Cyclone Freddy has made landfall on Madagascar, leaving destruction in its wake. At the time this edition of Science In Action is going to air, Freddy is on course to reach Mozambique and South Africa.

Freddy, which has been gaining strength since it originally formed on the 30th of January, is the most powerful southern hemisphere cyclone on record. Professor Francois Engelbrecht provides the science behind the storm system. In the centre of our galaxy, an enormous cloud is heading towards the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole. Dr Anna Ciurlo tells us that this is a unique opportunity to study the influence of the black hole on the cloud’s shape and properties. We’ve heard a lot about balloons floating above Earth recently… but what about sending balloons to Venus?

That’s exactly what Dr Siddharth Krishnamoorthy is proposing in order to study Venus’s seismic activity. Recorders on a “floatilla” above the planet’s surface could listen into Venus-quakes and reveal Venus’s mysterious past. And closer to home, scientists have discovered a new layer in the Earth’s core. We journey into the very centre of the Earth with Professor Hrvoje Tkalčić, who tells Roland what the innermost inner core can teach us about our planet’s past.

And, If, like this week’s Crowdscience listener Lili, you’re an avid gymgoer, you may well have wondered where your fat disappears to when you exercise?

Well, the short answer is that we convert it to energy that powers a whole range of physical processes, from breathing to walking as well as lying down and doing nothing. But the science behind energy expenditure is a little more complicated than that.

Presenter Anand Jagatia pops on an exercise bike to have his metabolism measured, and learns that he may be relying on an entirely different source of fuel as he works up a sweat. But is all that hard work worth the effort it involves? Recent research suggests there's a limit to the number of calories us humans can burn, and that doing physical activity isn’t a sure-fire way to keep trim.

Even hunter-gatherers who walk 13,000 steps a day have the same metabolic rate as the average American. So if working out isn't the best way to lose weight, how about harnessing our own fat to tackle the complications of obesity? It used to be thought brown fat was exclusive to babies (and bears) but we now know adults have some of it too, and it seems to play a vital role in combatting a range of chronic diseases including hypertension and diabetes.

Image: NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, using VIIRS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE, GIBS/Worldview, and the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS). Producer: Roland Pease Assistant Producer: Sophie Ormiston

Coached by NBA legend Luol Deng, South Sudan qualify for basketball's World Cup at their first attempt - and will be just the ninth nation to represent Africa at the sport's global showpiece.

The money was found in Chinyere Igwe's car on the eve of Nigeria's hotly contested elections.

The Independent National Electoral Commission [INEC] chairman Mahmood Yakubu says the commission is ready for 25 February polls.

That's all from the BBC Africa Live team for now. There'll be an automated service until Monday morning.

But we will have live coverage of the Nigerian elections here, or listen to our podcast.

Our wise words of the day:

Click here to send us your African proverbs.

And we leave you with this photo of Ivorian artist Laetitia Ky and Malian actor Morr Ndiaye on the red carpet at the Berlinale in Germany taken from our selection of top African shots this week.

Image source, EPA

Image source, Getty Images

Nigeria musician Timaya has told the BBC’s DJ Edu that most people don’t know he’s Nigerian and think he is “from the Caribbean,” as he is well known for his reggae music and has a strong fanbase in the Caribbean.

Timaya, whose real name is Inetimi Timaya Odon, is from Baylesa State in the south of Nigeria and is known for his first single in 2005 called Dem Mama which saw him shoot to stardom, as well as his 2021 collaboration with young Afrobeats star BNXN called Cold Outside, which got 75 million streams after just three months.

He said Dem Mama was based on real life and the destruction of his community by soldiers, including his grandmother’s bakery: “I just had to use my voice. That's my way of contributing. The fact that it was a true story got the people's attention."

He said he mostly writes about painful life experiences: “You know I was born into a family of 15. It was hard there. I didn't see that kind of love growing up as a child so there was no love to preach about.”

In 2017 he won an Afrima award for Dancehall Act of the Year. The following year he was nominated for a Grammy in the best reggae album category when he featured on Avarakedabra, an album by Morgan Heritage.

Timaya's next album is due for release later this year, and he says he has so many new songs, he just needs to decide which ones to include. He didn't want to give too much away about who he's collaborating with on this next release, but he did reveal that Jamaican-American star Shaggy and Nigeria's Olamide are just two big names who will feature.

