Shunning the traditional tool of aid, investors are focusing on innovative technology and entrepreneurship to ensure healthier development in Africa. (Photo courtesy of Business for Health Solutions) As Africa slowly emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, public and...
High-speed debris is piling up in space, threatening vital satellites. Nations are developing needed techniques to clean up space and prevent hazards. A tiny, floating object pierced a hole in Canadarm, the Canadian robotic arm on the International Space Station...
It’s taken more than a century, but experts now say humans are definitely to blame for the climate crisis. Will a UN report spur nations to take action? Emissions from a coal-fired power plant in Independence, Missouri, United States, 1 February 2021 (AP...
Alister Doyle puts his years of experience covering the environment to use in connecting the dots between the umpteenth report on the climate crisis and the umpteenth global meeting on what to do. Doyle provides a genuine service in showing us why the latest report by government experts and climate scientists has a bearing on the summit later this year in Glasgow to review the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. Doyle’s report exemplifies News Decoder’s mission to explain complex global problems in a dispassionate, balanced and understandable way.
Exercise: Ask your students to choose an issue on the front page of a daily newspaper or on the nightly news, and to write an article explaining the background to the issue and why it’s important to the readers.
Scientists are on the lookout for asteroids that could pose a danger to Earth but which could also hold the key to understanding life’s origin. A frame grab from a dashboard camera shows a meteor over Chelyabinsk, about 930 miles east of Moscow, Russia, 15...
More needs to be done so electric vehicles can reach their potential to reduce carbon emissions. But surging sales show they are here to stay. Wallbox for charging an electric car (Frank Hoermann/SVEN SIMON/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images) Electric cars are flying off...
By exploring Mars, we have taken a step closer to understanding humankind. Did life begin on the Red Planet? Could we one day live there? The first high-resolution, color image sent by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover after its landing on 18 February 2021...
Fake news is already eroding our shared sense of reality. Now, deepfakes and AI stand to fuel disinformation and imperil democracy. An image of a deepfake video of former U.S. President Barack Obama (AP Photo) The unprecedented mob assault on the U.S. Capitol on...
Technology permeates students’ lives and has contributed many economic benefits to the world while bringing far-flung communities closer together. But what of the downsides? The polarization of society? The dangers of spending too much time on social media? Citizens being hoodwinked into believing the unreal? One of the biggest questions facing policymakers around the world today is how to protect democracy without infringing on free speech. It’s a question that is not going to go away and which students would do well to start considering today. In this article, Stuart Grudgings introduces us to some of the disturbing possibilities of deep fake technology and begs the question of what to do about it.
It’s hundreds of miles above Earth. But the International Space Station is a scientific laboratory that is bringing myriad benefits to humans far below. NASA astronaut Kate Rubins conducts biomedical research to help understand the aging and weakening of heart...
A Canadian tech firm and foundation have teamed up with an NGO in Rwanda to offer a chatbot that answers young people’s questions about sex. Screenshots of a smartphone with the IrindeBot chatbot (photo courtesy of Rival Technologies Inc) Talking about sex is...
U.S. teenagers are increasingly depressed and spending more and more time on smartphones. But technology, used wisely, can make us smarter, safer and happier. A young man on his smartphone, Munich, Germany, 9 December 2014 (Tobias Hase / picture-alliance / dpa / AP...