Minister Harps on Importance of Science, Technology to Nigeria’s Devt

The Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, has stressed the need for Nigeria to look towards science and technology to develop the country, stating that any country that seeks development must pay adequate attention to the twin catalysts of national development.

According to a statement, Onu stated this while delivering a lecture at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, (NIPSS), Kuru, Jos, Plateau State.

The minister, who addressed participants of Senior Executive Course No. 42, spoke on the issues bothering on the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and how Nigeria can make an opportunity out of it by encouraging research and development |||READ MORE

 

 

Africa: Three Studies Shed New Light on Scope of Human Evolution

Cape Town — Three new research papers have brought evidence that human evolution was a less linear process than previously theorised, according to Gizmodo's George Dvorsky. They also suggest evidence of "sister-species", relating to some ancient human species that partially contributed to the genetic makeup of modern humans.

The First Study

The first paper published by Nature and co-authored by Rainer Grün and Chris Stringer, from Griffith University in Australia and the Natural History Museum in London respectively, studied the Broken Hill skull. Discovered in a cave in Kabwe, Zambia in 1921 by Swiss miner Tom Zwiglaar, the study estimated the fossil to be 299,000 years old, 200,000 years less than the previous projection. According to the Smithsonian Institution, the skull is one of the oldest known to have tooth cavities. It also shows features similar to Homo erectus like large brow ridges and a bulge at the rear of the skull.

Several months after its initial discovery, the skull was examined by paleontologist Arthur Smith Woodward and classified as that of a new species, Homo rhodesiensis. It was later designated Homo heidelbergensis, now a synonym for the archaic human subspecies - H.heidelbergensis/rhodesiensis - that lived between 700,000 to 300,000 years ago, according to research by Italian paleontologist Giorgio Manzi |||READ MORE ….