The first ever evidence of a comet entering Earth’s atmosphere and exploding, raining down a shock wave of fire which obliterated every life form in its path, has been discovered by a team of South African scientists and international collaborators, and will be presented at a public lecture on Thursday.
Above: An artist’s rendition of the comet exploding in Earth’s atmosphere above Egypt (credit: Terry Bakker)
The discovery has not only provided the first definitive proof of a comet striking Earth, millions of years ago, but it could also help us to unlock, in the future, the secrets of the formation of our solar system.
“Comets always visit our skies – they’re these dirty snowballs of ice mixed with dust – but never before in history has material from a comet ever been found on Earth,” says Professor David Block of Wits University.
The comet entered Earth’s atmosphere above Egypt about 28 million years ago. As it entered the atmosphere, it exploded, heating up the sand beneath it to a temperature of about 2 000 degrees Celsius, and resulting in the formation of a huge amount of yellow silica glass which lies scattered over a 6 000 square kilometer area in the Sahara. A magnificent specimen of the glass, polished by ancient jewellers, is found in Tutankhamun's brooch with its striking yellow-brown scarab.
Left: Tutankhamun's brooch (no copyright)
The research, which will be published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, was conducted by a collaboration of geoscientists, physicistsand astronomers including Block, lead author Professor Jan Kramers of the University of Johannesburg, Dr Marco Andreoli of the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation, and Chris Harris of the University of Cape Town.
At the centre of the attention of this team was a mysterious black pebble found years earlier by an Egyptian geologist in the area of the silica glass. After conducting highly sophisticated chemical analyses on this pebble, the authors came to the inescapable conclusion that it represented the very first known hand specimen of a comet nucleus, rather than simply an unusual type of meteorite.
Kramers describes this as a moment of career defining elation. “It’s a typical scientific euphoria when you eliminate all other options and come to the realisation of what it must be,” he said.
The impact of the explosion also produced microscopic diamonds. “Diamonds are produced from carbon bearing material. Normally they form deep in the earth, where the pressure is high, but you can also generate very high pressure with shock. Part of the comet impacted and the shock of the impact produced the diamonds,” says Kramers.
The team have named the diamond-bearing pebble “Hypatia” in honour of the first well known female mathematician, astronomer and philosopher, Hypatia of Alexandria.
Comet material is very elusive. Comet fragments have not been found on Earth before except as microscopic sized dust particles in the upper atmosphere and some carbon-rich dust in the Antarctic ice. Space agencies have spent billions to secure the smallest amounts of pristine comet matter.
“NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) spend billions of dollars collecting a few micrograms of comet material and bringing it back to Earth, and now we’ve got a radical new approach of studying this material, without spending billions of dollars collecting it,” says Kramers.
The study of Hypatia has grown into an international collaborative research programme, coordinated by Andreoli, which involves a growing number of scientists drawn from a variety of disciplines. Dr Mario di Martino of Turin's Astrophysical Observatory has led several expeditions to the desert glass area.
“Comets contain the very secrets to unlocking the formation of our solar system and this discovery gives us an unprecedented opportunity to study comet material first hand,” says Block.
Public lecture:
Please join Professor Jan Kramers, Professor David Block and Dr Marco Andreoli as they reveal their new discovery.
Date: Thursday, 10 October 2013 Time: 17:30 for 18:00 Venue: Auditorium 3, Wits Science Stadium, West Campus RSVP: 011 717 1146 or kelebogile.tadi@wits.ac.za
Professor Yasien Sayed, research leader of the HIV Proteins Research Thrust, Protein Structure-Function Research Unit in the School of Molecular and Cell Biology, has led his group to international acclaim by solving the three-dimensional X-ray crystal structure of the South African HIV-1 subtype C protease.
To appreciate the importance of this research in the context of antiretroviral (ARV) treatment in sub-Saharan Africa, we need to understand the international focus of HIV treatment to date. The vast majority of HIV-infected individuals worldwide are located in sub-Saharan Africa. Thus far, the major target of ARV drugs has been the HIV protease molecule (one of three proteins/enzymes in the virus) through the use of drugs known as protease inhibitors. 'The problem is that all the drugs currently available to treat HIV worldwide have been designed to target the subtype B virus of HIV – the major cause of infection in North America and Europe,' says Sayed.
This has significant implications for Africa, India and China where the subtype A and C viruses account for the majority of infections. In South Africa, subtype C viruses account for more than 95% of HIV infections. Enter Sayed’s group, which was the first in the world to solve the three-dimensional X-ray crystal structure of the HIV-1 South African subtype C protease. This serves as the foundation to improve the design of protease inhibitors specifically for the South African protease, which, if successful, will have an extremely positive impact on ARV treatment in sub-Saharan Africa.
'Our group set out to understand whether the drugs designed to target subtype B viruses were as effective on subtype C viruses because there are several amino acids changes in the protease enzyme between these subtypes. We therefore began to study drug binding to the South African HIV-1 subtype C protease.'
'Based on our crystal structure of the South African HIV-1 subtype C protease, we discovered subtle differences between the subtype B and subtype C proteases.' This research was undertaken by Previn Naicker, Sayed’s PhD student, who completed the research as part of his MSc. A research article by Sayed, co-authored by Naicker and six other researchers from South Africa, was published online in 2012 in the Journal of Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics. The implications of minor structural changes between proteases of different subtypes are enormous and support the research efforts of Sayed’s group for the past 10 years, which clearly demonstrate that HIV drugs need to be designed to target specific proteases from specific viral subtypes. 'If you do not use the best drug to target a specific protease variant, you are allowing the virus to become more virally fit,' he states.
Sayed and co-workers produced the first paper on the efficacy of ARVs towards the South African HIV-1 subtype C protease 10 years ago, when they showed that although the current clinical protease inhibitors are reasonably effective, they do not bind as well to the South African HIV-1 subtype C protease as to the subtype B protease. 'When drugs do not bind tightly to the target molecule, it provides the virus with an escape route whereby it generates additional mutations in order to lower the usefulness of the drugs,' he explains. 'Therefore, we are ultimately contributing toward viral fitness and increased viral resistance which spells bad news for the HIVpositive patient.'
Virologists have determined that in a patient with HIV, a single virus in a 24-hour period can produce up to 100 million new copies of itself. Each virus also has the potential of introducing a large number and variety of mutations, all of which reduce the effectiveness of the drug. The research of Dr Salerwe Mosebi, one of Sayed’s PhD students in 2008, examined the role of protease mutations in drug-treated individuals infected with the South African HIV-1 subtype C virus. The results demonstrated that mutations in the protease enzyme reduced the efficacy of ARV drug binding. Similar research is being conducted by Sayed’s current MSc students: Lungile Ndlovu, Alison Williams and Jake Zondagh. 'The protease is essential to the HI virus’ survival. Without the protease, the virus cannot function 99 Wits Research Report 2012 Faculty of Science and mature, rendering the virus non-infective. Hence, if the function of the subtype specific protease is arrested then viral maturation cannot occur. '
'The plight of HIV-infected patients is aggravated when considering the role of pharmaceutical companies investigating ARV design because it is not in their financial interests to design subtype specific drugs. In my opinion, big pharmaceutical companies are not interested in South Africa or sub-Saharan Africa because we are not a viable economic market,' says Sayed. 'I therefore decided to initiate collaborative research work with local scientists with experience in organic/medicinal chemistry with a view to designing possible lead compounds that are more effective against our South African HIV-1 subtype C protease.'
