The feed
A live stream of standout moments from South African radio — a punchy quote, a sharp exchange, a revealing admission — picked as they air and posted with the audio. Press play; no sign-up needed.
A BBC World Service report says deep bed farming has been taught to 40,000 Malawian farmers, with yields more than doubling and food security within a year.
“By the time it was growing, it was already making decisions to say, hey, I need a co-Isaac Chavula is a country director of TNE, the NGO behind Deep Bed Farming.”
A Rockefeller University cardiologist says brown fat, activated by cold, is linked to fewer health conditions, and losartan activated it in cells and mice.
“But new research examining the medical records and scans of more than 100,000 patients has found that if you have more brown fat, it could reduce your likelihood of having various health conditions, including mental…”
On Cape Talk, Michael Jordaan's tweet that private solar hit 5.2GW prompts an energy institute head to explain why distributed power matters.
“So he tweets this: Private installed solar of 5.2 gigawatts is now larger than any coal-fired power station in South Africa.”
A Cape Talk guest describes using a detection dog and soil eDNA to rediscover De Winton's golden mole on the West Coast.
“And this was the De Winton's golden mole. I don't know if you know what a golden mole is. It's a small subterranean mammal that lives underground. And we have 17 species in South Africa, 21 species in Africa.”
A 702 motoring guest explains the rocket-assisted electric roadster demo, its physics, and which versions the public may buy.
“But on a much bigger scale, fully controlled, and a car was then, let's call it, flying for five seconds or controlled to descend for five seconds. Thank you for using the word controlled descent.”
Watercan's Dr Fariel Adam says civil society warned for years, and rejects the Joburg mayor's claim that there is no water crisis.
“So, when you heard the Premier, as I no doubt assume you would have, saying it's El Nino, we were caught of God, we didn't know this was going to happen. Oh my goodness, what were your thoughts?”
The story so far
3 moments on 3 stations
Mon 2 Nov, 17:05Kaya 959
Joburg water storage up to 41% but reservoirs stay lowTue 3 Nov, 06:54702This one
Water expert: Premier's El Nino excuse 'disingenuous', crisis is infrastructure
Tue 3 Nov, 22:42SAfm
Melville activist: water crisis demands inquiry and firings
Retraction Watch's Control-Z Award honoured Kate Laskowski, who retracted three papers after finding duplicated data.
“Another researcher conducted the experiments, and three papers were published as a result. But in 2019,”
On Cape Talk, a doctor says most people may carry a dormant cancer, and that only the heart itself escapes, not its covering.
“The only organ that doesn't get cancerous is your heart. It's only the covering of the heart which can, the pericardium, which can have cancer, but the heart itself.”
Dr Chris Smith cites a Japanese study of 300,000 people showing no link between the MMR vaccine and autism diagnoses.
“Five years ago, this was spuriously and erroneously linked to the development of certain developmental disorders like autism off the back of vaccination.”
A SAfm host recounts how a falsified Lancet article on vaccines was pulled yet still circulates, as measles and polio return in South Africa.
“Also, bring fantasy into the argument, which also doesn't help us because many on the ground take their faith leaders seriously.”
A BBC Crowd Science guest explains how mosquito antennal ears use distortion to pick out a female's faint flight tone amid male noise.
“Also, the disease-transmitting mosquitoes hear with their antennae. So the males use it mostly to hear the female. Imagine you're a male mosquito in a swarm of other male mosquitoes.”
A school project by Franco Rodriguez Viao became an app that alerts firefighters by WhatsApp to blazes detected by satellite within minutes.
“So, after his family friends lost their home in a fire. Back in 2020, Argentina experienced the most wildfires in the country's history, more than 35,000.”
Author Helena Creel tells 702 how an hour and a half with Kruger MD Oscar Kulu ended with joined hands and tears in his office.
“We did an article on the Kruger for the Daily Maverick about four years ago. And the article was one of the top read articles of those few months.”
A 702 listener asks meteorologists whether fish can fall from the sky, and a guest explains how waterspouts lift them from water.
“Can it really rain fish? If yes, how come?”
