Author: damazah@gmail.com

A trial of potential treatments for the strain of virus behind the current deadly Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has begun, the World Health Organization (WHO) has announced. The first patient has been enrolled in the DRC, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Thursday. More than 1,400 cases and 438 deaths have been confirmed in the DRC alone, according to the WHO. There are currently no approved vaccines or treatments for the Bundibugyo virus strain of the disease, which is highly infectious. The current trial is sponsored by the WHO, and is being co-ordinated by…

Chinedu Eze Marketers of aviation fuel, known as Jet A1, have assured airline operators that the price of the product would come down to what it used to be before the Iran-US war started in February 2026. The price of aviation fuel averaged N900 per litre until the war started and drove the prices rose to over N1, 700 and continued to rise till it reached N3, 300 per litre. The spike in the cost of the product disrupted flight operations globally. It also disrupted airlines business plans because it multiplied the cost of operation. In Nigeria, it catapulted the…

The video game disc is dead, and Sony’s been planning to kill it for some time, according to a report out of Austria. The man who leads Sony’s discmaking operations, Sony DADC president Dietmar Tanzer, told ORF Salzburg that the company’s Thalgau plant produces 600,000 discs every day, half of which are for PlayStation. But since it’ll only be making 10 percent of that volume in 2028, it’s planning to retrain all 300 employees to work on optical microlenses instead.Thalgau isn’t just one of Sony’s disc plants. It’s where the disc-making division is headquartered, and appears to be its only…

After my adoptive father died in November last year, my adoptive siblings found a short story by Enid Blyton among his possessions. The Child Who Was Chosen was read to us as children to explain the circumstances of my adoption. It follows a nice middle-class couple whose domestic bliss is marred by childlessness, prompting them to go to a “very kind lady” who helps them to find a “chosen baby” instead. In its foreword, Blyton advises adoptive parents to tell the tale to their adopted child “again and again … so that to him ‘adoption’ means something lovely”.The “chosen child”…

Available for 33 daysDuring this year’s visit to the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition in London, Tom Whipple discovers how sea urchins are being used to develop techniques to digitally preserve natural history, why we haven’t got robot butlers just yet, and what it takes to bottle lightning. Plus, in his ongoing quest to assemble a World Cup squad of science Tom recruits health reporter James Gallagher to scout out the best football science from around the world. This week, we want to know if there is robust evidence for a home advantage. We speak with Associate Professor of Cell…

The 2026 FIFA World Cup round of 32 continues Thursday, with three more matches.The first of two all-European games ended with Spain winning 3-0 over Austria and then Portugal advancing with a 2-1 win in a dramatic match against Croatia in Toronto.Finally, we finish the day off in Vancouver as Switzerland take on Algeria.Follow below for all the latest analysis, reaction, news and more.

With the rising price of concert tickets, artists must work overtime to make a show worth the trip for many fans. How an artist does that varies, but Rosalía has a foolproof tactic — putting on one of the best live shows of the last few years. Inglewood’s Kia Forum was outfitted to look more like audience members were going to the ballet rather than a pop concert. It’s fitting because when the Spanish singer-songwriter took the stage at the Kia Forum in Inglewood on Wednesday (July 1) around 9 p.m., she was every bit the ballerina the setting called…

The digital parts of the system must be accurate in order to reliably simulate a robotics system. Higher-quality components contribute to more accurate motion behavior, collision detection, and engineering validation. Creating 3D models manually often requires significant expertise, specialized skills, and considerable time. Tripo 3D helps simplify this process through automated tools and efficient workflows. The platform converts ideas, references, and sketches into usable assets in a short time. AI generation helps engineers create components for simulations with less time and effort while maintaining structural consistency. Why Robotics Simulations Depend on Quality 3D Parts When simulating robotics applications, it is…

The Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, has asked the National Assembly to revisit the bill seeking to establish state police, with a view to making it independent of the federal government. Rising from its caucus meeting on Thursday in Akure, the Ondo State capital, the group specifically urged the National Assembly to place state police on the Constitution’s concurrent list. It stated its position in a communique sent to journalists after the meeting. Both chambers of the National Assembly recently passed a bill to establish state police to tackle Nigeria’s lingering security challenges. The constitutional amendment bill will, however, require the…

Hands over N53bn worth of seized drugs, expired pharmaceuticals to NDLEA, NAFDAC By Efe Onodjae The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has uncovered an attempt to smuggle unregistered pharmaceutical products into Nigeria using a fake registration number of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC). The Comptroller-General of Customs, Bashir Adeniyi, disclosed this yesterday during the handover of seized narcotic drugs and expired pharmaceutical products worth N53.4 billion to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and NAFDAC at the Apapa Area Command. According to Adeniyi, one of the intercepted shipments contained 1,100 packages of CHACOLD Chlorpheniramine Maleate…