At last, the world has woken up to one of the biggest challenges of our age. We are witnessing massive movements of people on an unprecedented scale. And while the current focus on migrants and refugees is welcome, it risks obscuring an equally worrying trend of people displaced within their own countries. Just look at …
Standing in the chilly, drizzling night of April, I debated whether to dash some 100 feet to the corner of our garden, where a little shack of rafters and mud—with a severely torn sack for a door and without a roof above—served as our toilet. The floor was laid with wood poles, with enough gaping separations …
Today is World Toilet Day, a chance to think about the billions of people in the world who don't have toilets. People like me. I grew up in an informal settlement in Kenya in the 1970s. When nature called, my only option was to visit the community toilets. These were toilets you squat over. You'd pour …
When you search for #ParisAttacks, you get nearly 2.2 million results on Google. When you search for #KenyaAttacks, you get about 300. The Parisian response is a reaction to the terrorist attacks last Friday, which took 129 lives and injured far more. People around the world have expressed solidarity. Facebook users are coloring their profile …
To harness the potential of soil microbes Africa must move quickly. As soil degrades, so too does microbial life. Understanding the microbial diversity of Africa’s soils is important for another reason as well. At least some portion of this diversity is indigenous to particular soils, crops and ecosystems developed over thousands of years of farming. At a …