stigma of a disease once thought of as ‘gay.’
Read: The Guardian
The New Vaccine you Haven’t Heard Of
New ScientistWhile most of the world is focusing on new vaccines for the coronavirus, thousands of Kenyan children are finally receiving a longed-for malaria vaccine, 37 years after development on it started.
Read: New Scientist
May 1, 2021 edition
With Support from the European Journalism Centre
Trouble at the Lake
National GeographicHuman-hippo conflict is exploding in this pristine patch of Kenya
Floods and the economic fallout from COVID-19 are pitting hungry fishermen against hungry hippos—with deadly results.
Read: English | Spanish | Portuguese
Photos by Brian Otieno.
Haiti’s Gold Rush
GuernicaRiches beckon from beneath Haiti’s hills. Mining companies are hoping to lock in huge tax breaks to get at them.
Read the full story at Guernica
Support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and Haiti Grassroots Watch.
The deadliest flower in the world is a lifeline to farmers—and the planet.
National GeographicGILGIL, KENYA–The deadliest flower in the insect world is soft to the touch. Each morning in the hills above Kenya’s Great Rift Valley, the white petals of the pyrethrum plant become laden with dew. To the people who pick them, the flower is utterly harmless. But bugs beware: Its yellow center contains a natural toxin that can kill them in seconds.
Read: National Geographic