
Spacing out: Air pollution and human health

UP part of team that solves mystery of X-shaped radio galaxies with MeerKAT telescope

Welcome to Research Matters. This curated site highlights some of the University of Pretoria’s most impactful and innovative research which addresses some of our society’s most pressing concerns so that we can transform lives and communities. We are rated as the number one university in South Africa for research outputs. Our vision is to be a leading research-intensive university in Africa that is recognised internationally for its quality, relevance and impact. We develop people, create knowledge and strive to make a difference locally and internationally.
South Africa and the world will need to go a big step further to create smart cities where cars are safer and traffic congestion becomes a thing of the past: road infrastructure needs to “talk” to the vehicles driving on it, says UP's Professor Schalk Els.
Smart cities can be used as vehicles for South Africa and the world to move towards a sustainable, smarter future, free from the threats of food security, climate change and inequality.
Researchers at UP's Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment, and Information Technology are using computer models and diplomacy to bridge gaps between those who hold the data and those who need it, by making it easy for everyone to talk to each other.
Following the decision to legalise the use of cannabis (dagga) for private use in South Africa in 2018, research at the University of Pretoria (UP) by medico-legal experts Dr Tim Laurens and Professor Pieter Carstens has drawn attention to some of the new legal and ethical challenges associated with drug testing in the workplace.
Adults are entitled by law to smoke or consume cannabis (dagga) in private – but what happens when a company tests the blood, urine or saliva of an employee and finds traces of dagga a day later, or even a week later?
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration – which produced the first-ever image of a black hole and of which the University of Pretoria (UP) is an associate institute – has revealed a new view of the massive object at the centre of the M87 galaxy: what it looks like in polarised light.