This led to highly successful collaborations with two groups:
1. Organic chemists from the University of KwaZulu-Natal; notably, Professor Thavendran Govender and Professor Gert Kruger. In the past three years, the collaboration published several papers and synthesised several compounds. Some compounds have shown promise and may be used as potential lead compounds for the development of protease inhibitors against the South African HIV-1 subtype C protease.
2. Professor Emeritus Perry Kaye of the Department of Chemistry, Rhodes University, who has been instrumental in designing a bi-functional drug capable of binding the protease and another enzyme in the virus known as reverse transcriptase. Two papers have been published on this work.
'The area of HIV research in South Africa by South African scientists is wide open because South Africa displays the fastest rate of HIV infection in the world. Approximately six million people in South Africa are HIV positive and about 1.5 million are on ARV treatment,' continues Sayed, who says he could not have achieved any of his research successes without the input and partnership of Wits researcher Professor Lynn Morris who heads HIV research at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) and is a staff member in the Wits School of Pathology.
'Lynn is an outstanding scientist. I am thankful to her for kindly sharing information on HIV protease mutations in HIV-infected individuals. We are partnering on groundbreaking research concerning novel mutations and insertions occurring in the protease sequence of newborn babies in southern Africa. The babies are therefore not only born HIV-positive but the viruses contain novel mutations and insertions in the protease enzyme. The babies are drug-naïve and we do not know whether they will respond positively to current HIV-treatment regimens, or whether they will respond at all.'
This is one of many reasons why it is essential to develop drug compounds for the treatment of patients with the South African HIV-1 subtype C virus. 'We are presently optimising the drug compounds that were developed earlier. However, all our work was performed in test tube conditions,' says Sayed. ‘The next step is to begin cell culture assay experiments where the drug compounds are tested against the South African HIV-1 subtype C virus. I will be performing this aspect of the research at the NICD laboratory with Professor Morris.
'My postgraduate students will continue furthering our research efforts to understand the molecular basis of HIV. I am very fortunate to have fantastic students working with me. This research would not have succeeded without their hard work, commitment, discipline and passion for protein biochemistry. It is not unusual to see my students working after hours and over weekends. They are doing a phenomenal job.'
Hornsby awarded VC's Teaching Award
- By Vivienne Rowland
A young lecturer, researcher and academic author is the winner of the 2013 Vice-Chancellor’s Individual Teaching Award, intended to reward excellence in teaching and the promotion of learning.
Eligibility for the award is rated on the individual’s overall performance in teaching; the use of any innovative teaching, learning and assessment strategies; the adaptation of material and development curricula suitable to a South African context; the making of high but realistic intellectual demands on students; encouraging critical independent thinking; and the extent to which both professional and research interest in the discipline has been stimulated among postgraduates.
The purpose of the award is to stimulate teaching and teaching-related scholarly and/or creative activities.
The Awards Screening Committee, which includes members from various sectors within the University, considered Hornsby’s methods “very interesting in that there was evidence of relevant pedagogic theory which enhanced innovative teaching interventions.”
“He is an excellent teacher who has used technology to foster teaching and learning and his teaching has had an impact beyond the classroom which testifies to his academic stature,” commented the committee.
Indeed, Hornsby is known for his use of twitter (@davidjhornsby) and his variation in teaching approaches when it comes to his large Introduction to International Relations class that often has over 450 students enrolled.
Hornsby conveyed his gratitude at being awarded the honour.
“I am really thrilled and honoured to be this year’s recipient. It is really humbling to have my efforts recognised in this respect and I am grateful for the support I have received across Wits for my large class pedagogy work.” Hornsby credits his passion for teaching and learning to his mentors Alastair Summerlee, Ruksana Osman and Jacqueline De Matos-Ala, who have been involved in his development as a lecturer.
The value of the award is R40 000 and will officially be handed over to Dr Hornsby at the annual Wits University Council dinner, to be held on Friday, 18 October 2013.
New book addresses teaching large classes
- By Wits University
A conundrum faced by many academics, teaching large classes is often a daunting, but unavoidable prospect in education.
The idea of teaching in large classes is often met with apprehension and resistance. Such learning environments are indeed difficult and pose many challenges for both students and lecturers alike.
Enter a new book edited by Wits academics Dr David J. Hornsby, Professor Ruksana Osman, and Dr Jacqueline De Matos-Ala, entitled Large-Class Pedagogy: Interdisciplinary perspectives for quality higher education. Osman is the Dean of the Wits Faculty of Humanities and Hornsby and De Matos-Ala are both senior lecturers in the Department of International Relations.
The book launch takes place on Thursday, 10 October 2013 at 17h00 in The Atrium, South West Engineering Building, Braamfontein Campus East. Media is welcome to attend. RSVP to anna.veileroglou@wits.ac.za on (011) 717-1195.
Springing from a symposium in November 2011 on teaching large classes, the authors conceptualised this book “mostly for academics teaching large classes, policy makers, and those who are interested in higher education as a developmental tool”.
“The biggest challenge today is how you engage with students and get them to become active learners in a context which reinforces you to just stand and teach. We address the conceptual issues, we look at the value of the lecture and whether or not the lecture is relevant in the learning process. We also consider technology, how we engage students in the classroom and how we can utilise technology to promote engagement,” says Hornsby.
This book considers these learning contexts and offers conceptual and practical considerations on how ensure quality higher education is preserved from a range of disciplinary backgrounds.
Must-have book for academics launched
- By Vivienne Rowland
A pioneering book which led to an invitation to contribute to a special edition of the international Higher Education journal for the editors was launched at Wits on 10 October 2013.
The book, shaping up to be a must-have item for all academics, was edited by Wits academics Dr David J. Hornsby, Professor Ruksana Osman, and Dr Jacqueline De Matos-Ala and is titled Large-Class Pedagogy: Interdisciplinary perspectives for quality higher education. Osman is the Dean of the Wits Faculty of Humanities and Hornsby and De Matos-Ala are both senior lecturers in the Department of International Relations.
The launch was attended by academics, postgraduate students and book contributors, and addressed by Professor Andrew Crouch, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Academic.
Springing from a symposium in November 2011 on teaching large classes, the authors conceptualised this book “mostly for academics teaching large classes, policy makers, and those who are interested in higher education as a development tool.”
“The problem we are facing is what we refer to as the massification of education, which translates into large classes. The authors of the book have taken it upon themselves to bring a group of colleagues together, invite them to contribute, and we are very proud of the academics who have participated in this venture,” said Crouch.
The book, the only one of its kind and a world-first, has three parts and covers topics such as The Lecture and Large Classes; Evidence and Case Studies of Large-Class Teaching; and Supporting Large-Class Teaching. Within these headings various aspects of lecturer-student interaction are covered. The book considers these learning contexts and offers conceptual and practical considerations on how to ensure quality higher education is preserved from a range of disciplinary backgrounds.
“This is a great book because this is where education is heading. Our government wants to make education more accessible and get more people involved, which is the trend internationally. Large classes will be with us even more and the challenge is how to manage it and teach it well,” said De Matos-Ala.
Osman said she is very excited because the book is ground breaking in its area. “The book supports teaching in higher education both conceptually and theoretically, and is inter-disciplinary driven. This is a pressing issue for academics across the world.”
Hornsby said that the second edition is already underway. “We are already discussing and working on a second edition, which will be in collaboration with a colleague from Sydney, Australia. It is very likely that we will arrange another symposium on this topic as well,” said Hornsby.
The book is available from www.sun-e-shop.co.za or email info@sunmediametro.co.za for more information. The special edition of the Higher Education journal is due to be released in early 2014.
