DINNER PARTY INTEL...
The topics you have to be able to discuss this week
1. First malaria vaccine
The world’s first malaria vaccine togive partial protection tochildren is being piloted on a large scale in Malawi. The RTS,S vaccine in earlier trials protected nearly 40% of the 5-to-17-month-olds who received it. Malaria cases appear to be on the rise again. “This is a landmark moment for immunisations, malaria control, and public health, ”Ka te O’brien, director of immunisation and vaccines at the World Health Organisation, told the BBC. Malawi aims to immunise 120,000 children aged two years and below. Ghana and Kenya will introduce the vaccine in the coming weeks.
“There was a period when I could not come to a person and say please vote for the ANC, knowing very well the wrong things that were happening. [But now] there is a degree of accountability that the ANC can’t run away from” Former president Thabo Mbeki, who took a back seat after his ousting in 2008
2. That’s so yesterday
Research has confirmed what you’ve probably thought: people’s attention span is narrowing and trends don’t last as long as they did. The Technical University of Denmark study looked at everything from movie tickets to social media. Professor Sune Lehmann, who worked on the study, told The Guardian: “It seems that the allocated attention time in our collective minds has a certain size but the cultural items competing for that attention have become more densely packed.” Philipp Lorenz-spreen, of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, said: “Content is increasing in volume, which exhausts our attention, and our urge for ‘newness’ causes us to collectively switch between topics more regularly.”
3. Miracle of the bees
“It’s a miracle!” Notre-dame’s beekeeper Nicolas Géant said, describing how the cathedral’s 200,000 bees survived the fire which destroyed most of the roof and toppled its spire. Three beehives were installed on top of the sacristy below the main roof as part of a bid to boost the bee population of Paris, the BBC reported. European bee sst ay by their hive after sensing danger, gorging on honey to protect the queen. Meanwhile, France has announced a competition to design a new spire and roof ,b oosted by
€1bn of private donations so far.