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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 working memory 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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Chimpanzees are one of our closest relatives.
Sharon Morris/Shutterstock
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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Business + Economy
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Rehana Cassim, University of South Africa
Directors who are unfairly kicked out of office by a hostile board face challenges since the legal remedies open to them are unclear.
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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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From our international editions
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Jacqueline Anderson, University of Melbourne
Do you often forget where you put the keys or what you were looking for in the fridge? It's not necessarily a sign of cognitive decline – it might just come down to being tired, stressed or worried.
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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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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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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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