Unshackling poetry in classrooms
- By Buhle Zuma
South African poetry in schools has for decades played second fiddle to traditional English poets, and worse still, poetry as a genre has overall lost its prominence in the curriculum.
The department prescribes the same poems as it did 20 years ago, teachers are reluctant to change and stick to teaching rhyme schemes and learners are unmoved and yawn at the mention of poetry. Monotonous. This is the state of poetry in South African classrooms.
However, the launch of the Southern African Poetry Project (ZAPP), a new partnership between Wits and Cambridge University signals the revival of the oldest form of expression.
ZAPP is a sister project to the pioneering Caribbean Poetry Project. The chief aims of ZAPP are to promote the teaching of Southern African poetry in schools in South Africa and the UK with the desire to instil knowledge, understanding and a love of poetry in young learners. The project will run from 2014 to 2017.
The launch at the Wits Writing Centre was attended by distinguished South African poets Professor Keorapetse William Kgositsile (who was the Guest of Honour) and Peter Horn, who performed alongside experienced poets Phillippa Yaa de Villiers, Makhosazana Xaba, Paul Casey, young blood slam poet Lazarus Man and education student Dineo Khambule. Their performances (captured below in audio clips), reinforce the richness of South African poetry and its potential in the classroom.
High school learners and teachers were also present to support the birth of ZAPP.
Professor Kgositsile, who is also known as Bra Willie, lauded the project adding that it was long overdue.
“The failures of the classroom in sensitising students to poetry and bringing about any appreciation of it are too many to talk about."
He said that he hopes that the project will “destroy the stifling walls that the classroom has built around poetry”.
Kgositsile ascribed the lack of creativity in teaching poetry to the lack of knowledge which often limits poetry to the written form, thus neglecting other forms of poetry, such as Spoken Word.
“When this takes off I hope that the separation that the average classroom has historically made between poetry and music is destroyed. There is no boundary. Anyone who knows anything about oral poetry would know that poetry at its best aspires to song."
“Oral poets even today move between recitation and singing effortlessly and perhaps that should come back to poetry because even on the page, poetry remains essentially an oral art form,” he said.
The idea of unshackling poetry from its confines is also taking roots with young teachers in the Wits School of Education.
During teaching practicals, Njabulo Mkhize, a fourth year education student incorporates poetry to enhance his history lessons. Readings from black history poets and liberation poets form part of his lesson plans.
As a young teacher he aims to be different. He understands the comprehension struggles faced by learners and the need for variation in the delivery method.
Of his teaching methodology Mkhize says he doesn’t only want “to teach to the head but teach to the heart as well.”
Making a difference in education
Dr Georgie Horrell, ZAPP Project leader in Cambridge, says the three-year partnership will link universities, schools, teachers, teacher educators and practising poets across the country.
South African ZAPP Project leader, Professor Denise Newfield, says that the project will develop resources and teaching material for teachers, and that an academic symposium on South African poetry is planned for August 2014.
Key to this drive is the involvement of poets who will drive the revolution in schools. Poets will visit schools to inspire new ways of thinking and teaching poetry, she says.
Another important outcome of ZAPP will be the production of a new anthology of South African poetry to reflect the new topics and different poetry forms in the country
ZAPP is a prestigious joint research collaboration between the Centre for Commonwealth Education (CCE) at the Cambridge Faculty of Education and Wits University. The partners will also work with the online U.K. Poetry Archive to put in place recordings of southern African poetry as a global resource for teachers and learners. More info: newfield@iafrica.com
Audio Recordings
Keorapetse William Kgositsile,
Peter Horn,
Makhosazana Xaba,
Lazarus Man, and an impromptu creation with the audience paying tribute to
Dineo Khambule,
Phillippa Yaa de Villiers, and
Paul Casey,
“SA is nearly on par with child health”
- By Vivienne Rowland
South Africa is doing well in terms of children’s health given the many challenges the country faces with regards to resources and funding.
This was the overall sentiment made during opening comments at the start of the 4th Child Health Priorities Conference, held at the Wits Medical School from 31 October to 2 November 2013.
The conference, drawing together more than 100 health practitioners, policy makers, researchers and academics, was hosted by the Division of Community PaediatricsDivision of Community Paediatrics in the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health in the School of Clinical Medicine under the theme Getting the basics right: Child Health in 2013.
The three-day gathering was held to discuss South Africa’s position with regards to its progress on reaching the 2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and focused on the actions required to achieve the MDG’s child health related goals.
“Although it is certain that South Africa will not meet MDG number four – a two-thirds reduction in under-five mortality – recent successes in reducing child mortality in South Africa are encouraging news to child health practitioners,” said Professor Haroon Saloojee, convenor of the conference.
The opening ceremony was addressed by Susan Kasedde, Senior Advisor, HIV (Adolescents) at UNICEF in New York.
“South Africa has come far in terms of reaching MDG number 4 – reducing child mortality in children under five years old – we can all see that. But the important thing to know is that timely interventions in terms of maternal, neonatal and child health can prevent mortality, which is the aim,” said Kasedde.
She also laid emphasis on adolescent health: “Efforts must be redoubled to address adolescent health. It is overly simplistic to say it is a case of children behaving badly, we should rather look into what we have been doing for adolescents and how we can intensify those efforts,” said Kasedde.
Dr Sanjana Bhardwaj, Chief of Health and Nutrition at UNICEF South Africa, delivered a presentation titled Bending the Curve: The Global Countdown to 2015: less than 1000 days to go progress report. She said that maternal and child mortality worldwide is down sharply, but that it is not nearly enough to reach MDG number four in time.
“We are running a race against time before 31 December 2015 to reach some of these goals. There is a certain curve that the world is on in relation to child and maternal mortality, and we need to move beyond that curve. We have moved dramatically from where we were ten years ago, but we need to move faster,” said Bhardwaj.
Dr Nonhlanhla Dlamini, Chief Director: Child, Youth and School Health in the national Department of Health, gave the South African perspective on where the country is in terms of reaching the MDGs.
“We have to find local solutions for local problems which will have global consequences. The landscape has changed over the years, there are many opportunities to make a difference,” said Dlamini.
Topics such as TheMillennium Development Goals; Advances and new developments in paediatrics and child health Primary Health Care Re-engineering; An essential health package of care for South Africa’s children; Getting the basics right: bottlenecks, barriers and solutions; The first 1000 days of life; and Critical debates in child health were discussed during the three days.
INDEPTH discusses national health systems
- By Vivienne Rowland
The importance of data gathering was reiterated once more at the 12th INDEPTH Scientific Conference, held from 28 to 31 October 2013 at the Wits School of Public Health.
Low and middle-income countries confronted by challenges of credible data met this week to share ways of strengthening the quality of data and statistics.
The conference brought together more than 200 demographers, epidemiologists, public health specialists, social scientists, health scientists, researchers, practitioners, funders and other scientific researchers from Africa, Asia, Oceania and other parts of the world to reach a common understanding on future directions in demographic and health research.
At the opening on Monday, 28 October 2013, the South African Statistician General, Pali Lehohla, one of the speakers, said: “INDEPTH comes at the right time, when the continent has realised the importance of accurate data gathering. There is a definite increase in the interest of information. The road ahead is still very difficult and the quality of the data is still problematic”.
He however said that there is progress as there is improvement in civil registrations and vital statistics which are vital in understanding human development in Africa.
The ISC tied directly in with the ISIbalo lecture series, launched last week as part of the Demography and Populations Studies at Wits’ 10 year anniversary. At the lecture, keynote speaker Trevor Manuel, Minister in the Presidency responsible for National Planning, laid heavy emphasis on data gathering and said universities play a critical role in societal development and the gathering of data to understand societal trends.
