Make the most of your data

We use our smartphones all day, every day, for numerous tasks as well as leisure and entertainment. Unfortunately, the local cost of data is the highest in Africa, with SA ranking 148th out of 228 countries in a report by Cable.co.uk, putting us in line with Japan at 137th and Germany at 140th. Make your mobile data go further with these handy data-saving tips.

A single macadamia tree?

Although macadamias are indigenous to Australia, a large percentage of the world’s cultivated macadamias are grown in Hawaii. Scientists have found that most Hawaiian plants can be traced to a single population of macadamia trees on private land in Queensland, Australia, with a genetic pool so narrow that the researchers believe the Hawaiian specimens may have originated from a single tree. This extreme lack of genetic diversity could potentially make macadamia crops more susceptible to disease or climate change, scientists warn.

Powerful women of Africa

Forbes magazine recently announced its choice of the continent’s 50 most powerful women, who are “challenging the status quo and creating a trail on terrain where there was none … reshaping history, closing inequalities and pioneering new avenues of wealth creation and in turn, lifting others with them”. The ‘unranked’ list, which has a significant number of South African personalities, features women from all walks of life, including entrepreneurs and businesswomen (such as Sygnia CEO, Magda Wierzycha), humanitarians (Graça Machel), politicians (Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma), public figures (former Public Protector Thuli Madonsela), entertainers (Benoni-born actress Charlize Theron), and sporting heroines (Olympic athlete Caster Semenya). Notably, five of the outstanding women on the list graduated from the same South African university...