Laughter on air
702 weather guests explain what 'wrong' means when millions ride on a forecast, and say machine learning has long been used in forecasting.
“Then show him where the clouds and where the bad weather is happening. So you cannot fly. You can't. It's a way out. Oh, they're out in the space. Okay, that's. I told you it was a stupid question.”
Laughter on air
Weather professionals on 702 describe how aviation forecasting works and how businesses, mines and insurers profit from weather insights.
“Okay, are you the one who told us about the snow? I'm one of those ones. You saw it coming. But I'm the one who's telling you about the current heat wave. There's a current heat wave.”
Laughter on air
A Power FM host looks back at 2002, from Johannesburg's Earth Summit and the African Union launch to Wi-Fi going mainstream and Brazil's fifth World Cup.
“Do you remember the World Summit on Sustainable Developments? It took place back in 2002 in Johannesburg, where we hosted the massive.”
A 702 guest explains why last-minute studying is poor for long-term recall, citing repetition, engrams and sleep replay, with an ADHD caveat.
“Well, and so with kids, I imagine there's also kind of different styles, but also kids wanting to cram or learn as much as possible in the shortest amount of time.”
A Naked Scientists guest tells Cape Talk AI that designs helpful bacteriophages could also be misused to engineer more dangerous pathogens.
“Zara writes, he's raised questions around biosecurity, specifically AI lowering the technical barrier to synthesize pathogens or dangerous biocompounds. What's the risk, Zara asks? Yeah, hi, Zara.”
A University of Johannesburg researcher says 97 to 100% of respiratory bacteria sampled in a clinic's air were multi-drug resistant.
“About infection risk for vulnerable patients, leading that study from the University of Joburg's Water and Health Research Center, Dr. Lee Heinem. Lee, a very good morning and welcome to the show.”
The Friends of Rondebosch Common chair tells Cape Talk the small site holds 34 threatened species but faces frequent fires and litter.
“And the common has had too many fires too frequently. And the reason the problem then is that some of the species don't get time to reproduce, to drop seed or to”
A Cape Talk guest explains how brain-to-spine signals mean pain is shaped by mood, hormones and sleep, not only the injury site.
“Because you know, and I think the best way to explain this, because if we can kind of debunk this idea that people are just imagining it, it can help so many people.”
A reporter describes a team capturing a pink river dolphin in the Amazon for health checks, and vets discover she is pregnant.
“And in the middle of them, I can see two pink fins. One person suddenly leaps onto the dolphin, and then several others join him.”
The story so far
2 moments on Cape Talk
Thu 29 Oct, 01:10Cape Talk
Biologist wore bulletproof jacket after banning dolphin-bait catfish tradeThu 29 Oct, 01:14Cape TalkThis one
Vets check a wild Amazon pink river dolphin and find she's pregnant
A guest on The Aubrey Masango Show describes how research overturned his initial theory, leading to the discovery that a white dwarf can be green.
“I've been a working journalist. And typically, when you research a story, you start out with you think you know what the story is.”
A 702 polling guest explains why interviewing a small sample can mirror the views of roughly 44.9 million South African adults.
“There are something like 44.9 million South Africans who are over the age of 18, but we don't interview 44.9 million.”
A study had people walk a virtual plank; those given paracetamol were less afraid, moving faster with a smaller heart-rate rise.
“But then, as they were walking out over the plank, they were measuring things like how long it took them to get on the plank physically, how far they moved, the rate at which they moved, and just kind of the general…”
A UCL management researcher says data from the US and China show intelligent women get less help and more mistreatment than intelligent men.
“Imagine you are at work, you're at the workplace, and someone you work with is very intelligent. It doesn't matter how you categorize that or define it, they're just very intelligent. How do you feel toward them?”
Emory University researchers used deep learning on 16,000 overnight sleep recordings to link heart signals to outcomes over the next 10 years.
“And one of the things they're measuring as well, when they look at you in these sleep labs, is what your heart is doing that whole time. Now, it's not the most relevant data.”
A scientist on Cape Talk explains how a low-sedimentation funnel on the ocean floor preserved beaked whale skeletons and led to a new species.