The theme for this year’s conference was The contribution of INDEPTH Health and Demographic Surveillance Systems (HDSS) to strengthening National Health Information systems (NHIS) and feature presentations using longitudinal data in conjunction with censuses, national surveys and the NHIS.
International keynote speakers included Dr Ties Boerma, Director of the World Health Organisation (WHO); Professor Richard Horton, Editor of The Lancet journal (UK), Professor Marcel Tanner, Director of Swiss TPH Switzerland, Dr Cyril Engmann, Senior Program Officer (Neonatal Health) at the Gates Foundation and discussants Timothy Evans (Director: Health, Nutrition and Population at the World Bank and Lisa Berkman from Harvard, USA.
From across Africa, keynote speakers included Professor Fred Binka, Vice-Chancellor: University of Health and Allied Sciences, Ghana, Dr Alex Ezeh from the African Population and Health Research Centre in Kenya and Dr Osman Sankoh, Executive Director: INDEPTH Network.
Professor Adam Habib, Wits Vice-Chancellor and Principal, delivered the keynote address at the opening and said the University is very proud to host the conference as it plays an important role in intensifying Wits’ research agenda and postgraduate training.
“INDEPTH is a particularly important network for Wits and has been for more than a decade. We are very attached to the network as it aids us in intensifying our research output,” said Habib.
The Vice-Chancellor and Principal said partnerships are important and that INDEPTH is a good example of maximising potential when equal partners are brought together to compete globally.
“If you are truly interested in building equitable partnerships, it is absolutely crucial that we create the leverage as southern countries to perform equally at a global level. What is interesting about INDEPTH, is it is a network led by southern partners. What it does is to bring southern partners together and creates a leverage for them to compete as equal partners.
“INDEPTH means much to us because it speaks to freedom, transnational partnership, and transnational partnerships that emphasise solidarity and equality and it brings together southern partners maximising their capacity to compete as global partners,” said Habib.
Other speakers at the opening ceremony included Marcel Tanner from the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Professor Kathleen Kahn from the Wits School of Public Health, Osman Sankoh, INDEPTH Executive Director; and Professor Sharon Fonn, Acting Dean of the Wits Faculty of Health Science.
For the first time since its inception, the INDEPTH Scientific Conference (ISC) partnered with Statistics South Africa (Stats SA), hosting the 12th ISC in collaboration with the Wits School of Public Health and INDEPTH member Health and Demographic Surveillance Systems (HDSS) in South Africa
The four-day meeting included a pre-conference programme during which a Young Scientists’ Workshop took place, and several plenary sessions over the course of the week discussing issues pertaining to INDEPTH research. Post-conference workshops on 1 and 2 November 2013 include workshops on Vaccination and Child Survival; Neonatal and maternity mortality; and an Adult Health and Ageing Working Group.
The Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO) has launched a website that provides an overview of the key dynamics and trends affecting the people, environment, economy, and governance of the Gauteng City-Region (GCR).
Gauteng Premier Nomvula Mokonyane said in her response to the launch that the intention of the Gauteng government in supporting the Review was to ensure that the province’s leadership was informed by credible data. She said the GCRO’s research had already helped the Gauteng government to think differently and plan responsibly when drawing up the 25-year Integrated Transport Master Plan which was published in August 2013.
Quality of life has improved from 6.24 (average score out of 10) in 2009 to 6.25 in 2011. Government delivery in meeting basic needs, and the perception that crime levels have dropped, are among the factors that have driven this small but meaningful rise.
The GCRO asked 16 729 respondents how satisfied they were with various services provided by government. Although satisfaction levels differ by service and municipal area, the results are on the whole quite positive.
However, satisfaction rates for government as a whole were much lower than they were for services, with Westonaria scoring the worst. The key risk with high levels of government dissatisfaction is that residents may lose faith in their government entirely, and no longer invest any expectations in it at all.
Despite its good intentions, the establishment of large low-cost RDP housing settlements and growth of informal settlements long distances (where land is cheaper) from the economic centres, has perpetuated the apartheid urban form. People living in formal RDP settlements travel 25.6km on average to find work.
Unemployed respondents (12%), who travel to look for work, receive little attention in transport policy or planning. Taxis are the main mode of transport for the unemployed (i.e. those looking for work), with nearly 75% spending money on taxi fares for this purpose.
By 2025 the GCR will need 1 742 million cubic metres of water to meet its demand. On current projections there will be a deficit of 764 million cubic metres.
There are an estimated 6 153 ownerless and derelict mines in South Africa. The Auditor General estimates rehabilitation costs at R30 billion.
The Highveld region, where Gauteng is located, has been identified as highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Projections for 2071-2100 (compared to 1961-1990) show an increase of 3-6°C for the interior of Southern Africa – two times the global rate. This is likely to have an effect on crop yield and hydrology. The GCR’s annual rainfall is projected to become mildly drier (0-10%). However, its summer rainfall pattern is expected to experience an increase in the frequency of extreme rainfall events. This increase is likely to have the greatest direct impact on the GCR because of the associated increased risk of flooding, particularly flash floods.
Ten percent of Gauteng residents live in informal dwellings, 8% do not have access to piped water, 10% do not have access to an electrical connection, and 19% share a toilet with at least one other household.
The first ever joint get-together of all Carnegie Corporation grant beneficiaries at Wits took place on Wednesday, 30 October 2013 at the Global Change and Sustainability Research Institute (GCSRI) at University Corner.
Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Academic, Professor Andrew Crouch, said the purpose of the get-together was to celebrate the achievements of the first cohort of beneficiaries and to show Carnegie representatives where they were operating from. It was also an opportunity to celebrate the renewal of the grant programme for the next few years.
Crouch said the work that everyone – supervisors and students – had put into making the grant programme a reality at Wits was phenomenal.
The Carnegie Corporation of New York currently supports doctoral and postdoctoral students affiliated with the GCSRI. It also supports doctoral and postdoctoral students from the Carnegie Academic Medicine Programme which is located in the Faculty of Health Sciences. In addition, the Carnegie Corporation will now also fund the Carnegie Alumni Diaspora Programme, also based in the Faculty of Health Sciences.
The two support areas – global change and health sciences – have the same broad overarching goal: to attract, train, develop, and retain young scholars who will become leaders in their fields.
Fourteen doctoral candidates affiliated with the GCSRI will be graduating before the end of 2014.
Kaera Coetzer received funding to complete her PhD on land mapping of the Kruger to Canyons Biosphere Reserve which bridges Limpopo and Mpumalanga. Coetzer said the funding had allowed her to study fulltime and to write more than the requisite one journal article, thereby disseminating her research further than she would have done otherwise.
GCSRI Project Manager, Ashwini Jadhav, said Carnegie support was enabling the Institute to ensure that its vision for a transdisciplinary research team would be met. She said the Institute would remain actively involved in trying to retain the grant beneficiaries as academics.
Four PhD candidates from the Academic Medicine Programme will be graduating at the Faculty of Health Sciences graduation ceremony on 10 December 2013. The students were all clinicians when they began their PhDs and will now be going back to their posts.
Susan Williams, an ophthalmologist who did her research on the genetics of glaucoma, said that without Carnegie funding, she would not be graduating this year. Williams said the funding had enabled her to follow an uninterrupted train of thought without needing to devote most of her attention to patients. “It was the most unbelievable privilege.”
Williams will be returning to her post at the St John Eye Hospital in Soweto but hopes to be able to continue conducting research. “Once you’ve been bitten by the bug, you want to go further,” she said.
