Researchers at the University of the Witwatersrand have found ways to control the spin transport in networks of the smallest electrical conductor known to man. By chemically attaching nanoparticles of the rare earth element, gadolinium, to carbon nanotubes, the researchers have found that the electrical conductivity in the nanotubes can be increased by incorporating the…
Innovative ‘Invisible Ink’ Detects TB
Scientists at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and international researchers have pioneered an innovative process to detect TB bacteria by adding a molecule to the bacteria’s own protective layer that illuminates under fluorescent light. In a paper published last night in Science Translational Medicine, authors report that Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) specifically can be detected with…
Print a 200-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Fossil in your Own Home
Researchers Demonstrate Quantum Teleportation of Patterns Of Light
Quantum communication over long distances is integral to information security and has been demonstrated in free space and fibre with two-dimensional states, recently over distances exceeding 1200 km between satellites. But using only two states reduces the information capacity of the photons, so the link is secure but slow. To make it secure and fast…
Homo Naledi’s Surprisingly Young Age Opens Up More Questions on Where we Come From
Scientists today announced that the Rising Star Cave system has revealed yet more important discoveries, only a year and a half after it was announced that the richest fossil hominin site in Africa had been discovered, and that it contained a new hominin species named Homo naledi by the scientists who described it. The age of the…
Mammals Were the First Animals to Produce Venom
Africa is a tough place. It always has been. Especially if you have to fend off gigantic predators like sabre-toothed carnivores in order to survive. And, when you’re a small, dog-sized pre-mammalian reptile, sometimes the only way to protect yourself against these monsters is to turn your saliva into a deadly venomous cocktail. That is…