“Near area which we call sort of the migratory corridor for beaked whales, as well as some baleen whales. And as we know, whales are also called these carbon sinks.”
A researcher on 702 says strictly enforced school phone policies cut smartphone vigilance, but the effect on academic results is tiny.
“Connectedness. And we took this measure among learners. And we then checked how strictly schools apply policy, not only in wording, but also how strictly educators at these schools enact policy.”
A South African-led team says its lunar radio antenna payload, built on volunteer time and local industry, will cost under half a million dollars.
“And we got to the point that there was an open call from China to apply to be a payload on their Chang'e 8 mission. And so last year it was announced that we were selected as one of the payloads.”
The story so far
3 moments on BizNews Radio
Mon 26 Oct, 10:45BizNews Radio
Africa's 2029 moon mission to cost under $500,000, not $100 millionMon 26 Oct, 10:47BizNews Radio
Africa's lunar antennas are 30cm 'balls' bound for the moonTue 27 Oct, 05:47BizNews RadioThis one
Africa's moon mission to cost under $500,000 instead of $100 million
A Power FM presenter cites research linking heat waves to preterm birth and perinatal mortality, and WHO data on babies' heat exposure.
“Research published in 2024 found that exposure to heat waves is associated with a 26% increase in odds of preterm birth and extreme heat and perinatal mortality, rather, also involving more than 40, nearly 140,000…”
On a BBC science show, Kai Kupperschmid explains that eight Frankfurt malaria cases, three fatal, involved no travel, with two theories.
“So we've had between July and September in Frankfurt eight cases of malaria, and three of those patients actually died. In Frankfurt? As far as I know, malaria is not really a thing in Germany.”
Dr Carla Mitchell recounts how she went from studying finance and economics to leading Africa to Moon, and presenting it at NASA Ames.
“I mean, you studied finance and economics, and now you're leading a mission to the moon. Yeah, so as a little girl, I was always obsessed with space.”
A paleontologist explains how the first land eggs evolved and how Massospondylus eggs from South Africa preserved a complete dinosaur embryo.
“And amphibians, those eggs are soft and they're wet and they're jelly-like, and they have to be laid in water or at least in very damp places because they have no protection and they just dry out.”
A climate comedian jokes that a return London-New York flight cancels years of recycling, then pitches glass floors and snakes on planes to cut demand.
“So people just don't, I don't think, quite grasp the magnitude of what causes more problems than others. And it's a very, you know, it's a very Western, decadent thing to do.”
Laughter on air
Comedian Matt Winning jokes about weighing emissions against fatherhood, quipping that the children are our future and to have better children.
“Despite the fact that having children goes hand in hand with increased use of resources, energy consumption, and waste generation, albeit to massively varying degrees.”
Laughter on air
The story so far
2 moments on Cape Talk
Mon 26 Oct, 00:33Cape Talk
Climate comedian ranks emissions: flights top the list, then drivingMon 26 Oct, 00:48Cape TalkThis one
Climate comedian's show on having kids: just have better children
Dr Chris Smith says researchers grind waste tyres and mix them with asphalt and bitumen to make quiet, resilient road surfaces.
“40 million waste tires are produced every year just in the UK. 500,000 disused tyres are shipped out of the UK every year to just go in landfill.”
A Power FM guest recalls landing a ranger job without knowing the work, then a lone visitor's request for a walking partner led to guiding.
“But I arrive and I get met by the man, they call him a senior warden who was going to do the interview, and he gives me a piece of paper. There are questions, and the questions are all wildlife-related questions.”
A professor says new HIV infections in northern KwaZulu-Natal fell sharply to 2018 but have flatlined, as viral suppression drops and older groups see more cases.
“In northern KwaZulu-Natal was followed up an entire population for over 20 years and look at the rate of new HIV infections, and new HIV infections tell you where you're going in the epidemic.”
BirdLife International's Dr Stuart Butchart says 200 migratory species face extinction, and describes the Arctic tern's epic journeys.