17-year-old robotics engineer at Wits
- By Wits University
Self-taught engineer Easton LaChappelle, who recently met President Barack Obama and whose work has been featured in Popular Science and Popular Mechanics is due to deliver a talk at Wits University tomorrow, Wednesday, 9 October 2013.
The 17-year-old has received global attention for his revolutionary upper limb prostheses which costs just a fraction of the standard price. LaChappelle’s foray into the world of robotics began six years ago when he attempted to build a robotic hand using Lego pieces. Using online resources he taught himself about sensors, motors and coding allowing him to manipulate the hand to carry out basic movements. This project saw him participate in the 2011 Colorado State Science Fair where he won the third place prize for his project.
During the competition he was challenged to build an affordable prosthetic arm after an encounter with a young girl wearing a prosthetic arm costing about R800 000, a cost that is out of reach for most people. Since then he has made great strides in improving his first model and has developed a more functional prosthetic arm and hand.
Apart from being part of TedX, LaChappelle has worked on NASA’s Robonaut project at the Johnson Space Centre and was placed second in the world in engineering at the 2012 International Science Fair. Born in Colorado, LaChappelle is in South Africa as a guest of theSouth African Institute of ElectricalEngineers (SAIEE).
Details of the Wits talk are as follows:
Date: Wednesday, 9 October 2013
Time: 18:00 for 18:30
Venue: CM2, Basement of the Chamber of Mines Building, Braamfontein Campus West, Wits University
To RSVP contact Gerda Geryer from the SAIEE on (011) 487-3003 or email geyerg@saiee.org.za
Rock Art Institute wins heritage award
- By Wits University
Wits University takes pride in congratulating the Rock Art Research Institute (RARI) at Wits in winning the prestigious National Heritage Council Golden Shield Award for Academic Excellence in 2013.
The awards programme, hosted by the National Heritage Council (NHC), was inaugurated in 2012 and aims to honour individuals, groups, communities and organisations that have made a selfless contribution to the preservation, interpretation and promotion of South Africa’s rich cultural heritage.
The award for academic excellence is to recognise an academic institution that has programmes that promote knowledge production in heritage, but more particularly to recognise research excellence. The work must be unique and the first to be done in South Africa.
The RARI was nominated by the public in one of several categories, which includes National Living Treasure, Local Government Commitment, Preferred Heritage Destination, Young Heritage Activist, Heritage Ambassador, Favourite World Heritage Site, Outstanding Community Project; and Heritage Leadership.
The award was handed to the RARI at an illustrious ceremony held last month, where the NHC aimed to profile heritage and the role that it plays in nation building, social cohesion and economic development.
“It is a great honour for our work to be recognised in this manner in these prestigious national awards. Research into our archaeological heritage, particularly rock art, is a topic of national significance, and, importantly an area in which Wits University excels. We are pleased that the national relevance of our research has once again been acknowledged,” says Dr David Pearce, Director of the RARI.
International honours for two Wits engineers
- By Wits University
Hu Hanrahan, Professor Emeritus in the School of Electrical and Information Engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand has been reappointed as Chairman of the Washington Accord for the term June 2013 to June 2015. He has served as Chairman since 2011.
The Washington Accord, signed in 1989, is an international agreement among bodies responsible for accrediting engineering degree programs. It is one of six international agreements under the International Engineering Alliance that governs mutual recognition of engineering qualifications and professional competence. It recognizes the substantial equivalency of programs accredited by those bodies and recommends that graduates of programs accredited by any of the signatory bodies be recognized by the other bodies as having met the academic requirements for entry to the practice of engineering.
The Washington Accord is an agreement between fifteen engineering accrediting agencies with a total of over 6 000 programmes that provide the educational foundation for professional engineers. Signatory countries to this accord include the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Japan, Russia, Singapore and South Africa.
Hanrahan has served as Head of the Department of Electrical Engineering and as Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at Wits. From 1997 to 2005 he led the Centre for Telecommunications Access and Services (CeTAS) research unit at the University. He serves on the Higher Education Quality Committee of the Council on Higher Education and its accreditation committee.
Another accolade for the Wits Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment
Dick Stacey, Professor Emeritus in the School of Mining Engineering has been awarded the prestigious Fellowship of the International Society for Rock Mechanics (ISRM).
An ISRM Fellowship is a lifetime position and South Africa is the only country to have two recipients of this award that recognises international leaders in rock engineering – a very small and exclusive group of individuals. The other recipient is Professor Nielen van der Merwe, also from the Wits School of Mining Engineering.
Stacey has been honoured in recognition of his outstanding accomplishments in the field of rock engineering research and his contributions to the professional community through the ISRM. The ISRM Fellowship is the highest and most senior grade of membership of the ISRM. Stacey has also been a recipient of the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy’s most prestigious award – the Brigadier Stokes Medal for achievement.
Return to public service journalism
- By Wits University
“We must remember we are nothing without our readers, viewers and listeners and our responsibility is to them and not to governments, corporate or political or any other power players”.
This is according to veteran journalist, Gwen Lister. She told fellow journalists during the annual Carlos Cardoso Memorial Lecture on Tuesday, 29 October 2013: “Our basic aim, whether we are in traditional media or the new (media), remains to get as close to the truth as we can. It is necessary to 'win back the hearts and minds' of the people that we may have lost through disinterest or careless, sloppy journalism.”
The annual Carlos Cardoso Memorial Lecture is held in honour of Cardoso, a journalist who was assassinated in Maputo in 2000. He was a Wits student but deported to Mozambique in 1974 by the apartheid regime because of his support for the Frelimo government. Cardoso became a leading journalist and while investigating a massive fraud case that involved politicians and their families, he was assassinated on the streets of Maputo on 22 November 2000.
Lister delivered her lecture titled: Guerrilla Typewriters – Fighting for media freedom before and after liberation to an audience of African investigative journalists from 24 countries that are at Wits this week attending Power Reporting – the African Investigative Journalism Conference.
She addressed many issues affecting journalists today, such as media freedom and the principles of journalism. Her criticism was not only limited to governments that impeach journalists, but extended to the gatekeepers in newsrooms. Listen to her speech: and .
She advised journalists to fight for their freedom and independence in the newsrooms with the same vigour with which they tackle governments and powerful authorities.
Lister decried the suppression of ideas in newsrooms attributing it to the “lack of active journalist unions”. She said that current unions are “mainly concerned about issues of salaries and not whether journalists have the freedom or editorial freedom to express themselves”.
She further called for solidarity amongst journalists within the continent saying they had a duty to support each other. Journalists continue to suffer and die for what they believe in, she added.
Recent victims of censorship include Ethiopian journalist, Reeyot Alemu who is serving a long prison sentence under anti-terrorism laws for her critical coverage of government.
“At least 41 African journalists were in jail on World Press Freedom Day this year, imprisoned in direct reprisal for their work.”
“This past weekend, Somali television journalist, Mohamed (Tima'ade) Mohamed died after he had been seriously wounded in a shooting on his way home from work,” said Lister.
Lister concluded her lecture on an optimistic note and called on the new cadre of editors and journalists in Africa to ensure that the sound of the guerrilla typewriters of old will never really fall silent.
“The power is still in our pens. We should use it wisely and for the peoples’ sake.”
Grade 10s rise to the challenge
- By Buhle Zuma
The Materials Science Poster Competition, a science challenge aimed at Grade 10 learners in Gauteng, is giving rise to intriguing interpretation to the somewhat mind boggling subject that is science.
