Category: Science &Technology

At least 135 people were killed and 110 others injured in the disasters triggered by heavy rains last month in the East African country. More than 20,000 people were displaced after 5,963 houses were destroyed.

Clementine Mukanoheri, a mother of two, said it was the second time in five years that the disasters had wrecked her life.

“In March 2018, my two children were rescued from floods in the same village near River Sebeya. I think all the survivors are scared to go back to that same village, and what we want is government support,” she said.

Justine Uwababyeyi, a resident of the Nyundo sector in the Rubavu district, lost her husband and three children when their house collapsed in the heavy rains.

When their house collapsed, Uwababyeyi and her husband heard the children crying for help, but they could not even help themselves under the rubble.

One of her sons escaped unhurt and managed to run out of the house into the pounding rains to call for help. “When the rescue teams arrived, my husband had already passed away,” she said.

The rescue team found the bodies of her husband and three other children under the rubble.

After Uwababyeyi got out of the hospital, local leaders assisted her with shelter and basic items. Her life was miserable as her husband was the family’s sole breadwinner.

John Hakizimana, another resident whose house was also destroyed, recalled the horrifying night. The flooding was too intense after the Sebeya River burst its banks, making it very difficult for people to cross over.

“Escaping from the floods on that fateful night was far from easy. Nobody is considering returning to reside in that unfavorable location,” he said.

Oreste Tuganeyezu, director of Gisenyi Hospital, said many people who survived floods had health issues, but medics have been doing their best to treat them. “We have about 25 mothers who have so far given birth here in the site and are given all the necessary support,” he said.

The hospital offers free medical care for all the displaced people including those without health insurance. Health personnel visit patients at their respective shelters to offer them treatment free of charge.

Meanwhile, at the Gihira settlement site in the Rubavu district, children of flood victims are provided with daycare facilities.

Deogratias Nzabonimpa, acting mayor of Rubavu district, said local authorities are taking action to prevent such catastrophe from affecting residents in the future.

“Several measures have been undertaken such as constructing radical terraces, planting trees and relocating people living in high-risk zones,” said Nzabonimpa. “By putting together all our efforts, we shall overcome issues of flooding and landslides, I believe that positive results will be attained as it has been done in recent years.”

The rocket blasted off at 1:30 p.m. (Beijing Time) at the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in northern China and soon took the satellites, including the Jilin-1 Gaofen 06A, into preset orbit.

This was the 476th flight mission of the Long March rocket series.

Onboard satellites included 36 from the Jilin-1 family, developed by the Chang Guang Satellite Technology Co., Ltd., a commercial satellite maker in northeast China’s Jilin Province. They will increase the number of in-orbit Jilin-1 satellites to 108, assembling China’s first commercial constellation of more than 100 remote sensing satellites.

The first Jilin-1 group was launched in October 2015. Over the past eight years, the weight of each satellite with the same function has been greatly reduced from 420 kilograms to 22 kilograms.

He Xiaojun, chief designer of the Jilin-1 Gaofen 06A, said the weight reduction has benefited from the use of upgraded image sensors, improved design techniques and advanced integrated chips.

The changes do not affect the resolution of satellite images but expand their visible range by 50 percent. They also lower the cost to one-twentieth of previous satellites, He said.

“Just like the evolution of computers,” the scientist explained, “from bulky desktops to today’s laptops and smartphones, the devices have been reduced in size due to technology upgrades, but the computing performance is improving.”

According to the company, the newly launched satellites will be used to provide commercial remote sensing data services for sectors such as land resources, mineral exploration and smart city construction.

The spaceship will carry three astronauts — Jing Haipeng, Zhu Yangzhu and Gui Haichao — to carry out the Shenzhou-16 spaceflight mission. Jing will be the commander, said Lin Xiqiang, deputy director of the CMSA, at a press conference.

Shenzhou-16 is the second flight mission of China’s manned space program this year, and the first crewed mission after China’s space station entered the application and development stage.

The crew will stay in orbit for about five months.

The launch will use a Long March-2F carrier rocket, which will be filled with propellant soon, Lin said.