“State of the World's Birds report is released every four years, and this was the first devoted to migratory birds and the flyaways that they depend on. We are joined now via Zoom by Dr.”
A 702 host quizzes weather service staff on how satellites work, whether forecasts fail, and who pays when predictions are wrong.
“We are looking at it as it happens, and then we advise them to say, Don't fly over Plumfrontaines. Let me suppose they want to go to Cape Town from Johannesburg, but we see that in the free state there are storms there.”
Laughter on air
A Cape Talk guest explains how space commerce touches everyday life, from medicine grown on the ISS to South African nano-satellite work.
“So they're looking far more into the industry that they can actually make money out of it by using the essence of space itself.”
Paleontologist Charles Helm tells Cape Talk how a rescued slab of tracks and 24 Cape coast sites suggest modern humans began there.
“Was I would consider fairly aggressive, but he came to the conclusion that these might have been made by a female, perhaps carrying a child, was his conclusion. And one thing led to another.”
Melinda Ferguson tells Cape Talk how a British conservationist reached her as she tended a fallen swift on the day her partner died.
“And she did a protest through London naked with tattoos of Swifts all over her body so that the youth.”
The story so far
2 moments on Cape Talk
Sat 24 Oct, 00:22Cape TalkThis one
Author's bird rescue led her to a naked UK swift activist
Sat 24 Oct, 00:31Cape Talk
Melinda Ferguson on releasing the swift: 'the bird is the bird'
A Cape Talk guest explains that hyperscale data centres lose cooling water to evaporation, a concern in water-scarce Cape Town.
“But here, because we are cooling down a massive amount of IT infrastructure, the water actually evaporates.”
A doctor on Cape Talk explains how pollen triggers allergies and why most Cape Town pollen comes from imported trees, not indigenous plants.
“Club. It triggers that grenade. The grenade goes off, outpours histamine, and your nose and your eyes start to itch. You sneeze to obviously blast that intruder out, and your mucus taps open just to wash it all away.”
A three-metre shark that swam into a canal in Busan a month ago has defeated three rescue attempts and drawn over a million visitors.
“Tell me about this reluctant shark. Yes, difficult to feel sorry for a shark sometimes, especially what we were talking about yesterday.”
Laughter on air
A BBC World Service report says deep bed farming has been taught to 40,000 Malawian farmers, with yields more than doubling and food security within a year.
“By the time it was growing, it was already making decisions to say, hey, I need a co-Isaac Chavula is a country director of TNE, the NGO behind Deep Bed Farming.”
A Rockefeller University cardiologist says brown fat, activated by cold, is linked to fewer health conditions, and losartan activated it in cells and mice.
“But new research examining the medical records and scans of more than 100,000 patients has found that if you have more brown fat, it could reduce your likelihood of having various health conditions, including mental…”
On Cape Talk, Michael Jordaan's tweet that private solar hit 5.2GW prompts an energy institute head to explain why distributed power matters.
“So he tweets this: Private installed solar of 5.2 gigawatts is now larger than any coal-fired power station in South Africa.”
A Cape Talk guest describes using a detection dog and soil eDNA to rediscover De Winton's golden mole on the West Coast.
“And this was the De Winton's golden mole. I don't know if you know what a golden mole is. It's a small subterranean mammal that lives underground. And we have 17 species in South Africa, 21 species in Africa.”
A 702 motoring guest explains the rocket-assisted electric roadster demo, its physics, and which versions the public may buy.
“But on a much bigger scale, fully controlled, and a car was then, let's call it, flying for five seconds or controlled to descend for five seconds. Thank you for using the word controlled descent.”
Watercan's Dr Fariel Adam says civil society warned for years, and rejects the Joburg mayor's claim that there is no water crisis.
“So, when you heard the Premier, as I no doubt assume you would have, saying it's El Nino, we were caught of God, we didn't know this was going to happen. Oh my goodness, what were your thoughts?”
