Search Nigeria's research — everywhere it lives.

This narrative review examines the role of technology in research and scholarly communication in African universities. It considers how digital repositories, online journals, research information systems, collaborative platforms, research data services, persistent identifiers and open-access infrastructures can improve the visibility, accessibility and reuse of research outputs. The review also considers institutional challenges including unreliable connectivity, infrastructure constraints, limited digital skills, fragmented systems, funding limitations, research governance and unequal access to scholarly resources. The analysis shows that technology-enabled research should be approached as an institutional ecosystem rather than as a collection of isolated digital tools. Sustainable progress requires reliable infrastructure, researcher capacity development, responsible research data practices, interoperable systems, clear institutional policies and regional collaboration. The review concludes that African universities can strengthen research productivity and scholarly communication by combining digital infrastructure with human capacity, governance and open science practices.

Rapid peri-urban growth around Kano has increased reliance on privately drilled shallow boreholes, many sited close to informal industry and waste ground. This study assessed heavy-metal contamination of shallow borehole water across the city's peri-urban fringe during the 2024 dry season. Water samples were collected from 96 boreholes and analysed for lead, cadmium, arsenic and chromium by atomic absorption spectrometry. Lead exceeded the national drinking-water limit at 38 per cent of sites, with the highest concentrations clustered near a tannery district and an informal battery-recycling area. Cadmium and arsenic exceedances were less frequent but spatially co-located with lead. Contamination was strongly associated with proximity to industrial activity and with borehole depth of less than 30 metres. The findings indicate a significant and unevenly distributed exposure risk and support targeted monitoring of shallow boreholes near industrial land

Rainfall in the Nigerian Guinea Savannah has become less predictable in onset and distribution over the past fifteen years, with consequences for rain-fed smallholder agriculture. This study examines the relationship between intra-seasonal rainfall variability and maize yields across four states between 2010 and 2024. Daily rainfall records from twelve stations were combined with plot-level yield returns from 480 smallholder farms. We find that total seasonal rainfall is a weak predictor of yield, while the length of the longest dry spell during the tasselling window explains a substantially larger share of the variation. Farms that adjusted planting dates in response to observed onset recorded smaller losses than those planting on fixed calendar dates. The findings suggest that advisory services should prioritise dry-spell forecasting and flexible planting guidance over seasonal rainfall totals alone

As political discourse has migrated onto commercial social media platforms, private companies have assumed an increasingly consequential role in regulating political speech—deciding what stays online, what is removed, and what is demoted or labeled. This review synthesizes recent scholarship on platform content moderation as a form of political governance, examining three interrelated dimensions: the legal and institutional status of platforms as "new governors" of speech; the comparative politics of state efforts to regulate platform moderation; and the uneven, often Western-centric application of moderation systems across national and linguistic contexts. Drawing on legal scholarship, comparative political science, and empirical platform studies, the review finds that content moderation increasingly functions as a hybrid public-private governance regime, shaped simultaneously by platform policy, national regulation, and transnational pressure, with outcomes that vary substantially by country, platform, and political system. The review highlights a persistent asymmetry: moderation systems designed primarily around U.S. legal norms and English-language content are applied, often poorly, to political speech in linguistically and politically diverse contexts, particularly across the Global South. The review concludes by outlining implications for platform accountability, comparative regulatory design, and future research on moderation equity.

In the 21st century, the proximal examination of fish behavior—the analysis of immediate genetic, physiological, neurobiological, and environmental mechanisms triggering behavior—has shifted from basic observation to a high-tech, predictive science. Driven by rapid technological innovation and global environmental pressures, modern researchers use fish behavior as a neural proxy to reveal complex internal states, breaking old assumptions that fish operate on simple, rigid reflexes.