Science & Tech

The Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) has criticised the Nigerian government’s agreement with Russia’s ROSATOM to build four nuclear power plants in the country. The group is concerned with inherent dangers of the project, adding that it is uncalled for at a time most civilised nations are exploring safe renewables. A statement from the Communications Department of ...

In an article published by Nature World News on Wednesday, researchers announced the discovery of a new “Earth-like” planet orbiting a star not far from our sun. The planet has not been named yet, but was found circling the star Proxima Centauri – a “cool, tiny red dwarf” scientists have long suspected might be capable of having a planet in ...

Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCo) has said it achieved significant savings in the cost of subsea equipment through an initiative which has seen the refurbishment of five Subsea Trees in-country led by Nigerian engineers. A Subsea Tree is an arrangement of valves and other components installed at the wellhead to control and monitor production/injection flow. SNEPCo embarked on ...

Nigeria has initiated moves to produce a national mercury inventory aimed at identifying, quantifying and addressing its mercury releases. Environment Expert, United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) Regional Office in Abuja, Mr Oluyomi Banjo, who made the disclosure on Monday (01 August 2016), stated that a country team with members selected from relevant ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) and the ...

The NASA spacecraft Juno successfully entered Jupiter’s orbit on Monday, marking what seems like a huge achievement in a five-year and $1.8 billion journey to investigate the largest planet in our solar system Braving intense radiation, a NASA spacecraft reached Jupiter on Monday after a five-year voyage to begin exploring the king of the planets. Ground controllers at the NASA ...

The National Space Research and Development Agency has predicted that the appearance of the first moon crescent for July would be on July 5. This was contained in a statement signed by Dr. Felix Ale, the Head of Media and Corporate Communications of the Agency in Abuja on Friday. The statement said: “The first appearance of the moon could not ...

The University of Ibadan now has an ultra-modern subsurface research centre that will boost the development of top rate manpower for the nation’s oil and gas industry, thanks to a donation by the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) operated Joint Venture. The centre has 15 fully-networked workstations, a high-end server, complete with internet facilities and a standby 45-Kva generator, among ...

The Federal Court in Brazil has declared the prohibition to use the hydraulic fracturing technology (fracking) to extract fossil fuels in the state of Alagoas. Following Piauí, Sao Paulo, Acre and Paraná, Alagoas thus became the fifth Brazilian state to prohibit fracking in its territory. This sentence is the result of the efforts of the Coalizão Não Fracking Brasil (No-Fracking Brazil Coalition) ...

With science taking centre stage, the Next Einstein Forum’s Global Gathering, Africa’s premiere global science and technology forum, wrapped up on Thursday in Dakar, Senegal with a clear path forward on how best to drive development through science, technology and innovation across the continent. The event was convened by the Next Einstein Forum (NEF), an initiative of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences ...

Commitments toward stronger global mercury controls are being hampered by illegal, unreported and unregulated mercury production and trade, an international NGO coalition revealed on Wednesday, March 9, 2016 on the eve of a UN mercury treaty meeting in Amman, Jordan. The Zero Mercury Working Group (ZMWG) said that global efforts to reduce emissions of mercury may be derailed if gaps ...