The story so far
3 moments on 3 stations
Mon 2 Nov, 17:05Kaya 959
Joburg water storage up to 41% but reservoirs stay lowTue 3 Nov, 06:54702This one
Water expert: Premier's El Nino excuse 'disingenuous', crisis is infrastructure
Tue 3 Nov, 22:42SAfm
Melville activist: water crisis demands inquiry and firingsRetraction Watch's Control-Z Award honoured Kate Laskowski, who retracted three papers after finding duplicated data.
“Another researcher conducted the experiments, and three papers were published as a result. But in 2019,”
On Cape Talk, a doctor says most people may carry a dormant cancer, and that only the heart itself escapes, not its covering.
“The only organ that doesn't get cancerous is your heart. It's only the covering of the heart which can, the pericardium, which can have cancer, but the heart itself.”
Dr Chris Smith cites a Japanese study of 300,000 people showing no link between the MMR vaccine and autism diagnoses.
“Five years ago, this was spuriously and erroneously linked to the development of certain developmental disorders like autism off the back of vaccination.”
A SAfm host recounts how a falsified Lancet article on vaccines was pulled yet still circulates, as measles and polio return in South Africa.
“Also, bring fantasy into the argument, which also doesn't help us because many on the ground take their faith leaders seriously.”
A BBC Crowd Science guest explains how mosquito antennal ears use distortion to pick out a female's faint flight tone amid male noise.
“Also, the disease-transmitting mosquitoes hear with their antennae. So the males use it mostly to hear the female. Imagine you're a male mosquito in a swarm of other male mosquitoes.”
A school project by Franco Rodriguez Viao became an app that alerts firefighters by WhatsApp to blazes detected by satellite within minutes.
“So, after his family friends lost their home in a fire. Back in 2020, Argentina experienced the most wildfires in the country's history, more than 35,000.”
Author Helena Creel tells 702 how an hour and a half with Kruger MD Oscar Kulu ended with joined hands and tears in his office.
“We did an article on the Kruger for the Daily Maverick about four years ago. And the article was one of the top read articles of those few months.”
A 702 listener asks meteorologists whether fish can fall from the sky, and a guest explains how waterspouts lift them from water.
“Can it really rain fish? If yes, how come?”
702 weather guests explain what 'wrong' means when millions ride on a forecast, and say machine learning has long been used in forecasting.
“Then show him where the clouds and where the bad weather is happening. So you cannot fly. You can't. It's a way out. Oh, they're out in the space. Okay, that's. I told you it was a stupid question.”
Weather professionals on 702 describe how aviation forecasting works and how businesses, mines and insurers profit from weather insights.
“Okay, are you the one who told us about the snow? I'm one of those ones. You saw it coming. But I'm the one who's telling you about the current heat wave. There's a current heat wave.”
A Power FM host looks back at 2002, from Johannesburg's Earth Summit and the African Union launch to Wi-Fi going mainstream and Brazil's fifth World Cup.
“Do you remember the World Summit on Sustainable Developments? It took place back in 2002 in Johannesburg, where we hosted the massive.”
A 702 guest explains why last-minute studying is poor for long-term recall, citing repetition, engrams and sleep replay, with an ADHD caveat.
“Well, and so with kids, I imagine there's also kind of different styles, but also kids wanting to cram or learn as much as possible in the shortest amount of time.”
A Naked Scientists guest tells Cape Talk AI that designs helpful bacteriophages could also be misused to engineer more dangerous pathogens.
“Zara writes, he's raised questions around biosecurity, specifically AI lowering the technical barrier to synthesize pathogens or dangerous biocompounds. What's the risk, Zara asks? Yeah, hi, Zara.”
A University of Johannesburg researcher says 97 to 100% of respiratory bacteria sampled in a clinic's air were multi-drug resistant.
“About infection risk for vulnerable patients, leading that study from the University of Joburg's Water and Health Research Center, Dr. Lee Heinem. Lee, a very good morning and welcome to the show.”
The Friends of Rondebosch Common chair tells Cape Talk the small site holds 34 threatened species but faces frequent fires and litter.
“And the common has had too many fires too frequently. And the reason the problem then is that some of the species don't get time to reproduce, to drop seed or to”
A Cape Talk guest explains how brain-to-spine signals mean pain is shaped by mood, hormones and sleep, not only the injury site.