Using the reliable form of storytelling, entries to this year’s challenge borrowed from the arts and Hollywood to enliven the competition topic. This annual competition hosted by the DST/NRF Centre of Excellence in Strong Materials (CoE-SM), challenges young minds to submit projects on the properties and applications of a strong material. Winning entries are rewarded with cash prizes for the schools and the participants.
Strong materials are materials that retain their distinctive and applied properties under extreme conditions and have established or potential commercial applications. A diamond is one such strong material.
Submitted posters sported headlines such as The Liittle Wonders of the World, The Big Bam, I am Titanium,Frozen Smoke and Nanotubelicious Carbons, to name a few.
Graphene for the average teen by Laura Chandler from The King’s School Robin Hill won first place and a cash prize of R15 000 for her school. A poster titled Carbon Nanotubes for Science Gurus by Michelle Firman from the same school won second place earning R10 000 for the school. Carbon Nanotubes – the Superheroes of Science by Alexandra Bench, Ayesha Jadwat and Lisa Grewar from Parktown High School for Girls ranked in third place walking away with R5 000, again for their school. Special prizes were also made in three different categories.
Established in 2007, the competition aims to stimulate an interest in science among school learners and make them aware that science and its applications are all around us. The goal is to demystify science and generate an interest in science careers. Far from its humble beginnings when only six schools participated, this year over 50 entries were received from schools and saw some newcomers competing for the grand prize.
To keep it challenging, the competition has been revamped this year by calling on a different set of skills from learners.
The competition was previously known as the Material Trails Competition and learners had to make a video clip of between five to 10 minutes, as well as an accompanying booklet, demonstrating their understanding of materials science. This year the competition has been relaunched as the Materials Science Poster Competition taking on a different format. The submission took the form of a poster testing the ability to distil ideas and provide high impact information without the support of technology (a world all too familiar to the new generation).
Learners had to go the extra mile in identifying materials and elaborate on the macroscopic and microscopic structure and properties of strong materials.
Glenda Dell from St David’s Marist Inanda, whose team won a special award for creative presentation for their poster entitled Dynamic Ceramic, says that the outreach project by the University is important in opening the world of science to learners.
Conference to tackle the health data puzzle
- By Wits University
The 12th INDEPTH Scientific Conference (ISC) will take place from 28-31 October 2013 at the Wits School of Public Health.
For the first time since its inception, the ISC will be partnering with Statistics South Africa (Stats SA). Further to this, the conference will be hosted by the School of Public Health at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits SPH), in collaboration with INDEPTH member Health and Demographic Surveillance Systems (HDSS) in South Africa.
The theme for this year’s conference is The contribution of INDEPTH Health and Demographic Surveillance Systems (HDSS) to strengthening National Health Information systems (NHIS) and will feature presentations using longitudinal data in conjunction with censuses, national surveys and NHIS. International keynote speakers include Dr Ties Boerma, Director of the World Health Organisation (WHO); Professor Richard Horton, Editor of The Lancet journal (UK), Professor Marcel Tanner, Director of Swiss TPH Switzerland, Dr Cyril Engmann, Senior Program Officer (Neonatal Health) at the Gates Foundation and discussants Timothy Evans (Director: Health, Nutrition and Population at the World Bank and Lisa Berkman from Harvard, USA. From across Africa, keynote speakers include Professor Fred Binka, Vice-Chancellor: University of Health and Allied Sciences, Ghana, Dr Alex Ezeh from the African Population and Health Research Centre in Kenya and Dr Osman Sankoh, Executive Director: INDEPTH Network.
ISC 2013 promises to be a major global gathering of demographers, epidemiologists, public health specialists, social scientists, and other scientific researchers from Africa, Asia, Oceania and other parts of the world to reach a common understanding on future directions in demographic and health research. It therefore provides the best platform to share experiences as well as discuss new and strategic directions within the framework of global developments in scientific research utilisation in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). The conference will also examine emerging opportunities for generating, managing, analysing and sharing quality data, research methodologies and evidence. The ISC is the flagship activity of INDEPTH that has been held consistently since 2000 in rotation from one country to another across Africa and Asia.
INDEPTH is a pioneer in health and population research, providing robust answers to the most important questions in development. Through its global network of health and demographic surveillance system (HDSS) field sites in Africa, Asia and Oceania, it is the only organisation in the world capable of producing reliable longitudinal data not only about the lives of people in low- and middle-income countries, but about the impact on those lives of development policies and programmes.
The unfinished business of truth and reconciliation
- By Wits University
And the truth shall set you free! Despite South Africa’s celebrated model of national reconciliation through the revelation of truth, the showpiece democracy finds itself so close to its 20th birthday neither reconciled nor free of the legacy of its dark past.
However exemplary and untiring an enterprise, the truth and reconciliation model might have been, its lack of a fundamental process of social transformation leaves it an unfulfilled and incomplete project.
This ‘unfinished business’ of truth and reconciliation is at the core of this year’s Drama for Life Africa Research Conference, taking place on 20 and 21 November 2013. The conference seeks to highlight the role of the arts as an indispensable catalyst for healing and transformation in the process of transition. How can the arts speak back to the unfinished business of societies committed to social change and how can they support a sustainable healing within a context of trauma?
At the intersection of theory and practice, the 2013 conference continues its rooted tradition and once more unites internationally acclaimed practitioners and academics in the fields of applied drama and theatre praxis, again, particularly in an African context.
Taking place at the Soweto Theatre, the 2013 conference involves two days of exceptional workshops, performances, presentations and rituals. This conference intends to engage in a dialogue around the ‘unfinished business’ of societies that have committed themselves to significant change, and consider the role of the arts in contributing toward a deeper and more meaningful process of healing within a context of trauma. International speakers include Professor Phil Jones, a pioneer in the field of Drama Therapy, leading Playback Theatre specialist Veronica Needa and Professor Christopher Odhiambo from Moi University, Kenya.
The opening night for the 2013 conference takes place on Tuesday, 19 November 2013 at the Wits Amphitheatre.
Wits Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Finance and Operations, Professor Tawana Kupe, called Nebe’s work at and for Drama for Life “outstanding” in its transformative qualities. Drama for Life has been acclaimed for its “decisive break with traditional knowledge production trends in the humanities.” The programme, a first of its kind in the international arena in its scope and practice is renowned for building a culture of transformation at Wits.
The conference is a unique opportunity for all artists, therapists, teachers, activists and development practitioners and academics to speak to their work in the field, to think, theorise and question, to experience, express and engage with topics that speak to the urgent issues in contemporary societies.
For the fifth consecutive year Wits staff members, students and alumni were honoured for their entries into the annual Wits Photographic Competition, a collaborative project between the Wits Transformation Office, the Wits Alumni Office and Golden Key Thinkers Symposium.
The winners were announced on 18 September 2013 after the judges had a hard time reaching a decision as to which of the entries best portrayed the theme Leadership and Change – A Tribute to Former President Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela. The entries were exhibited in the Great Hall foyer for two days after the announcement.
“The aim of the competition was to get the university community talking about transformation in leadership through images. The competition stems from the fact that transformation is difficult to talk about, and we seek unique ways of engaging with the topic, which has many different interpretations,” says programme coordinator Tish White.
All the images entered for the competition will be archived for future researchers.
Professor Tawana Kupe, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Finance, Operations and Transformation, addressed the audience and spoke about the importance of a multi-pronged approach to student engagement on transformation at Wits.
This year’s competition saw over 60 entries which were submitted by staff, students and alumni, which were judged by a team of transformation experts from the university community. In addition, images were placed on Facebook for the public to vote for their favourite entries. Prizes of more than R20 000 were up for grabs, with the winning entries receiving R6000 each for the efforts.
