When literary icon Toni Morrison died last week in New York, tributes and memories poured in from all over the world. This reflected the incredible reach and power of the Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winner’s writing. Aretha Phiri explains how her legacy resonates across the Atlantic and into literature classes in South Africa.
We know that chimpanzees, humans’ closest living relatives, have excellent short and long-term memory abilities. But until now, it hasn’t been clear whether chimps’ working memory – being able to keep something in mind for a few seconds as well as to manipulate and update available information – was as good as that of humans. Christoph Völter sets out research that shows chimpanzees are able to perform at a level comparable to seven-year-old children in a task that requires them to constantly update their memory.
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Toni Morrison’s legacy echoes across the world.
EPA-EFE/Arturo Peña-Romano
Aretha Phiri, Rhodes University
In some ways, perhaps Morrison is even more relevant in South African universities today than she's ever been.
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Science + Technology
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Christoph Völter, University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna
Chimpanzees, like humans, possess working memory abilities. They're able to perform similar to seven-year-old children.
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Andreea Font, Liverpool John Moores University
In an age when women were rarely allowed in observatories, Margaret Burbidge changed how we saw the stars.
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Politics + Society
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J.M. Opal, McGill University
The vicious ideology that allegedly drove a gunman to kill 22 people in El Paso, Texas last week could be traced back to a tiny island on the eastern fringe of the Caribbean Sea
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Rachel Killean, Queen's University Belfast; Peter Manning, University of Bath
Does there need to be a conviction for a genocide to be recognised by the law?
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Business + Economy
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Brian Nolan, University of Oxford
Populism is on the rise in countries where inequality has been fairly stable over time, as well as countries where inequality has grown.
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Justice Tankebe, University of Cambridge
Corruption includes both what people do and what they fail to do. The critical issue is a person’s motive.
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En français
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Charlotte Thomas, Sciences Po – USPC
Les jeunes Cachemiris peuvent-ils encore rêver le futur alors que l'autonomie même de la région a été révoquée lors d'une décision historique et polémique?
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Dr Mike Cooray, Hult International Business School; Dr Rikke Duus, UCL
De nouvelles recherches révèlent que de nombreux jeunes de 19 à 24 ans sont préoccupés par la façon dont les organisations utilisent leurs données. Ce pourrait être le début d'un retour en arrière.
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