John Arlidge It has been dismissed as racist and divisive, but scientists are confronting the greatest taboo in sport: that black athletes are “genetically programmed” to run faster and longer than white athletes. In the most comprehensive study of the biological differences between African and European athletes, Scandinavian researchers compared runners in Kenya and Denmark. […]

Deborah Bee Body Language Is beauty an advantage? Does it make the beautiful individual powerful? Does it, as researchers at London Guildhall University revealed recently, result in substantially better pay and opportunities in the workplace? “Looks are always talked about as if they’re power, when what it is of course is that power has to […]

As a biologist, Barbara Kingsolver sees human beings as a small part of the natural order. As a novelist, she foregrounds the individual Suzie Mackenzie Recently, Barbara Kingsolver told her publishers she would continue to do book tours and readings only if these took place in halls of no less than 500 people and if […]

David Macfarlane Forty-five percent of South African adults are illiterate, but the government displays appallingly inadequate commitment to combating this. And the Department of Finance this week admitted to being unable to explain why such meagre resources are apportioned to the problem. This emerged at a national conference convened this week in Midrand by the […]

Matthew Krouse CD OFTHEWEEK The coming of Jewish music to the world-music fold has occurred very much in the context of the traditional. Of course, there have been proponents of a contemporary shift think of Steve Reich and John Zorn, the latter whose recent albums have been brought under the Tzadik label that defines itself […]

David Beresford Another Country Some years ago I spent a night in London’s Savoy hotel, a hostelry of considerable style. On the bedside table there was a brass box on which three large buttons were marked “maid”, “valet” and “butler”. The bathroom was a marvel. The shower was like a tropical storm. One did not […]

Jonathan Morgan Written like a detective thriller, Finding Mr Madini described a swathe of pan-Africanist history through the eyes of 11 people, whose storylines converged like a spider’s legs in Jo’burg in 1999. When we set out to tell our seemingly disconnected stories we were all homeless but in quite different ways. Sipho was the […]

David Shapshak lifestyle ‘This is spirit’s place,” said John Twobirds as he closed the flap on the sweat lodge. It was now completely dark and very hot. What, I thought to myself with my usual cynicism, sitting in the sweltering dark, could I really get out of this Native American sweat lodge? With a group […]

Guy Willoughby review OFTHEWEEK It is cause for rejoicing that a serious new operatic work by a composer of global reputation receives its premiere in South Africa and even more cause for celebration that the work in question is powerful, dark, and challenging. Thomas Rajna’s first opera presented by Cape Town Opera and the University […]

Thebe Mabanga in your ear The first time I encountered Highveld Stereo (94.7fm in Johannesburg) was in 1995 when, as a first-year student, I had just moved into a hotel that offered the adult contemporary station as its in-house broadcasting service. Back then the station would have been a thriving operation servicing the geriatrics of […]