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Late last week South Africa’s National Space Agency warned that a geomagnetic storm might hit the skies above the continent over the weekend. This, after it recorded the strongest Earth-facing solar flare in the past seven years – an eruption that briefly caused a total radio blackout over the African region. The storm actually reached our planet yesterday. The agency’s Amoré Elsje Nel explains what geomagnetic storms are, as well as their negative – and
sometimes beautiful – effects.
Each day we make thousands of decisions, some big, some small. But how we make these decisions can actually be linked to anxiety or depression. Ahead of World Mental Health day tomorrow, psychologist Eugene Lee Davids explains how the decision-making styles of young South Africans could undermine their emotional well-being. For her part, psychiatrist Linnet Ongeri reveals how Kenya’s criminalisation of suicide doesn’t act like a deterrent – it can actually worsen an individual’s mental health.
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Amoré Elsje Nel, South African National Space Agency
Geomagnetic storms occur fairly often. Minor ones happen multiple times per year.
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Eugene Lee Davids, University of Pretoria
A person’s style of making decisions can have an impact on their mental health.
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Linnet Ongeri, KEMRI Wellcome Trust Research Programme
The threat of legal sanctions or imprisonment for a suicide survivor can have serious negative repercussions.
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Francisca Mutapi, University of Edinburgh
Resistance to antimicrobial drugs is a major global health challenge, so dealing with neglected tropical diseases is vital.
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Susan Booysen, University of the Witwatersrand
The toppling of Cilliers Brink, mayor of South Africa’s capital city, highlights the provincial African National Congress' disdain for its national partnership with the Democratic Alliance.
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From our international editions
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Justin Stebbing, Anglia Ruskin University
US scientists Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun changed our understanding of how the body works and opened up a new area of science.
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Aaron J. Snoswell, Queensland University of Technology
John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton, the 2024 Physics Nobel laureates, developed computer systems that can memorise and learn from patterns in data.
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Freya Womersley, Marine Biological Association; David Sims, University of Southampton
How climate change will affect the world’s biggest fish.
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Filomena Nunes, Michigan State University
Only 5 women have ever won a Nobel Prize in physics. The field as a whole has issues with gender diversity, but as a woman physicist explains, success is possible for women in the field.
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