Image processing is being developed around the world for the manufacturing environment, but a South African research team is pushing the boundaries and finding ways in which the technology can be used to provide better healthcare. Professor Tshilidzi Marwala, the chair of systems engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand, says his passion for science became deep-rooted when he won the National Youth Science Olympiad in 1989.
This month the University of the Western Cape (UWC) formally approved the formation of the Institute for Microbial Biotechnology and Metagenomics (IMBM). Comprising more than 30 researchers and support staff, the institute is led by Professor Don Cowan of UWC’s department of biotechnology.
”What did you bring to read?”: the usual question I put to my academic guests. For renowned Marxist critic Terry Eagleton’s week of classes at the University of Cape Town last month, there were three authors: Marcel Proust, Fredric Jameson and John le Carré. ”It’s funny, isn’t it?” notes Eagleton. ”You mention the name Proust and it’s so immediately offputting.”
There is a tacit belief in a number of archival disciplines that making documents related to the history of liberation struggles in Southern Africa more widely accessible via the Internet and stockpiling new resources on the web will result in new and better histories. However, a survey of a range of digitisation projects currently underway in Africa suggests that this may be a naïve expectation, writes Premesh Lalu.
A recent Supreme Court of Appeal judgement poses a conundrum for minimum sentencing legislation. When a judge or magistrate sentences, he or she must treat the offender as a unique individual within the context of the crime committed, the effects on the victim and family and the interests of the community.
Most of us barely cope with the day-to-day onslaught that technology brings. Everything is faster, but not necessarily better. The inaugural, 2007 Flux Trend Review was held in Jo’burg recently and offered delegates an opportunity to hit the pause button and get a sense of "the state we’re in" by editing out the barrage of information flung at us.
Premier Soccer League (PSL) members have not been paid any commission from the television broadcasting and Absa sponsorship deals, PSL chairperson Irvin Khoza said on Tuesday. Indeed, the issue of the payment of commissions had not even been finalised yet, he told reporters in Johannesburg.
Pretoria High Court Judge Nkola Motata’s drunken-driving trial has been postponed for the court to rule on the defence’s application for a trial within a trial on admissibility of evidence. Magistrate Desmond Nair will give his decision when the trial resumes at the end of October.
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The Constitutional Court ruling on Tuesday dismissing Schabir Shaik’s application to appeal his conviction and sentence for corruption and fraud may have cleared the way for presidential hopeful Jacob Zuma to face corruption charges again, the latest twist in a political drama gripping the country.
Petite Lize-Marie Retief (20) of Pretoria again rose to the occasion on the fourth and last day of finals at the Telkom South African National Short-Course Championships in Pietermaritzburg on Tuesday, shattering the African and South African records for the women’s 100m butterfly.