To hear the full interview with Timaya, listen to This is Africa on BBC World Service radio and partner stations across Africa, and online here.

Despite the victory for LGBT activists, the Supreme Court stresses that gay sex remains illegal.

Omar Wally
The Gambia

Muhammad Jallow has been appointed vice-president of The Gambia, the fifth person to hold that title under President Adama Barrow.

He replaces Alieu Badara Joof, 65, who died in India where he had been seeking medical treatment.Vice-President Jallow is an experienced civil servant who has worked across various ministries, rising to the position of secretary general and head of the civil service until his statutory retirement in 2020.

Mr Jallow also worked at the Senegalo-Gambia Secretariat as deputy executive secretary representing The Gambia.

He takes up his new post with immediate effect.

Thomas Naadi
BBC News, Accra

Image source, AFP

Ghana risks an outbreak of childhood diseases if the government does not address the current shortage of vaccines, says the Paediatric Society of Ghana.

Fifty cases of measles - a disease which can be prevented by vaccines - have been recorded in the country's north, government data shows.

But according to the Paediatric Society of Ghana the number is higher, with 90 cases of measles recorded by their staff in one major health facility alone.

The Ghana Health Service says a lack of funds is to blame for the vaccine shortage, saying the depreciation of the local currency - the cedi - has eroded funds budgeted to buy the medicines.

Ghana’s parliament has summoned Health Minister Kwaku Agyeman Manu and heads of other agencies over the vaccine shortage. There are concerns it could roll back the progress already made in preventing deaths of children under five in the country.

Anne Soy
Senior Africa correspondent, BBC News

A year since the war in Ukraine began, Africa’s reaction appears not to have shifted much. In a UN resolution condemning Russia’s invasion, African countries were still as divided as when the war began.

Thirty countries – two more than in March 2022 – voted in favour of the resolution.

Madagascar and South Sudan, who both abstained last year, voted with much of the rest of the world this time. Morocco had missed the 2022 vote but cast its ballot in favour of the resolution on Thursday.

Gabon, however, went the other way, abstaining this time after voting for the previous resolution. It joined 14 other African nations, together accounting for nearly half of all abstentions.

These countries hold that their position is non-aligned with either Russia or a Western-backed Ukraine. An increase in engagement and visits from senior officials from both Western countries and Russia over the past year have done little to sway them.

Barely a day before the UN vote, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a phone call to his Ugandan counterpart, Yoweri Museveni. The country abstained from Thursday's vote as it did a year ago, and so did Namibia while it hosted US First Lady Jill Biden who is on her maiden tour of Africa in her current role.

"It’s not flipping a light switch," said US Foreign Secretary Anthony Blinken to the Atlantic. "It’s moving an aircraft carrier," he added, expressing optimism that South Africa was "on a slow trajectory to non-align with Russia." He acknowledged that such countries have had a decades-long relationship with Russia and had the support of the Soviet Union in their fight against apartheid and colonialism.

During the struggle against white-minority rule in South Africa, the US government designated the Africa National Congress – today’s ruling party – a terrorist group. Despite winning a Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, jointly with the last apartheid leader Frederik de Klerk "for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa" and becoming the country’s first black president from 1994 to 1999, Nelson Mandela remained on the US terror watchlist until it was revised in 2008.

"Of course, unfortunately, more than unfortunately, the United States was much too sympathetic to the apartheid regime, so that history also doesn't get erased, you know, overnight," Mr Blinken was quoted as saying.

But it’s not only about the past. Nations like Eritrea and lately Mali – both largely isolated from the global community - have found an ally in Russia. They were among African countries that recently hosted its Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and both voted against the UN resolution.

Seven other African countries – Senegal, Tanzania, Equatorial Guinea, Burkina Faso, Eswatini, Guinea Bissau and Cameroon – did not vote at all. The first three had voted to abstain last year.

It’s never reasonable to generalise the reaction and sentiment of a continent of more than 50 countries. Each would have its own reasons for whichever way they voted. Whilst the vote is not legally binding, it has brought to the fore and will no doubt continue to shape geopolitical alliances.

A year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, what has happened to the thousands of African students, who fled the war.

Will Ross
Africa editor, BBC World Service

Suspected Islamist militants have killed at least 12 people in central Mali's Mopti region.

