Eight ways to fix our water woes
The South African water crisis is a complex series of interlocking problems that preclude a silver-bullet solution. Each water system is unique, with different geographies,...
Author : Sarah Wild
Sarah Wild is an award-winning science journalist. She studied physics, electronics and English literature at Rhodes University in an effort to make herself unemployable. It didn't work and she is now the Science Editor at the Mail&Guardian. Sarah writes about particle physics, cosmology and everything in between. In 2012, she published her first full-length non-fiction book Searching African Skies: The Square Kilometre Array and South Africa’s Quest to Hear the Songs of the Stars. In 2013, she was awarded overall winner of the Pan-African Siemens Profile Awards for excellence in science journalism.
World reaches for the stars in SA
by Sarah Wild
Scientists say the Northern Cape is the perfect place for radio astronomy, with its low rainfall and clear skies making it a “radio quiet” site....
What price a peek at the galaxy?
by Sarah Wild
Square Kilometre Array (SKA) scientists and engineers are at this moment trying to predict what the world will look like in 2020. More than 350...
Where there’s wool, there’s a way
by Sarah Wild
Despite the accolades and prestige, Prof Tebello Nyokong of Rhodes University says that, when people think of her, they “think about sheep and that letter”....
Plans for Africa-led mission to the moon
by Sarah Wild
It is now Africa’s turn to go to the moon, according to the Cape Town-based Foundation for Space Development. The plan is to land a...
Mobile lab does cows a service
by Sarah Wild
Gloved hands hold a long syringe. Fluorescent lighting blinks off the white surfaces as Masindi Mphaphathi, an animal researcher at the Agricultural Research Centre, gently...
Plight of bats flies under the radar
by Sarah Wild
Fear of Ebola and the turbines used for wind farms pose a critical threat to an animal fundamental to our ecosystems. The sun goes down...
Bernie Fanaroff searched the stars, but this reticent man remains unknown
by Sarah Wild
By the sounds of it, South Africa stumbled into bidding to host the largest radio telescope in the world. Everyone will tell you that the SKA...
Nuclear waste is going nowhere slowly
by Sarah Wild
Generations from now, there will still be no-go areas storing radioactive by-products of nuclear power production, writes Sarah Wild in the Mail and Guardian. In 300...
Bugged by insects’ many names
by Sarah Wild
Insects have different names not only in each of our 11 official languages, but within each of those languages depending on geographical location. It is...