Scientists and communicators from across the world and the across the scientific spectrum came together on the 28th of August when ScienceLink hosted their second SciCommunity event, at which scientists in Cape Town could meet, network and discuss science communication with the writer, public speaker and international science communicator, Alaina Levine.There are currently very few…
Ukusetshenziswa kwamishini ecabangayo kuya ngokuya kukhula njengoba amandla wamakhomputha endlondlobala. Lokhu sekwenza ososayensi bacabange kabanzi ngekusasa kokuphepha komphakathi. Ingakho kuhlangane osolwazi abasuka emazweni ase-Europe abahlangane kukhomfa we-ESOF2018 e-Toulouse, a-France kuNtulikazi walonyaka. Umshayeli wemoto waziwa njengomuntu emthethweni ovumelekile ukuthi aqhube izinhlobo eziningi zezinqola. Lokhu kubekwa emthethweni ukuthi kubekhona okwaziwayo ukuthi ungumshayeli kwenzelwa ukuthi uma kukhona okwenzakalayo…
Professor Jonathan Jansen doesn’t enjoy being in the media limelight. “I used to, but now I think it’s a drag,” says the former Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Free State (UFS). The reason, he says, is that journalists often get the story wrong, and the wrong idea about him. “They see me as this…
In academia, change often happens slowly. Academics are born into a paradigm and, more often than not, they maintain that paradigm rather than interrogating and critiquing it. It is rare to find a researcher who is willing, much less eager, to look outside of his or her field and recognise when a paradigm can be…
Dr Jessica Thorn was recently announced as part of the first three Women in Climate Change Science Fellows, an initiative of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences – Next Einstein Initiative (AIMS-NEI). She will be hosted by the African Climate and Development Initiative (ACDI) at the University of Cape Town in South Africa but…
An adventurous team of South African scientists is preparing for a journey to an ocean at the bottom of the Earth. Their expedition will delve deeper into how the climate will change in Africa, and how South Africa can better protect its food supplies. In July 2019, researchers led by Dr Pedro Monteiro at the…
This week’s The Science Inside radio show tells the story of a tiny beetle that is threatening Johannesburg’s trees. Hear from the people working on this, Prof Wilhelm de Beer and Neil Hill. In Unscience we find out how a bug might be the answer to the world’s plastic problem. Prof Mandeep Kaur explains how she…
Diane Hildebrandt was born in Chingola, Zambia and came to South Africa in 1968. Her childhood was spent mostly in Rustenburg, where she completed primary school at Fields Primary School. She undertook her highschool education at Grenville High, the only government high school for English-speakers in Rustenburg at the time. The core of her matric…
As part of her PhD in Anatomy, Mandi Alblas regularly visits Stellenbosch University’s Kirsten Skeletal Collection. Like an accountant she packs out, photographs and tallies each of 206 bones in each of the 700 skeletons included in her study – 144 200 bones in all. There’s something moving about the way that Mandi Alblas switches between…
The road to Kliptown runs more-or-less directly south-west from the centre of Johannesburg, past the core of Soweto, and then takes a sharp turn to the right through Eldorado Park towards the bleak Walter Sisulu Memorial Square. Here, the Kliptown Perinatal HIV Research Unit (PHRU) is located, where one of Prof Glenda Gray’s many offices…
It has been difficult to accept, psychologically, that Maya is almost entirely my responsibility while she is a baby, and a breastfeeding one at that. In my mind, as a modern woman in a free and equal society, I had thought her care should be shared 50/50 between myself and her father Stephan. He, naturally,…
South Africa’s new Minister of Science and Technology, Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane, likes things to be done on time. She’s solution-driven and prefers preparing properly for briefings and other commitments by working through all necessary documentation herself. She likes things to be in order and believes in accountability. And she hates being rushed and being given last-minute jobs. “I…
