Featured Lessons from the insect world: How do ant colonies fight disease?
Taking a lesson from our ants, we should put our own interests aside, cooperate and do what is necessary to mitigate the spread and impact...
Tag : National Research Foundation
Glenda Gray: guided by the needs
by AdminBraai
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...
Darrell Comins’ fascination with materials
by AdminBraai
Darrell Comins was born in Pietermaritzburg on 10 June, 1942. Attending Merchiston Preparatory School and, later, Maritzburg College, he followed what was then the traditional...
Plantation fires: What to do with burnt trees?
It has been an exceptional fire season in the Cape, with many hectares of fynbos veld and plantations being burnt. The skeletons of many trees...
South Africa’s Antarctic history is being unfrozen in time
by Sarah Wild
Used as a gateway to the world’s southernmost continent since the 18th century, South Africa has been actively involved in scientific research in Antarctica and...
Fracking in Karoo gets a R108m injection
by Sarah Wild
The R108-million investment in shale gas research, announced in Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene’s budget speech, was “positive” and showed “government is taking time to investigate”,...
IBM research lab to work with the cool kids
by Sarah Wild
Multinational research company IBM announced on Friday that it will be opening a research laboratory, in collaboration with the University of Witwatersrand, in the Tshimologong...
Science Voices: Astrophysical jets in distant galaxy could teach us physics
by AdminBraai
In the dark and cold chasm of space, huge jets of charged particles erupt around a super-massive black hole, writes Arvind Ramessur, a MSc candidate at the...
Obituary: Mike Gaylard: Radio astronomy has lost a star
by Sarah Wild
Mike Gaylard’s passion and brilliance in radio astronomy and dedication to the discipline in South Africa will be sorely missed, writes Sarah Wild in the...
Do research chairs fuel SA’s research engine?
by Sarah Wild
NEWS ANALYSIS The problem: South African universities are struggling to meet the workforce demands for highly skilled graduates and increase their research output at the...