Science Journalist, Scribbler, Question-asker, Audio-wrangler, Note-taker, Tea-drinker, and (Occasional) Author
The first image from South Africa’s MeerKAT telescope shows that the telescope “will be a remarkable discovery machine”, MeerKAT chief scientist Dr Fernando Camilo said on Saturday. “The images tell us all that MeerKAT is the best telescope of its kind in the southern hemisphere, with only 16 dishes,” he told an assembled audience of … Read more
South Africa and Australia have more in common than clear blue skies, rugby and a penchant for burning meat on an open fire. The two countries – whose economies were founded on the mineral resources under the soil and which are separated from European, Asian and North American markets by thousands of kilometres – also … Read more
IT COULD change the way disease is diagnosed and treated: millions of human tissue samples, their information stored in vast databases, allowing health researchers to trawl for patterns. The patterns could point to disease risk among population groups, and could one day lead to the possibility of personalised medicine. This sort of research is particularly … Read more
A smartphone app that logs data on fish catches is giving small-scale fishers in South Africa hope they can persuade the government to allocate them more of what they regard as their traditional fishing rights. Abalobi, the app which is named for the isiXhosa phrase abalobi bentlanzi,meaning “someone who fishes”, aims to give small-scale fishers … Read more
It’s going to be a long time before I sit through another closing ceremony like that of ESOF2016. Usually, in a post chronicling of the day, I’d offer you some form of chronological structure, but this was just too good: tinged with entertainment, nostalgia and a serving a discomfort. We shuffled into the hall like … Read more
The second day of a conference is when things start to get awkward. On the first day, with your misguided sense of exuberance and nervous energy, you try to meet everyone. You insert your ready-to-be-shaken hand into circles of people like a knife in a birthday cake. (This is also the day when most people … Read more
The question on the lips of participants of the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting was not if the detectors of gravitational waves would win a nobel prize for their work. It was a matter of when. The Nobel prize for physics will be announced within the next 100 days. On 11 February this year, scientists from … Read more
“Mentorship is important in all fields, but it’s particularly important in science,” says Dr George Smoot. Ten years ago, Smoot won the Nobel prize for physics, after he discovered the cosmic microwave radiation background, the ancient radiation left over from the Big Bang. Last week, he was one of 29 Nobel laureates who, along with … Read more
There’s a bright-eyed eagerness to the first day of a conference. People bustle from session to session, take notes while speakers talk, and are prepared to wait their turn in the line for coffee. It won’t last. In two short days, the polite veneer rubs off. The coffee queue will become a mosh pit, all … Read more