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A battle between bees and beetles

Small hive beetles (Aethina tumida) sometimes invade nests to feed on pollen and honey stores, and to lay eggs. So African honeybee subspecies herd the tiny insects into inaccessible cracks and corners of the nest where they can cause no harm. The beetles then dupe the bees that keep them prisoner into providing them with the best food in the hive.

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Research by UP-led team reveals eating habits of black holes

Research by an international team of scientists led by the University of Pretoria’s (UP) Dr Jack Radcliffe has clarified the eating habits of massive black holes.

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UP part of global team that reveals behaviour of magnetic fields around black holes

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration, who produced the first ever image of a black hole released in 2019, has today a new view of the massive object at the centre of the Messier 87 (M87) galaxy: how it looks in polarised light. This is the first time astronomers have been able to measure polarisation, a signature of magnetic fields, this close to the edge of a black hole. This image...

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UP researchers solve for cosmic 'X' using South Africa's MeerKAT telescope

A team of astronomers from South Africa and the USA has used the MeerKAT telescope to solve a longstanding puzzle in ‘X’-shaped radio galaxies by observing a galaxy called PKS 2014-55 that’s situated 800 million light years away from Earth.

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67% of seals are at risk of entanglement in oceanic plastic pollution, UP review of global data suggests

Researchers at the Mammal Research Institute (MRI) and the Department of Zoology and Entomology at the University of Pretoria (UP) have conducted a global review of studies on the entanglement of pinnipeds in oceanic plastic pollution, and found that 67% of these aquatic mammals are at risk of entanglement. Pinnipeds have front and rear flippers, and the group includes seals, sea lions and...

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The world's first image of the shadow of a black hole

University of Pretoria (UP) astrophysicist Professor Roger Deane was part of the international group of scientists who have captured the first image of a black hole. His group worked to develop simulations of the complex, Earth-sized telescope used to make this historic discovery. These simulations attempt to mimic and better understand the data coming from the real instrument, which is made up...