1st Place, Student and Alumni Category – Sharon Chimhanda: Lifting Up My Brother
st Place, Staff Category – Sipho Mhlambi: On a thread, the death of B.E.E.
2nd Place – Zewande Bhengu: Long walk to peace
3rd Place – Mafule Moswane: Cleaning toilets for primary schools in rural areas
4th Place – Ayodimeji Biobaku: Paper Chains
Public Vote Prize – Junaid Sheik Hussein: Shaping the world of tomorrow
Honourable mentions
Brenda Lee Milner: Mama Africa is Alive
Craig Anavi: Reflection
Hement Gopal: Contemplation
Iva Gobac: SAHarmony
Jackie Downs: Sack race
James Malcolm Pugin: Animated Conflagration
Jes Workman: Drafting the Future
Josephine Matshediso Matla: He Led Change and brought Light
Lindelo Nzuza: Facades
Luke Goncalves: Possibility
Mabelane Mogale: Route to freedom
Ntokozo Xaba: Jozi Unite
Pheladi Sethusa: Blue light wreckage
Roystan Kemp: Daughter of the Father
Skhumbuzo Mtshali: Freedom Peace& Music
Solam Mkhabela: Delvers trolley puller
Thato Nkoane: A Celebration of Days-Gone-By
More than 70 years of lifting the spirit
- By Vivienne Rowland
It was a night of celebration, showcasing the best of staff and students and demonstrating their academic and extra-curricular prowess.
The Wits Department of Physiotherapy celebrated its 75th birthday on Thursday, 3 October 2013, an event attended by current staff and students as well as alumni and supporters from through the more than seven decades.
A pioneer at the time, Wits University was a mere 16 years old when it opened the first physiotherapy department in South Africa in 1938, making physiotherapy part of its already impressive medical science curriculum.
Since then the department has grown and expanded physically and academically, with scores of students having graduated under the watchful eye of the highly skilled staff, moving on to become success stories in their own right.
The 75th birthday event coincided with the publication of a special edition of the South African Journal of Physiotherapy, which contains 12 unique articles on research conducted by staff members and postgraduate students in the department.
Held in the newly completed School of Public Health Building, the evening’s programme was preceded by a display of testimonials from alumni and current staff members and students about their time in the Department. They told inspiring tales of how physiotherapy became part of their lives and how they excelled in their craft under the tutelage of the highly knowledgeable staff members, hungry for research and in pursuit of academic and practical excellence. Professor Aimee Stewart who has been associated with the Department for over 40 years since her student days, spoke on behalf of “old” alumni, while Janine Webber spoke for the “younger” generation.
Thereafter a programme followed during which undergraduate students and a postgraduate student presented their research projects before a prize-giving ceremony.
“The 75th anniversary is the equivalent of a diamond jubilee. The Department of Physiotherapy is a diamond that is polished and cut. It has shone and attracted the attention of its peers nationally and internationally, and within the Faculty and the University. Its achievements over the past 75 years are numerous and its contribution to the profession, teaching, research and to health science is far-reaching,” said Professor Judy Bruce, Head of the School of Therapeutic Science.
The keynote address for the evening was delivered by Professor Cealie Eales, a former Head of the Department of Physiotherapy from 1997 to 2000 as well as former Head of the School of Therapeutic Sciences from 2001 to 2005.
Professor Eales shared with the audience what she thought the profession lacked and needed. “First be enthusiastic, secondly, be bold; and thirdly, be an individual and march to your own drumbeat,” was her advice.
A tear-jerking moment came when Irene Fisher, survivor in a near-fatal car accident during which she suffered severe head trauma, gave an account of how physiotherapy helped her during the difficult road to recovery over the last four years.
“Attitude determines altitude. Your decisions will determine your destiny. My physiotherapist played a tremendous part in inspiring my positive attitude as well as my family. My experience is that whatever attitude the physiotherapist project, the patient will adopt,” said Fisher.
Dr Hellen Myezwa, current Head of the Department of Physiotherapy, says the evening was a convergence of the past, present and future of the department.
“This was a testimony to how far we have come, our current status as one of the best Physiotherapy Departments in the country, not only focussing on teaching and education but also delivering the best research in the industry and playing a pivotal role in lifting the human spirit,” said Myezwa.
*Copies of the special edition of the South African Journal of Physiotherapy are available from the Department of Physiotherapy. Contact Veronica.Ntsiea@wits.ac.za for more information. for a list of the articles in the Journal.
Wits Journalism has released its first ever State of the Newsroom report today, 1 October 2013. This is a pilot project, which deals with a selection of topical issues in the news media and has taken a year to complete.
The report titled State of the Newsroom (SoN) South Africa 2013: disruptions and transitions, discusses the massive changes and challenges that journalists face today internally, that is, within the industry and externally pressing upon the industry. The just over 100-page report describes the state of the newsroom as a ship sailing into extreme headwinds of change but one with an adventuresome spirit.
Some of these headwinds include:
shrinking newsrooms and retrenchments (in almost all companies);
declining circulations in print media (by over 5% in a four year trend analysis);
negotiating the digital first strategy and trying to make money from online journalism;
a new press code and who complained about what to the Press Council;
the ombudsman’s rulings;
race and gender compositions of newsrooms (the majority of journalists in the newsrooms surveyed were black and male; the majority of editors were white by a slight majority and male by a large majority);
training policies, programmes and spending are also discussed (about R70-million was spent on training, 2012-2013).
Externally pressures include the looming Protection of State Information Bill and what this would mean for journalists if enacted, as well as pressures from the ruling party (and the ANC) to conform to a more “patriotic” media.
The report documents the good news too: the National Key Points Act has been sent off for review; President Jacob Zuma has dropped all charges against the media and there are newcomers to the media broadcast industry. The report hints that community media - both print and radio - appears to be growing, and the budgets for training is set to increase, in some instances.
Professor Anton Harber, Head of Wits Journalism, wishes to make this an annual fixture. He hopes that the research would be useful and create debate and discussion in the media industry.
Glenda Daniels who co-ordinated the project says: “This is exciting. It’s like giving birth to a brand new baby. But it is also like trying to take a picture of a moving object.”
Jeanette Phiri, a Wits staff member from the Registrar’s office, participated as a delegate in the 2013 HERS-SA Academy in Cape Town from 8-13 September 2013.
She formed part of the 84 women from 17 other higher education institutions who spent a week at the Upper Eastside Hotel to focus on key aspects of higher education.
The annual HERS-SA Academy brings together women in middle management or senior positions within higher education, with leadership experience and those with leadership potential to participate in a dynamic week-long professional development programme.
“The HERS-SA Academy aims to provide women with knowledge, professional development and access to vital networks to encourage them to advance in their careers within higher education,” said Dr Sabie Surtee, Director of HERS-SA.
“Currently women are under-represented in positions at leadership levels. HERS-SA is committed to seeking gender equity across all occupational levels within higher education institutions as this is where our leaders of tomorrow are being educated. We are also committed to providing development to women who attend our programmes to build and apply sound leadership skills within higher education.”
The HERS-SA ACADEMY is modelled on the HERS-America Summer Institute. Morning plenary sessions provide a big-picture understanding of the higher education environment and the academic and administrative challenges facing universities. During the afternoon, delegates were able to choose from a wide selection of workshops focused on individual career development.
Three highlights at this year’s academy were the dynamic presentations that were delivered at the opening dinner by former Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, Nozizwe Madlala Routledge; at the closing dinner by Professor Jill Farrant of the University of Cape Town; and at the closing plenary session by Professor Shirley Zinn, Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria.
