Tangeni Amupadhi A Northern Cape doctor has called for the mandatory use of protective clothing after an outbreak of chemical poisoning affecting dozens of farmworkers. Many labourers in the Kakamas and surrounding areas have fallen ill during the past month after coming into contact with Dormex, which contains a highly toxic chemical called cyanamide. The […]

David Shapshak South Africa’s strength in science gives it a prime position to help drive scientific development and research in Southern Africa, says one of the United Nations’s top science officials. Professor Maurizio Iaccarino, assistant director general for science of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), was in South Africa this week […]

Tamar Mason Right to Reply Visualise the following scenario: bored and out-of-scandal journalist sits at an airport and notices the only eye- catching tail design on the tarmac. He takes a closer look. Ah, an unusual sounding name. Further investigation reveals that the artist is none other than a San woman. Immediate conclusion: she’s been […]

showing Brenda Atkinson wonders why ads in trade magazines are so bad – and who creates these sub-standard promotions I was paging through a copy of Engineering News recently. I know less about engineering, but I maintain a healthy interest in a wide variety of topics, and have been known to frequent garages and hardware […]

Charl Blignaut On stage in Johannesburg In the year 2013 AD, planet earth will witness that old nuclear havoc: the final, inevitable, apocalyptic spectacle of destruction. A blinding flash, pandemonium, rancid corpses twisting with the hot breeze . But all will not be lost. No siree. Because way above the messy implosion there rests a […]

A new superfast transistor is set to revolutionise computer chips, writes Michael Brooks Researchers at Yale University have developed a transistor so sensitive that it can watch single electrons moving along a wire. The presence of one electron in the transistor switches it on, and it switches on and off 1 000 times as fast […]

Paul Martin in London Golf `Justin Rose is Bloomen Brilliant,” read the hand-written (and misspelled) banner unveiled by 10 English schoolgirls on the sixth tee at the British Open last Sunday. It’s testimony to the way Britain has taken this 17-year-old golfing phenomenon to their hearts. It wasn’t just the astounding closeness to glory achieved […]

Andy Capostagno Rugby It is something which the Americans realised early. If you’re going to play games regarded as little more than school-yard pastimes in other countries, best you instil a sense of tradition sooner rather than later. The Superbowl is all of 30 years old, yet it is spoken of with awe, to quote […]

redistribution’ Derek Hanekom Ann Eveleth’s article “Land reform targets are far, far away” (Monitor, June 5 to 11) ignores the remarkable progress we have made in the past four years and the complexity of land-reform processes. The central argument is that we will never meet “the reconstruction and development programme promise to redistribute 30% of […]

David Beresford It was j’accuse flavoured with a dash of mea culpa when Adriaan Vlok this week appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to explain how he contributed to “law and order” by blowing up office blocks and cinemas. Vlok, who was minister of law and order between 1986 and 1994 – the most […]