Write this essay. Complete this analysis. Unpack the meaning behind this excerpt. These are all sentences that bring horror to those who do homework – lengthy essays about things that students are not sure they care about, and that many do not see the point in doing in the first place.

This homework is not designed to be terrifying; it is designed to ignite the mind and critical thinking; to challenge students to form their own opinions and then using research and cognitive thinking to back them up. Currently, this is being threatened by tools like ChatGPT.

Yet, artificial intelligence (AI) tools are here to stay so instead of seeing it as a threat, it should be seen as an asset, but one that supports cognitive growth and memory function rather than replacing it, says Anna Collard, SVP Content Strategy & Evangelist at KnowBe4 AFRICA.

“Research by George Millar in 1956 found that the average person can only keep around seven items in their working memory,” she explains. “Miller’s Law of seven plus-minus two means up to nine or as little as five items are the limit of a human’s processing abilities. Today, that number has gone down to four. This research, along with other academic papers and analyses, points to reduced memory due to an over reliance on technology also called the Google effect,” explains Collard.

This is a concern, one that has grown increasingly vocal over the past year as educators and researchers have pondered the impact of technology, and now AI, on cognitive behaviour and memory retention.

However, it is also balanced by research that has pointed out that actually, human beings have been outsourcing their memory to various materials and solutions for centuries. Paper, parchment, papyrus and wood are some prime examples. Modern technology is no different. It can be a tool to bolster memory and make it far easier for humans to manage lives that are deluged by information, noise and digital clutter.

“The research goes in both directions, suggesting that technology is both an enabler and an inhibitor of human memory,” says Collard. “This points to the fact that actually, the impact does not lie in using it, but in how it is used or, in the case of ChatGPT, abused. The latter can be an immensely useful tool that supports students in their research and studies, but if it becomes the sole source of information and does all the writing for them, that is where the problems start.”

Nowadays, remembering where you found a fact has become more important than remembering the fact itself. This translates directly into the biggest challenge with ChatGPT – it is vague on its sources and often out of date, which means that it rarely is as accurate as it needs to be.

“ChatGPT uses machine learning to infer information and this introduces inaccuracies,” says Collard. “If you ask ChatGPT what happens if you break a mirror, it replies with ‘You will have seven years of bad luck’. This is not a fact; it is based on superstition. If users do not constantly check the factual accuracy of ChatGPT, they run the risk of sharing fake news, inaccurate information and even conspiracy theories.”

The TruthfulQA benchmark test has found that most generative models are only truthful 25% of the time, according to the 2022 Stanford University Artificial Intelligence Index Report. This means over reliance on technology such as ChatGPT is simply going to make the student’s work look stupid. However, that is not enough to stop people from turning to tech when they are tired, overwhelmed or lazy, which means that the best approach is to embrace it.

“Do not ban it, rather teach students how to use it within practical guidelines and policies that help them to enhance their understanding of AI and this type of tool,” concludes Collard. “This will enhance their own critical thinking skills by asking them to question the sources, content, truthfulness and accuracy of the content that the platform serves up to them, and it will turn the threat into an opportunity.”

The spacecraft returned after 276 days of in-orbit operation.

The success of the experiment marks an important breakthrough in China’s research on reusable spacecraft technologies, which will provide more convenient and affordable round-trip methods for the peaceful use of space in the future

With this new development, Starlink users can now use Payday’s platform to pay for their subscriptions in Rwanda. Payday’s innovative digital banking solutions aim to make digital banking accessible to all remote workers and professionals on the African continent while ensuring access to a fast and reliable internet connection.

Rwanda is making efforts to meet its targets for widespread internet connectivity and broadband reach across both urban and remote areas. In February 2023, Starlink announced that Rwandans could purchase its routers from the satellite communications corporation. This partnership with Payday is a significant milestone in Payday’s Pan-African and global expansion plans and a burgeoning working relationship as a payment processor for Starlink.

