Plant medicine – News, Research and Analysis – The Conversation

CT-scan thin section through the centre of the bovid femur. The three bone arrowhead fragments and poison substance are visible. CT rendering and image segmentation: Dr Aliénor Duhamel

January 23, 2025

Discovery in South Africa holds oldest evidence of mixing ingredients to make arrow poison

Justin Bradfield, University of Johannesburg

This is the oldest confirmed use of a mixture comprising two or more plant toxins specifically applied to arrowheads.

Both the Khoi and the San believed in a mythical animal, resembling a cow, whose horns were thought to have medicinal attributes. Rodger Smith

February 9, 2023

500‑year‑old horn container discovered in South Africa sheds light on pre‑colonial Khoisan medicines

Justin Bradfield, University of Johannesburg

The medicine container was found in a painted rock shelter. A radio carbon date of the horn container places it at around AD 1461-1630.

*Shorea smithiana*, a rainforest tree vulnerable to habitat loss. Sepilok, Sabah, Malaysia. David Bartholomew

September 15, 2021

One‑third of the world’s tree species are threatened with extinction – here are five of them

Adrian Newton, Bournemouth University

A staggering 17,500 tree species are at risk of dying out.

Addressing Canada’s health inequities through the health-care system will only take us so far. Real change will require listening to Indigenous stories, which teach about our relationships to one another as human beings, and between us and our four-legged, winged, finned, rooted and non-rooted relations. (Unsplash/jongsun lee)

November 28, 2018

Indigenous knowledge is the solution to Canada’s health inequities

Debbie Martin, Dalhousie University

To improve Indigenous health in Canada we need more Indigenous health professionals and more culturally competent health-care providers. We also need to listen properly to Indigenous stories.

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