About this episode
The episode explores the challenges of translating scientific work across Africa's diverse languages and highlights various scientific stories from the continent.
How do you translate the latest science work across the 2000 different languages spoken around the African continent? And have you heard of sky mountain? Africa Day has the Unexpected Elements team taking a deep dive into a range of unexpected stories from across the continent. The day is celebrated every year to mark the establishment of the African Union in 1963. In the Turkana region of northern Kenya, we learn about a team of geologists who have been studying continental break-up. Researchers think it could be one of the weakest areas of the Earth’s crust. We explore the difficult process of translating scientific papers into the many languages spoken across the continent. Plus, entomologist Dr Gimo Daniel tells us about the unexpected joys of dung beetles. And we learn how AI and large language models are finding new ways to track conservation and mass animal migrations. And finally, we explore why bats harbour so many diseases yet seem to be tolerant to things that humans get ill from. Presenter: Marnie Chesterton, with Tristan Ahtone in Finland and Phillys Mwatee in Kenya Producer: Margaret Sessa-Hawkins, Alice Lipscombe-Southwell and Robbie Wojciechowski
People in this episode
Host: Marnie Chesterton
Guest: Dr Gimo Daniel
Topics covered
- science communication
- African languages
- geology
- conservation
- animal migration
- dung beetles
- disease tolerance
Keywords
- Africa Day
- science translation
- geologists
- continental break-up
- AI
- animal migrations
- dung beetles
- bats
- diseases
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: African Union
Places: Turkana region, Kenya, Africa
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