JUST A STRAND of Elvis’s hair would do. Pluck out his DNA and it could be copied millions of times using a technique called the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). That was the business plan pitched in the 1990s by Kary Mullis, an American biologist. Mullis had helped develop PCR in the 1980s; in 1993 he shared a Nobel prize.
TopMaking money from Nelson Mandela’s name
One room is named “Rolihlahla”, his forename at birth. Another is “46664”, his prison number on Robben Island. A third is “Madiba”, his clan name. And the most luxurious suite? That is simply “Mr President”.
TopMorocco scents victory in Western Sahara
THE BATTLE over Western Sahara has long felt as sluggish as the region’s barely shifting sand dunes. It is almost half a century since Morocco claimed sovereignty over the slice of desert, previously a Spanish possession, that runs 900km (560 miles) along the Atlantic coast, south of Morocco proper.
TopWhy it costs so much to move goods around Africa
IF TIME IS money, then Beitbridge must be a most expensive place. Late last year lorries carrying, among other things, cobalt from Congo, copper from Zambia and tea from Malawi snaked for miles as they waited to cross the Limpopo river into South Africa.
TopWhy global warming threatens east African coffee
JEREMIAH LETTING learned about coffee from his father. As a child in the late 1980s, he worked on his family’s one-acre (0.4 hectare) coffee farm in the hills of Nandi county, western Kenya.
TopAfrica has plenty of covid doses, but it lags in jabs
IT IS LITTLE over a year since the first doses of life-saving vaccines were delivered to Africa un...
Africa
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