Science Journalist, Scribbler, Question-asker, Audio-wrangler, Note-taker, Tea-drinker, and (Occasional) Author
More than one in five children in South Africa are stunted, according to the Global Nutrition Report 2015, and addressing that should be the focus of this government. Childhood stunting refers to the significant impairment of a child’s growth; that child is very short in relation to peers in their population and age groups…
Software developed by University of Pretoria researchers could bring cheaper hearing tests to South Africa’s rural areas. The hearScreen technology, which has been patented and is in the process of being licensed, can turn any smartphone into an audiometer to test people’s hearing. According to the 2011 census, about 4% of South Africa’s 51-million citizens…
Liquid water may flow on present-day Mars, the United States’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) announced on Monday. Liquid water is necessary for life as we know it, and its discovery on Mars adds to the evidence that the red planet could support life. Carbon-based life exists on Earth because it is in the…
China this week joined a “select” group of countries that had entered into negotiations to create a treaty organisation to govern the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), the SKA Organisation said on Tuesday. The SKA, which has a conservative price tag of €2-billion, will be the world’s largest radio telescope, comprising thousands of antennae throughout Australia…
In the dark and humid Dinaledi Chamber at the Cradle of Humankind, dozens – possibly hundreds – of fossils are still undisturbed. This week, National Geographic explorer-in-residence and Wits University professor Lee Berger announced the discovery of 15 individuals, which his team of international scientists claim is a new species, Homo naledi, that were deposited…
A “man” stands naked in the centre of the studio. In the dim light cast from a lamp on a nearby table, you can see the threads of muscles running down his arms and cording up his legs. But something is wrong: his chest does not expand with air, he does not shift his balance,…
They moved the bodies in one at a time, from the old with their worn teeth to newborn babies. If they had been modern humans, the Dinaledi Chamber would have been called a burial site. But the creatures are not human. Homo naledi (“naledi” means star in the local Sotho language) is a new species…
So ‘Innovation: Shaping South Africa through science’ is launching this week. Here is a taster of what I’ll be talking about:
Phumla and two friends were driving home from soccer practice with two men from their township. “Instead of taking us home, they took us to a place out of town … [One of the men] grabbed me and dragged me into a house where there was another man waiting. “All the time they were telling…