Payday CEO, Favour Ori stated that Payday’s mission is to launch across different countries in Africa with SpaceX’s Starlink. Payday customers in Rwanda will be able to use their virtual cards to pay for their routers and manage their subscription payments. They will also be able to send and receive Rwandan Francs (RWF) as well as USD, GBP, EUR using the Payday App. This latest launch is set to increase Payday’s customer base and establish a strong presence in Rwanda as well as the East African region.

Payday’s innovative digital banking solutions enable global payment processing from over 130 countries, allowing Africans to work remotely for international organizations and be paid and withdraw money in the currency of their choice regardless of location. With the country’s ambitious target of achieving 90% financial inclusion by 2024, Payday’s innovative banking solutions are expected to play a crucial role in achieving this goal.

Commenting on the development, the Acting Chief Investment Officer at Kigali Financial Centre, Jean-Marie Kananura said: “We are very happy to witness Payday’s continuous growth.

This is a testimony that Kigali International Financial Center has put in place a trusted framework for Rwandan-based startups to raise capital and scale up globally. Ahead of our Inclusive Fintech Forum in June, we aim to highlight these successes that will continuously position Rwanda as the home of fintech on the continent.”

Access to the internet is no longer a luxury, but a necessity for personal and economic growth. With this new partnership, Payday and Starlink are taking a significant step towards achieving financial inclusion and boosting internet connectivity in Rwanda.

The series of colored images were released at the launch event of the Space Day of China held in Hefei, capital city of east China’s Anhui Province.

Processed in accordance with mapping standards with a spatial resolution of 76 meters, the images include the orthographic projection of the eastern and western hemispheres of Mars, the Robinson projection of Mars, and the Mercator projection plus an azimuthal projection of the planet.

According to the CNSA, these images are based on 14,757 image data acquired by a remote-sensing camera on the Tianwen-1 orbiter over eight months from November 2021 to July 2022.

China’s Tianwen-1 mission, consisting of an orbiter, a lander and a rover, was launched on July 23, 2020 and entered the orbit of Mars after 202 days of flight.

The lander, carrying the rover Zhurong, touched down on May 15, 2021 in the southern part of Utopia Planitia, a vast plain in the northern hemisphere of Mars. Zhurong drove down from its landing platform to the Martian surface on May 22, starting its exploration of the red planet.

“The global images of Mars will provide a better quality base map for Mars exploration and scientific research,” said Zhang Rongqiao, the chief designer of China’s first Mars exploration mission.

“It is an important contribution that Tianwen-1 has made to human deep space exploration,” he added.

Zhang noted that starting from May 1 this year, the scientific data of Tianwen-1 will be open to the world.

The research team has also identified a large number of geographical entities near the landing site from high-resolution images of Mars. The International Astronomical Union has named, according to relevant rules, 22 of the geographical entities after the historical and cultural villages and towns in China with a population of less than 100,000.

“The scientific exploration data obtained by the Tianwen-1 mission will make a contribution to human’s in-depth knowledge of Mars,” the CNSA said.

According to the CNSA, the Tianwen-1 orbiter had achieved global remote sensing detection on Mars by June 29, 2022. So far, it has been operating for more than 1,000 days in good condition and continuing to accumulate remote sensing raw data. The rover Zhurong, currently in dormancy, traveled 1,921 meters on the red planet.

The 46.5-nanometer extreme-ultraviolet imager or Solar Upper Transition Region Imager (SUTRI), mounted on SATech-01 satellite, was launched into space on July 27, 2022, from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China by a Lijian-1 carrier rocket.

SUTRI is the first solar imager in the world to work at a wavelength of 40 to 110 nanometers based on a multilayer narrow-band filtering technique, according to the National Astronomical Observatories of China under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The device is capable of taking full-disk dynamic pictures of solar regions between the solar chromosphere and corona, thus building a key bridge for solar scientists for the lower atmosphere and higher one on the sun.

Starting operation on Aug. 30, 2022, SUTRI obtained over 200,000 pictures within four months. The data released in its first group were acquired between September 5 to November 5 last year.

Now, the device in orbit is in good working order and is expected to produce more data.