African History: Davidson Nicol May 1, 2010

1924 – 1993

Davidson Nicol was born on September 14th 1924 in Freetown,Sierra Leone, Africa. His father was a

pharmacist who worked in Sierra Leone and Nigeria. His father’s science books fascinated Davidson Nicol. He became interested in science at school and after he left

school he became a science and maths teacher. He then became a technician in a science laboratory.

In 1943 Nicol came to England and went to Cambridge University to study Science. He got a first class honours degree. He wanted to become a doctor and a scientist. He applied to London Hospital Medical College to learn to become a cardiologist (a heart specialist). Due to racism, Nicol was not able to do that. Because of his name, the college thought he was white man who had an

excellent degree. Whey they realised he was African and black they refused to allow him into college. 

Monkeys learn more from females March 19, 2010

Monkeys pay more attention to females than to males, according to research. Scientists studying wild vervet monkeys in South Africa found that the animals were better able to learn a task when it was demonstrated by a female. The team compared animals' responses to demonstrations of a simple box-opening task, which was demonstrated either by a dominant male or female monkey. Their findings are described in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Biologist Erica van de Waal, from the University of Neuchatel in Switzerland, and her team, studied six neighbouring groups of wild vervet monkeys in South Africa's Loskop Dam Nature Reserve. They gave the monkeys boxes containing fruit, which had doors on each differently coloured end. During an initial demonstration, the researchers blocked one of the doors, so there was only one correct way to solve the box-opening puzzle and access the fruit reward.

The impacts of the digitization of land records in poor countries May 21, 2009

Among the many solutions to address the aches which plague developing nations and its people, competent and caring leadership and therefore the perpetual conception and implementation of productive initiatives is likely on the forefront of the list of antidotes. One such solution that I believe would have multiple benefits in terms of increasing the government coffer, employment, the extention of credit, economic activities and helping to reduce fraud and corruption in the real estate sector is to make the current archaic land records of poor nations accessible via the internet.

It's well established that the poor countries of the world are in fact not so poor considering that a greater number of its population owns a piece of real estate, but this asset is not given the full measure of its value mainly due to the lack of reliable and easily accessible data which can help to determine the specific location of the asset, its description and dimensions, its past sale information and present ownership. The availability and easy access to such data via the internet would as it can be well deduced and further elaborated bring fort