Tag Archives: South Africa

Teams on Tour: Great Sporting Trips Around the World

By Guest PostDecember 19, 2012Holidays 'n Travels, Sportsall blacks, american rivals, anna mathews, ashes, australia, Bangladesh, british, british empire, british grand prix, cricket, Dubai, energy, Europe, exotic location, favourite athletes, formula 1, france, golf, grand national, hong kong, horse racing, India, irish lions, islands, italy, new zealand, organised tours, Pakistan, passion for sport, popular, royal ascot, ryder cup, silverstone, six nations, South Africa, springboks, travel, travelling abroad, twickenham, uk, united kingdom, usa, west indies, wimbledon, world of rugby

Passion for sport is unrivalled in its energy and dedication and so it’s no wonder that people are so keen to travel the world to see their favourite athletes and teams play abroad. These tours offer a unique opportunity to follow your sport and see some great global destinations at the same time.

Travelling abroad to follow your favourite sport is a unique and highly rewarding experience, allowing you to experience a different country, engage with their culture and discover the wonders of how other peoples and nations watch and enjoy sports. Organised tours are often the best way to get involved with international sport as they do an excellent job of combining all the necessary aspects without any hassle for your tickets to all the most important sporting events, accommodation and transport to make getting there very easy and scheduled free time to allow you to explore the surroundings of your destination. (more…)

Degraded Military Lands To Get Ecological Boost From CU-led Effort

By Guest PostNovember 16, 2012Environmentamerican west, arid ecosystem, arid land, atmospheric dust, bacteria, biocrusts, biological soil crust, boulder, central america, China, colorado, cyanobacteria, degraded, desert environment, dugway proving ground, erosion, extreme environment, ferran garcia pichel, fort bliss, fungi, general george patton, hawaii, inoculation, jayne belnap, lichens, metropolitan area, michael duniway, microbial communities, military activity, military exercises, military installation, military vehicles, modeling, mojave desert, mosses, new mexico, nichole barger, northwest utah, pollutant, polyacrylamide, probability, restore, sasha reed, soil erosion, soil fertility, soil surface, South Africa, south america, survival, texas, university, water retention, word war

Some arid lands in the American West degraded by military exercises that date back to General George Patton’s Word War II maneuvers in the Mojave Desert should get a boost from an innovative research project led by the University of Colorado Boulder.

Headed up by CU-Boulder Assistant Professor Nichole Barger, the research team is focused on developing methods to restore biological soil crusts — microbial communities primarily concentrated on soil surfaces critical to decreasing erosion and increasing water retention and soil fertility. Such biological soil crusts, known as “biocrusts,” can cover up to 70 percent of the ground in some arid ecosystems and are dominated by cyanobacteria, lichens, mosses, fungi and bacteria, she said. (more…)

Airborne Technology Helps Manage Elephants

By Guest PostAugust 26, 2012Environment, Nature3 d mapping, africa, airborne technology, atmosphere, cao, carbon, carnegie, climate, danie pienaar, ecology letters, ecosystem, elephant, elephant conservation, elephant trap, Environment, greg asner, habitat, herbivore, kruger national park, lidar, management practice, savanna, sequester, shaun levick, South Africa, terrain condition, toppling tree, treefall, vegetation

Washington, D.C. – For years, scientists have debated how big a role elephants play in toppling trees in South African savannas. Tree loss is a natural process, but it is increasing in some regions, with cascading effects on the habitat for many other species. Using high resolution 3-D mapping, Carnegie scientists have for the first time quantitatively determined tree losses across savannas of Kruger National Park. They found that elephants are the primary agents—their browsing habits knock trees over at a rate averaging 6 times higher than in areas inaccessible to them. The research also found that elephants prefer toppling trees in the 16-to-30 foot (5-8 m) range, with annual losses of up to 20% in these height classes. The findings, published in Ecology Letters, bolster our understanding of elephant conservation needs and their impacts, and the results could help to improve savanna management practices.

“Previous field studies gave us important clues that elephants are a key driver of tree losses, but our airborne 3-D mapping approach was the only way to fully understand the impacts of elephants across a wide range of environmental conditions found in savannas,” commented lead author Greg Asner of Carnegie’s Department of Global Ecology. “Our maps show that elephants clearly toppled medium-sized trees, creating an “elephant trap” for the vegetation. These elephant-driven tree losses have a ripple effect across the ecosystem, including how much carbon is sequestered from the atmosphere.” (more…)

Using IBM Analytics, Santam Saves $2.4 Million in Fraudulent Claims

By Guest PostMay 9, 2012Technologyafrican continent, algorithmics, analytics software, anesh govender, clarity, fraud, fraud syndicate, i2, ibm, insurance company, olrac spsolutions, openpages, rich holada, risk, santam, South Africa, spss

Analytics Software Enhances Insurer’s Ability to Resolve Claims Faster

Johannesburg, South Africa – 09 May 2012: IBM today announced that Santam, South Africa’s leading short term insurance company, has saved $2.4 million on fraudulent claims in the first four months of using IBM business analytics software. The analytics software has enhanced Santam’s fraud detection capabilities and also enabled faster payouts for legitimate claims.

