From security guard, to dodgy taxi boss, to even dodgier mine boss – Khulubuse Zuma’s weight has exploded upwards recently. Nouveau riche, and all that. The connection isn’t very subtle – in large parts of South Africa, the way we choose to display wealth is by being overweight. Body fat is our bling.
The University of Washington has finally found a way to make us of the mental energy expended by online gamers – recruiting them to decipher the structure of monomeric enzymes, found in retroviruses like HIV, by playing an online game called Foldit. Researchers had been working on it for the past decade; the collective gamers did it in three weeks.
A new National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme is currently underway. If you think this does not affect you because you already have medical aid, think again. The Health Minister, Aaron Motsoaledi, said yesterday that the law, with no exceptions, would soon require us to contribute towards this scheme once it starts up. This is above and beyond the tax that everybody already contributes.
This article is not about pediatric math equations. Promise. It’s about an Australian study that shows a link between gum disease and poor fertility, with a little comparison to obesity thrown in as well. Read on if you forgot to floss this morning ladies.
Yay, science. A new vaccine for meningitis A – that disease killing thousands of people in the central African “meningitis belt” annually – has been released. Which is good, but even better is the fact that it’s way cheaper and more effective than whatever we were using before.
Well that seems reasonable. Harvard graduate Yifan Zhang has started up the Gym Pact program, which offers participants free or reduced rates for gym memberships, provided they stick to pre-arranged workout plans; skipping sessions leads to higher rates, with the thought that this would motivate cheap gym-goers.
I’m not sure if this beats prosthetic tentacles, but it’s close. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are building snake-like robots that can reach delicate organs that don’t generally respond well to getting cut open. Because the prospect of surgery wasn’t frightening enough before.