Tagged: Africa

Imagine you're flying in a two-seater plane over Africa, and, in an effort to see how elephants are faring, your job is to count all the ones you see. Over the savannah, that's easy. But how do you peer into the forests, where all you see is treetops?

For years, the zoologists who tried to do this just guessed. But in the late 1980s, conservationist Richard Barnes devised a method to take an elephant census in the densest of forests.

It's almost impossible these days to switch on South African radio or television, or read a local newspaper, website or tweet, and not hear Nelson Mandela's name mentioned.

Friday marked the 19th anniversary of Mandela's inauguration as South Africa's first democratically elected — and first black — president, four years after he was released from prison.

Cervical cancer takes its greatest toll in the countries whose economies and health systems are poorest.

Women in those places are less likely than those in rich countries to get regular Pap tests to detect the cancers when it can be treated effectively.

Of the 275,000 women who die of cervical cancer each year, more than 85 percent, or at least 234,000, are in low-income countries.

But a vaccine that can prevent cervical cancer could go a long way toward lowering the risk in those less developed countries. Problem is, the shots are pretty expensive.