“IBM and OLRAC-SPSolutions have helped us build a solution that has not only transformed our claims processing methodology in terms of speed and efficiency, but also provides new insight which helps us identify false claims more quickly, which protects our business and customers,” said Anesh Govender, Head of Finance, Reporting and Salvage at Santam. “The solution has delivered a full return on investment and also helped uncover a motor insurance fraud syndicate in less than 30 days after the system went live.” (more…)

Scientists Find Evidence That Human Ancestors Used Fire One Million Years Ago

By Guest PostApril 3, 2012Scienceanimal bones, ari matmon, boston university, excavation, francesco berna, hagai ron, hebrew university, homo erectus, human ancestors, james brink, kalahari, kimberley, liora kolska horwitz, marion bamford, mcgregor museum, michael chazan, microscopic traces, paul goldberg, peter beaumont, sharon holt, South Africa, stone tools, university of toronto, wonderwerk cave, wood ash

300,000 years earlier than believed

An international team led by the University of Toronto and Hebrew University has identified the earliest known evidence of the use of fire by human ancestors. Microscopic traces of wood ash, alongside animal bones and stone tools, were found in a layer dated to one million years ago at the Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa. (more…)

Fossil Raindrop Impressions Imply Greenhouse Gases Loaded Early Atmosphere

By Guest PostApril 2, 2012Environmentames research center, atmosphere, atmospheric pressure, concentration, david catling, earth history, fossilized, greenhouse gases, jelte harnmeijer, latex peels, liquid water, low carbon innovation, peter polivka, pressure broadening, raindrop impression, raindrop velocity, roger buick, sanjoy som, seattle, South Africa, sun, temperature, warm temperature

In ancient Earth history, the sun burned as much as 30 percent dimmer than it does now. Theoretically that should have encased the planet in ice, but there is geologic evidence for rivers and ocean sediments between 2 billion and 4 billion years ago.

Scientists have speculated that temperatures warm enough to maintain liquid water were the result of a much thicker atmosphere, high concentrations of greenhouse gases or a combination of the two. (more…)

Report Captures Picture of Global Opportunity Divide for Largest Youth Population in History

By Guest PostMarch 27, 2012Technologyafrica, brazil, britain works, cape town, eastern daylight time, employment, global, imagine cup, international youth foundation, iyf, iyf program, jobs, mexican youths, Microsoft, monica njau, naadiya moosajee, nairobi, ngos, opportunity for action, planet, sawomeng, Science, South Africa, sub-saharan, Technology, Thailand, the atlantic, william reese, youths echo

*Youths echo findings from International Youth Foundation report, which urges actions to help young people succeed.*

REDMOND, Wash. — March 27, 2012 — The numbers are staggering: Our planet has the largest youth population ever, with more than 1 billion people aged 15 to 24, and the figure is racing to 1.5 billion by 2035, according to “Opportunity for Action,” a new report being released today from the International Youth Foundation (IYF). The report shows that while some youths are succeeding, millions of others are not because they don’t have access to the necessary education, skills and opportunities.

Microsoft commissioned the “Opportunity for Action” report to bring attention to the urgency of the global youth opportunity divide — the gap between those who have access to a good education and the technology, skills and connections to be successful, and those who do not. No region of the world escapes the unsettling picture captured by the report. In Brazil, approximately 40 percent of firms have difficulty finding qualified staff to fill job vacancies due to low-quality education. In Asia, 70 percent of working youths are engaged in the agricultural sector, where jobs are seasonal and offer no protections or access to safety nets. And in sub-Saharan Africa, youths are grossly under-employed, leaving 72 percent of young people living on less than two dollars per day. (more…)

Ancient Dinosaur Nursery Oldest Nesting Site Yet Found

By Guest PostJanuary 27, 2012Scienceadam yates, cretaceous periods, david evans, dinosaur eggs, dinosaur footprint, dinosaur nesting site, dinosaur record, dinosaur reproduction, early dinosaur, early jurassic period, eric roberts, evolution, evolutionary history, excavation, fossil record, hans-dieter sues, hatchling, jurassic, massospondylus, oldest known embryo, prosauropod dinosaur, reproductive behaviour, robert reisz, royal ontario museum, sauropods, sedimentary rocks, smithsonian institute, South Africa

*UTM professor unearths fossils in South Africa*

An excavation at a site in South Africa has unearthed the 190-million-year-old dinosaur nesting site of the prosauropod dinosaur Massospondylus-revealing significant clues about the evolution of complex reproductive behaviour in early dinosaurs. The newly unearthed dinosaur nesting ground predates previously known nesting sites by 100 million years, according to study authors.

A new study led by University of Toronto Mississauga paleontologist Robert Reisz, with co-author, Professor David Evans of ecology and evolutionary biology and the Royal Ontario Museum, along with a group of international researchers, describes clutches of eggs, many with embryos, as well as tiny dinosaur footprints, providing the oldest known evidence that the hatchlings remained at the nesting site long enough to at least double in size. (more…)