Linda Nordling

1 week ago | nature.com | Linda Nordling

“I’m a plant pathologist at the Kenya Agriculture and Livestock Organization in Machakos, east of Nairobi. For more than a decade, I’ve been working on a sustainable way to control Striga, a parasitic weed that damages farmers’ crops here in Kenya. This photo, taken in January this year, shows me holding a Striga plant in a maize field in western Kenya, where Striga infested 73% of farms in 2009. It steals nutrients through the crops’ roots, sometimes destroying entire harvests.

1 week ago | researchprofessionalnews.com | Linda Nordling

Health funding crisis brought on by cuts in international aid accelerates need for homegrown financingThe Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention says its reference laboratories and specialised testing facilities represent an opportunity for income generation, after dwindling aid money has left the agency short of funds.

2 weeks ago | researchprofessionalnews.com | Linda Nordling

Image: Ignatiev, via Getty Images But scientists on the continent have been growing their output in recent years, report revealsAfrican scientists are underrepresented in research looking into the effects that artificial intelligence could have on health on the continent, a report says. The United States produced the highest number of publications on AI and global health in the past decade, followed by South Africa, China, Ethiopia and the UK, says the report.

2 weeks ago | researchprofessionalnews.com | Linda Nordling

Science granting councils to create “dedicated funding mechanism” to implement Stisa-2034, communique revealsAfrican research funding agencies have thrown their collective weight behind the continent’s new 10-year plan for science and innovation, announcing that they are planning a “dedicated funding mechanism and instrument” to support the plan’s implementation.

2 weeks ago | nature.com | Linda Nordling

Norway’s new research minister has signalled that the government will axe a controversial law that requires PhD students and postdoctoral researchers from other countries to undertake mandatory Norwegian language training. The move follows a backlash from scientists, who argued that the language stipulation — which was introduced in August last year with a year’s implementation delay — would create substantial barriers to recruiting international talent to their labs.