Author: Gillian Rennie

By Hlamvu Yose, Meagan du Plooy and Keegan Frances Seventeen years ago, Africa was deemed hopeless by The Economist. Today six of the 10 fastest growing economies are in Africa. Delivering the Christina Scott Memorial Lecture at Scifest on Saturday, journalist Toby Shapshak talked about why innovation is better in Africa. His TED talk on this topic has already had more than 1,4 million views. In the last 25-30 years, he told his Scifest audience, the world has changed exponentially as a result of technological advancements – and a lot of these advancements have been made in a place the…

By Ncebakazi Ntsokota “Access to science information has become a non-negotiable in life, given the important role that science and technology play in people’s lives,” said Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane, the new Minister of Science and Technology when she officially opened the 22nd SciFest Africa on Friday. She welcomed all members of the public – parents, educators, learners, researchers, scientists, business leaders, international guests and government officials – who gathered at the continent’s premier science festival. “A lot of good practices have emerged over the 22 years of Scifest Africa’s existence,” said Kubayi-Ngubane. Scifest Africa has laid the ground work for similar…

By Matebello Motantsi and Lelethu Tonisi Scholars from various schools played audience to the fired up Sivuyile Manxoba on Friday when he facilitated A hitchhiker’s guide to the universe, a Scifest workshop presented by the Southern African Astronomical Observatory (SAOO). The observatory, which is an organisation of the National Research Foundation, is based in Cape Town and Sutherland. Sutherland is home to the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT), which is the largest telescope in the southern hemisphere and third largest universally. Sharing its Karoo home are telescopes from America and Russia. Manxoba explained that Sutherland is a favourable place for…

by Ikhona Mvaphantsi They come from Queenstown in the north, Qumbu in the east, Libode even further east, and from the hills of Grahamstown. But they all come on the same mission – to see science. Grade 3 learner Imivuyo Noqayi from NV Cewu Public Primary in Grahamstown attended Scifest to discover what science is all about.  Joining her in this discovery was Konke Ntloko, on her first field trip from Mount Nicholas Junior Secondary School in Libode. Her group travelled 390km to get to Africa’s greatest festival of science and sat mesmerised in the Kids Lab run by BASF.…

By Sphumelele Ndlovu, Meagan du Plooy and Keegan Frances Virtual Reality? Oh, that’s mind-bending graphics incorporated in action-packed video games, right?. Wrong. According to Andy Mathis, head of business development and partnerships at Oculus, it is so much more. Virtual Reality is an immersive experience able to transport its users to specific places or periods in history. With VR, users can walk with a dinosaur or experience traditions in North Korea completely forgetting where they physically are (this can often lead to a few scrapes and bruises). VR can even be used in a journalism classroom – provided a developer…

By Hlamvukazi Yose and Ncebakazi Ntsokota African youth seem to lack confidence and believe that their own ideas are small – when in fact they could be life changing. At Thursday’s Science Café, Jim Adam, retired deputy chief of technology at NASA, advised us to not let test scores to be the only determinant of success. Rather, we should aim to be the creative person who comes up with the solution to the problem. On a panel chaired by Jayne Morgan, Adam was joined by Anja Fourie, science promotions co-ordinator at SKA Africa, and Phillip Machanick, associate professor at Rhodes…

By Matebello Motantsi and Lelethu Tonisi The South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB) held an apprenticeship on the extraction of fish DNA on Thursday. Molecular lab manager, Taryn Bodill, led the procedure with the help of apprentice Zukhanye Marikeni of York High School in George, Western Cape. The apprenticeship demonstrated the extraction of DNA from fish tissue using a machine called a Nanodrop to measure nucleic acid concentrations in sample volumes as well as the quality of the DNA. Light passes through the extracted sample and a wavelength is recorded at 260nm (nanometres). This is because one of the…

Excited Grade 6 learners from Davidson Primary in Alice before starting their ‘Journey to Space’ in the Thomas Pringle Hall at Scifest Africa 2018. Their Science and Technology teacher, Chris Kagoro (back left), said that he has been bringing his learners to Scifest Africa for more than two decades and has produced a few scientists as a result. This year’s learners were eager to learn and when asked about what they hope to become in the future, there were various responses: Pilot! Doctor! Scientist! But one thing they all agreed on is that they love science. Photo: Meagan du Plooy

By LELETHU TONISI and MATABELLO MOTANTSI Khanyisa High School pupils welcomed Dr Komal Kumar with enthusiastic singing at the start of her lecture on organ donations for patients living with HIV. In her Scifest talk, titled Organ donations, transplantation, and little bit of HIV, Kumar, who is an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore USA, described her field as the study of populations. At the heart of her work is HIV-to-HIV kidney transplantation. Only six of our many organs are transplantable with kidneys being highest in demand. Currently this demand outstrips supply. One person is added to the…

By Hlamvu Yose, Meagan du Plooy and Ncebekazi Ntsokota Professor Henrietta de Kock’s Scifest lecture on food senses on Wednesday changed the way we perceive food. We do not eat just for the sake of eating, she explained. Food does so much more for us by stimulating all five senses without us even being aware. De Kock (a food sensory scientist and associate professor at the University of Pretoria) also made it clear that the taste of food is important to everyone, regardless of their economic status. The lower income community spends 30% of their budget on food and beverages,…