“Because you know, and I think the best way to explain this, because if we can kind of debunk this idea that people are just imagining it, it can help so many people.”
A reporter describes a team capturing a pink river dolphin in the Amazon for health checks, and vets discover she is pregnant.
“And in the middle of them, I can see two pink fins. One person suddenly leaps onto the dolphin, and then several others join him.”
The story so far
2 moments on Cape Talk
Thu 29 Oct, 01:10Cape Talk
Biologist wore bulletproof jacket after banning dolphin-bait catfish tradeThu 29 Oct, 01:14Cape TalkThis one
Vets check a wild Amazon pink river dolphin and find she's pregnant
A guest on The Aubrey Masango Show describes how research overturned his initial theory, leading to the discovery that a white dwarf can be green.
“I've been a working journalist. And typically, when you research a story, you start out with you think you know what the story is.”
A 702 polling guest explains why interviewing a small sample can mirror the views of roughly 44.9 million South African adults.
“There are something like 44.9 million South Africans who are over the age of 18, but we don't interview 44.9 million.”
A study had people walk a virtual plank; those given paracetamol were less afraid, moving faster with a smaller heart-rate rise.
“But then, as they were walking out over the plank, they were measuring things like how long it took them to get on the plank physically, how far they moved, the rate at which they moved, and just kind of the general…”
A UCL management researcher says data from the US and China show intelligent women get less help and more mistreatment than intelligent men.
“Imagine you are at work, you're at the workplace, and someone you work with is very intelligent. It doesn't matter how you categorize that or define it, they're just very intelligent. How do you feel toward them?”
Emory University researchers used deep learning on 16,000 overnight sleep recordings to link heart signals to outcomes over the next 10 years.
“And one of the things they're measuring as well, when they look at you in these sleep labs, is what your heart is doing that whole time. Now, it's not the most relevant data.”
A scientist on Cape Talk explains how a low-sedimentation funnel on the ocean floor preserved beaked whale skeletons and led to a new species.
“Near area which we call sort of the migratory corridor for beaked whales, as well as some baleen whales. And as we know, whales are also called these carbon sinks.”
A researcher on 702 says strictly enforced school phone policies cut smartphone vigilance, but the effect on academic results is tiny.
“Connectedness. And we took this measure among learners. And we then checked how strictly schools apply policy, not only in wording, but also how strictly educators at these schools enact policy.”
A South African-led team says its lunar radio antenna payload, built on volunteer time and local industry, will cost under half a million dollars.
“And we got to the point that there was an open call from China to apply to be a payload on their Chang'e 8 mission. And so last year it was announced that we were selected as one of the payloads.”
The story so far
3 moments on BizNews Radio
Mon 26 Oct, 10:45BizNews Radio
Africa's 2029 moon mission to cost under $500,000, not $100 millionMon 26 Oct, 10:47BizNews Radio
Africa's lunar antennas are 30cm 'balls' bound for the moonTue 27 Oct, 05:47BizNews RadioThis one
Africa's moon mission to cost under $500,000 instead of $100 million
A Power FM presenter cites research linking heat waves to preterm birth and perinatal mortality, and WHO data on babies' heat exposure.
“Research published in 2024 found that exposure to heat waves is associated with a 26% increase in odds of preterm birth and extreme heat and perinatal mortality, rather, also involving more than 40, nearly 140,000…”
On a BBC science show, Kai Kupperschmid explains that eight Frankfurt malaria cases, three fatal, involved no travel, with two theories.
“So we've had between July and September in Frankfurt eight cases of malaria, and three of those patients actually died. In Frankfurt? As far as I know, malaria is not really a thing in Germany.”
Dr Carla Mitchell recounts how she went from studying finance and economics to leading Africa to Moon, and presenting it at NASA Ames.
“I mean, you studied finance and economics, and now you're leading a mission to the moon. Yeah, so as a little girl, I was always obsessed with space.”
A paleontologist explains how the first land eggs evolved and how Massospondylus eggs from South Africa preserved a complete dinosaur embryo.
