Each year Sasol SciFest focuses on an endangered animal and its ecological footprint or spoor. This year the spotlight falls on the African elephant, SciFest’s official Spoor of the Year. It has become the powerful symbol of a continent, a true flagship species that seems to encapsulate the energy of Africa’s natural landscape and its raw, unbridled beauty.
Professor Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan is a cool mom. She knows more than most people on the planet do about dinosaurs. And that pleases her two sons, aged six and eight tremendously, because having a palaeobiologist handy whenever you need one to settle an argument over just how big Tyrannosaurus rex really was is always a good thing!
The formula that rocked the world is 100 years old this year. In 1905 Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity was published and his equation which represented energy being equal to mass multiplied by the square of the speed of light – E=mc2 – went on to revolutionise modern physics. To mark the occasion, this year has been declared World Year of Physics.
Science-fiction is one of the biggest genres in Hollywood, producing some of the highest-grossing movies of all time. Strange as it may sound, given its current popularity, sci-fi was all but dead 30 years ago, in motion-picture terms at least. Modern movie sci-fi owes its popularity to the vision of one man. Catch the classics at the Sasol SciFest.
When Karen Trendler started up the Animal Rehabilitation Centre (ARC) in the kitchen of her home in Kameeldrift, outside Pretoria, she had nothing but a background in nature conservation and a limitless compassion for animals to draw upon. But Trendler was single-minded in her commitment to make ARC work.
Grissom looks puzzled – The corpse on the gurney is semi-decomposed and the coroner is battling to get to grips with what happened. This is a typical scene from the TV series <i>CSI</i>, which follows the adventures of a team of top forensic pathologists. But what television doesn’t tell you is that, more often than not, the heroes of crime scene investigation are not even human – they are insects.
"We are playing a key role in long-term environmental observation. We need to make predictions with regards to our environment." What does the future hold for our protected flora and fauna and the people who manage these vital areas? Hector Magome of South African National Parks speaks to Sharon van Wyk
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/ 8 November 2004
There is something strange about buying a lime-and-water at a hotel bar and paying Z$5 000 (about R5) for it. Welcome to Zimbabwe, land of political upheaval and a currency gone mad and, for South Africans at least, a friendly value-for-money holiday destination. Unlike many parts of Zimbabwe, in Victoria Falls there is food, there is petrol and there are some fantastic hotels to suit most budgets.
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/ 9 September 2004
When examining the Fair Trade movement it is important first to understand the concept of social consciousness. Becoming socially conscious does not require a paradigm shift in lifestyle — joining a commune, hugging trees or lying down in front of bulldozers. What it does require is lateral thinking and that you ask a few earnest questions about the products you buy, and, in this case, the places you go to on holiday.
If you haven’t been watching the shorts slots on TV then the concept of Sho’t Left will most likely be completely alien to you. It’s a minibus taxi term that means, basically, ”pull over here” and has been adopted by the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism and South African Tourism as a catchphrase encouraging us to explore our own backyard.