Name: John Sulston Institution: Sanger Centre, Cambridge Field: Mapping the human genome Above the reception desk at the Sanger Centre, John Sulston has installed an electronic display, showing the genes of humanity streaming from the sequencing machines in Sanger’s laboratories to the Medical Research Council’s computers nearby. Look at it for a few minutes and […]
Andrew Muchineripi Soccer South African soccer is once again hanging its dirty washing out in public as Bafana Bafana prepare to play Jamaica on Sunday in the final match of a whirlwind Caribbean tour. The problem revolves around the old club- versus-country issue. However, instead of the national association fighting for the release of some […]
human life It all started in the mid-1980s when an excited gleam appeared in the eyes of a number of molecular biologists and biochemists. This was the outward sign of a dream that one day the entire human genome (the 70 to 100 000 genes that add up to a blueprint for a complete human) […]
Friday night Matthew van der Want `I have numerous talents, but bringing back life to the dead is not one of them”. That’s what Professor Sherman no doubt still says to his Wits English students and it’s what I’m left thinking about the audience we play to in the middle of Friday afternoon on a […]
ESKOM and the operators of Mozambique’s Cahora Bassa hydroelectric dam are seeking international arbitration over a tariff dispute, a spokesman for the operating company said Tuesday. Portugal’s Hidroelectrica de Cahora Bassa (HCB), wants to increase a 1988 tariff of two US cents per watt, but Eskom does not agree. HCB insists that the tariff is […]
OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday 6.00pm UNITED States pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb on Thursday announced it is launching a $100-million programme to address the growing HIV/Aids crisis in southern Africa. Partners in the initiative are South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho and Swaziland the United Nations. SABC1 news reports, however, that the firm intends testing on […]
Jon Henderson Rugby Fritz van Heerden, Leicester’s Springbok lock, has taken to English life. He starts each working day with the 10km drive in from Little Stretton, a tiny village to the east of London where he is a regular church-goer. “I like it there very much,” he says. “It’s so quiet and peaceful.” Having […]
screen Norman King Oliver Reed began his film acting career through friends he made drinking in pubs, and has died at the age of 61 while out drinking with friends in Valetta, Malta. But while in front of the camera, he was a professional whose distinctive looks and fine speaking voice made him a striking […]
ocean’ Ann Eveleth The sale of up to 10-million ounces of International Monetary Fund (IMF) gold reserves will do little to break the 30-year cycle of debt that has trapped Africa in poverty for decades. The R9-billion to R18- billion such a sale could generate is a mere drop in the ocean of developing-world debt. […]
Ivor Powell If Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi has a message for voters outside the political hothouse of KwaZulu-Natal, it was largely lost on the electorate of Reiger Park near Boksburg this week. At the end of proceedings, a youth with a knife scar across his throat, where somebody had evidently tried to slit […]