Officials said gunmen burst into a village in Cercle de Bankass, shot at people, burnt homes and then chased those trying to flee into nearby forests.

One official said as many as 19 bodies had been found and the search for more victims was continuing.

Last June an attack in the same area left more than 130 people dead.

The region sees frequent raids by jihadist groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group.

Last year Mali's military government ordered French troops to leave and turned to Russia for support, hiring soldiers from the Wagner group. Though it denies this.

More on this topic:

• Have Wagner mercenaries helped Mali's fight against jihadists?
• UK withdraws troops from Mali early blaming political instability
• The coups that promised - and failed - to bring safety
• Russia and the West fight for Africa's heart

The BBC revealed last year that a senior Met officer who assisted the Kenyan investigation "omitted evidence".

Ferdinand Omondi
BBC News, Nairobi

Image source, Getty Images

Kenya's Supreme Court has ruled that it was wrong for the authorities to ban the gay community from registering a rights organisation.

In a split decision the majority of judges ruled that Kenya's NGO board should have allowed the registration of an LGBTQ group - called National Gays and Lesbians Human Rights Commission - which it had blocked in 2013.

The judges said the constitution guaranteed the right to association and that the NGO board should not deny the registration of an association purely based on the sexual orientation of the applicants, or because it has the word "gay" or "lesbian" in it.

In its ruling, however, the Supreme Court stressed that gay sex remained illegal in Kenya.

How the former Newcastle midfielder, who lost his life in the Turkey-Syria earthquakes, grew from humble beginnings into a star who supported orphans and rehabilitated criminals.

Simon Ekpa has called for a boycott of Nigeria's election, and allegedly incited violence on social media.

Sarah Keith-Lucas
BBC Weather presenter

Tropical Cyclone Freddy has made landfall in Mozambique.

It has been restrengthening in the Mozambique Channel with winds up to 128km/h (80mph).

After landfall, the storm system will be slow-moving in southern Mozambique producing up to 400mm of rain over the next few days.

This is likely to lead to major flooding across the region which may well shift into Zimbabwe and north-east South Africa into next week.

Kalkidan Yibeltal
BBC News, Addis Ababa

Image source, AFP

At least seven people have died from starvation in Borena area in southern Ethiopia following severe drought, local authorities and residents have told the BBC.

Dhenge Wario, a district administrator in the zone in Oromia region close to the country’s border with neighbouring Kenya, said among those dead were a two-month-old baby and elderly people.

“People are not eating food for many days. Their cattle are all dead,” he told the BBC.

Guyo Turu, a resident of the district which is mostly populated by pastoralist communities, said his 16-year-old son had died.

“He got sick because of hunger; we had nothing. When we took him to the hospital they told us [his illness] was related to shortage of food. He died shortly after that,” he said.

Mr Guyo told the BBC that his family had lost all their cattle.

Another resident said he had lost all but four of his 150 cattle.

More than 800,000 people require emergency food assistance because of the drought, according to the disaster prevention and food security office in Borena zone.

“The number of people seeking aid is increasing” the head of the office told the BBC.

Food aid is being provided by the government and non-governmental organisations but the needs are far higher than what’s been delivered, he added.

A branch of the office in the area however said it had no information about the people dying from food scarcity.

The Horn of Africa region is suffering from what the UN has called “the most severe drought in two generations” after five consecutive failed rainy seasons.

The UN’s migration agency IOM had previously said that more than 4.5 million cattle had died since 2021 because of the drought in Ethiopia.

A hip-hop artist has written an opera about his experience making Nigerian food during the pandemic.

Jose Tembe
BBC News, Maputo

Image source, AFP

Mozambique's Beira port has been closed as as tropical cyclone Freddy approaches the nation's southern region.

Beira is the second-largest city by size in Mozambique by population and its port sits on the mouth of the Pungwe river, that runs to Zimbabwe.

In a statement, the port's operator said all indications point to the probability of the cyclone affecting the city.

Operations will resume once the weather conditions improve, Cornelder de Moçambique said in a statement.

“We appeal to our customers who may have trucks that are on route to the port of Beira to stay in safer places until the weather conditions improve,” it added.

Schools have been closed in the areas thought to be in high risk, mainly in the coastal provinces of Inhambane and Sofala.

Strong winds are being witnessed in areas where the cyclone is expected to make landfall by Friday noon local time.