“And amphibians, those eggs are soft and they're wet and they're jelly-like, and they have to be laid in water or at least in very damp places because they have no protection and they just dry out.”
A climate comedian jokes that a return London-New York flight cancels years of recycling, then pitches glass floors and snakes on planes to cut demand.
“So people just don't, I don't think, quite grasp the magnitude of what causes more problems than others. And it's a very, you know, it's a very Western, decadent thing to do.”
Comedian Matt Winning jokes about weighing emissions against fatherhood, quipping that the children are our future and to have better children.
“Despite the fact that having children goes hand in hand with increased use of resources, energy consumption, and waste generation, albeit to massively varying degrees.”
The story so far
2 moments on Cape Talk
Mon 26 Oct, 00:33Cape Talk
Climate comedian ranks emissions: flights top the list, then drivingMon 26 Oct, 00:48Cape TalkThis one
Climate comedian's show on having kids: just have better children
Dr Chris Smith says researchers grind waste tyres and mix them with asphalt and bitumen to make quiet, resilient road surfaces.
“40 million waste tires are produced every year just in the UK. 500,000 disused tyres are shipped out of the UK every year to just go in landfill.”
A Power FM guest recalls landing a ranger job without knowing the work, then a lone visitor's request for a walking partner led to guiding.
“But I arrive and I get met by the man, they call him a senior warden who was going to do the interview, and he gives me a piece of paper. There are questions, and the questions are all wildlife-related questions.”
A professor says new HIV infections in northern KwaZulu-Natal fell sharply to 2018 but have flatlined, as viral suppression drops and older groups see more cases.
“In northern KwaZulu-Natal was followed up an entire population for over 20 years and look at the rate of new HIV infections, and new HIV infections tell you where you're going in the epidemic.”
BirdLife International's Dr Stuart Butchart says 200 migratory species face extinction, and describes the Arctic tern's epic journeys.
“State of the World's Birds report is released every four years, and this was the first devoted to migratory birds and the flyaways that they depend on. We are joined now via Zoom by Dr.”
A 702 host quizzes weather service staff on how satellites work, whether forecasts fail, and who pays when predictions are wrong.
“We are looking at it as it happens, and then we advise them to say, Don't fly over Plumfrontaines. Let me suppose they want to go to Cape Town from Johannesburg, but we see that in the free state there are storms there.”
A Cape Talk guest explains how space commerce touches everyday life, from medicine grown on the ISS to South African nano-satellite work.
“So they're looking far more into the industry that they can actually make money out of it by using the essence of space itself.”
Paleontologist Charles Helm tells Cape Talk how a rescued slab of tracks and 24 Cape coast sites suggest modern humans began there.
“Was I would consider fairly aggressive, but he came to the conclusion that these might have been made by a female, perhaps carrying a child, was his conclusion. And one thing led to another.”
Melinda Ferguson tells Cape Talk how a British conservationist reached her as she tended a fallen swift on the day her partner died.
“And she did a protest through London naked with tattoos of Swifts all over her body so that the youth.”
The story so far
2 moments on Cape Talk
Sat 24 Oct, 00:22Cape TalkThis one
Author's bird rescue led her to a naked UK swift activist
Sat 24 Oct, 00:31Cape Talk
Melinda Ferguson on releasing the swift: 'the bird is the bird'A Cape Talk guest explains that hyperscale data centres lose cooling water to evaporation, a concern in water-scarce Cape Town.
“But here, because we are cooling down a massive amount of IT infrastructure, the water actually evaporates.”
A doctor on Cape Talk explains how pollen triggers allergies and why most Cape Town pollen comes from imported trees, not indigenous plants.
“Club. It triggers that grenade. The grenade goes off, outpours histamine, and your nose and your eyes start to itch. You sneeze to obviously blast that intruder out, and your mucus taps open just to wash it all away.”
A three-metre shark that swam into a canal in Busan a month ago has defeated three rescue attempts and drawn over a million visitors.
“Tell me about this reluctant shark. Yes, difficult to feel sorry for a shark sometimes, especially what we were talking about yesterday.”
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