All three women shared their personal and career life histories and lessons learnt with delegates to powerfully highlight the career and personal leadership choices they have made to advance both their careers and credibility as women in leadership positions.
Other speakers included a Vice-Chancellor, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Registrar, Chief Director (DHET) and other guests occupying senior leadership positions. Two guests speakers from Wits who participated in the 2013 HERS-SA Academy programme included Registrar, Kirti Menon (pictured to the left) and Communications Manager, Shirona Patel (pictured above).
In addition to the formal sessions, many opportunities built into the programme to encourage informal networking enabled delegates to interact with and learn from both other women from higher education institutions and guest speakers. Discussions were lively and stimulating.
The 2014 HERS-SA Academy will take from 7-12 September. Visit the HERS-SA website www.hers-sa.org.za for regular updates and Academy announcement details.
Effecting change through geosciences
- By Wits University
Geophysicists have the tools needed to effect positive change in communities facing environmental hardship and natural hazards like severe weather shortages and threats of earthquakes and tsunamis. Geoscientists Without Borders (GWB) supports such humanitarian applications of geosciences through projects around the world and is part of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists.
GWB Head in South Africa, Dr Susan Webb is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Geosciences at Wits University. She heads up a project at the Dayspring Children’s Village, some 60km from Johannesburg. Together with geophysics students, the team is trying to solve the school’s water problem. “The water at the end of the dry season in August runs dry in the main borehole. The problem is the school then has to shut down because there is no water,” Webb explains.
Watch this video to see how GWB teams tackle this and other problems.
The problematic of informal settlements
- By Wits University
On 12 November 2013, Professor Marie Huchzermeyer from the School of Architecture and Planning in the Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment will deliver her inaugural lecture on Humanism, creativity and rights: Invoking Henri Lefebvre’s right to the city in the tension presented by informal settlements in South Africa today. Read more.
Huchzermeyer joined the School of Architecture and Planning in 2001 as a senior lecturer and convenor of the interdisciplinary Postgraduate Housing Programme. From this platform, she has been able to contribute critically to policy debates, particularly with her focus on the unresolved problematic of informal settlements.
Housing policy in South Africa was refined in 2004, yet remained poorly implemented. Government interventions in informal settlements and other unauthorised housing situations increasingly involved violations, a cause taken up by several grassroots social movements. This led Huchzermeyer to gradually adopt a rights-based approach, with pro bono collaboration with housing rights organizations assisting social movements as well as less organised groups. She has nuanced this work through Lefebvre’s conception of ‘the right to the city’.
The rights-based work also brought her to Nairobi. Her interest in challenging the mainstream urban discourse internationally drew her to the un-researched reality of unauthorised multi-story private tenements in Nairobi where she explored the emergence of what appear to be the highest residential densities on the African continent, in a historical comparison with the high density tenement reality in 19th century Europe and America.
Huchzermeyer’s publications over the past 13 years have documented, analysed and reflected on this engagement and research, and earned her a B3 rating from the National Research Foundation in 2008.
Following the publication of her PhD from the University of Cape Town as a book in 2004 under the title: Unlawful occupation: Informal settlements and urban policy in South Africa and Brazil (Africa World Press), she published two further single authored books in 2011: Cities with ‘slums’: From informal settlements eradication to a right to the city in South Africa (UCT Press) and Tenement cities: From 19th Century Berlin to 21st Century Nairobi (Africa World Press).
She has supervised and co-supervised six PhDs to completion, five of these registered at Wits University. In 2012 and 2013 she spent 17 months as acting Head of School.
Marie wishes to acknowledge over a decade of insight, collaboration and support she has received from heads, colleagues and students at Wits University, while she has also benefited from generous cross-disciplinary networks, both locally and internationally.
Leading by example
- By Wits University
People at Wits are amazing. They go beyond the call of duty without being prompted. They uplift society, promote community engagement, engage in outreach in rural areas, fearlessly advocate for social justice, bring innovation into the classroom, develop critical thinkers, transform society, uncover the truth, conduct world-class research and generally advance the public good.
These were just some of the testimonies borne in the citations of the winners of the Vice-Chancellor’s 2013 Awards that were announced on Friday, the 18th of October 2013, at the annual Senate and Council dinner held at the Wits Club.
Professor Adam Habib congratulated the winners and described their diverse achievements as examples of the “remarkable feats undertaken at Wits – an incredible institution with extraordinary potential” which were worthy of appreciation and celebration.
The Vice-Chancellor’s Academic Citizenship Award was granted to two deserving individuals, both from the Faculty of Science “for making a valuable contribution to the functioning, well-being and upliftment of society”. from the School of Applied Mathematics and , a Senior Lecturer in the School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences, walked away with these prestigious awards. His wife, Rhian (daughter of Wits Professor Bill Evans), who serves with him at the Wits Rural Facility in Bushbuckridge has jointly been awarded the 2013 Joe Varieva Bioethics medal for her contribution to the rural communities in which School of Public Health's Agincourt Unit operates. Both Rhian and Wayne have been based at the Wits Rural Facility for over 15 years.
The Vice-Chancellor’s Team Academic Citizenship Award, presented “for endeavours that are innovative, cooperative and collaborative” was awarded to the for “using its four axes of journalism, law, education and advocacy” to strengthen the criminal justice system and to promote human rights law.
from the International Relations department claimed the Vice-Chancellor’s Individual Teaching and Learning Award for “combining the use of new and social media with traditional teaching” and for “creating an intellectually stimulating environment” for his students, amongst several other achievements. Read more about Hornsby and his new book here.
The Team Teaching and Learning Awards was presented to a group of outstanding individuals for their collaboration in offering a successful Bachelor of Clinical Medical Practice degree. The team, led by , is located in the Division of Rural Health in the Department of Family Medicine. The team was lauded for the programme which resulted in a “high student throughput with competencies demonstrated by Wits students achieving the highest marks in the combined national examination written by the three universities offering the programme.”
Warren Nebe, the founding Director of Drama for Life, was awarded the Vice-Chancellor’s Individual Transformation Award. The programme, “a first of its kind in the international arena in its scope and practice” is renowned for “building a culture of transformation” at Wits.
The student newspaper were awarded the Vice-Chancellor’s Team Transformation award for producing a community newspaper that is an “essential element in the transformation of Wits’ institutional culture”. Produced by students from the Wits Journalism department, the newspaper is independent, and is produced as part of the curriculum through which students are encouraged to be “bold and experimental”.
from the School of Therapeutic Sciences in the Faculty of Health Sciencs, claimed the prestigious Vice-Chancellor’s Individual Research Award for his “exceptional contributions to research, innovation and scholarly activity that has far-impacted the fields of pharmaceutical science, drug delivery and health therapeutics beyond our borders”. Read more about Professor Pillay here.
Congratulations to all the winners as well as all those nominated for the awards! You have done Wits proud and have made a significant contribution to advancing our society. Well done.
We’ll rise or fall on the quality of our soil
- By Wits University
Great civilisations have fallen because they failed to prevent the degradation of the soils on which they were founded. The modern world could suffer the same fate.
This is according to Professor Mary Scholes and Dr Bob Scholes who have published a paper in top scientific journal, Science, which describes how the productivity of many lands has been dramatically reduced as a result of soil erosion, accumulation of salinity, and nutrient depletion.
“Cultivating soil continuously for too long destroys the bacteria which convert the organic matter into nutrients,” says Mary Scholes, who is a Professor in the School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences at Wits University.
Although improved technology – including the unsustainably high use of fertilisers, irrigation, and ploughing – provides a false sense of security, about 1% of global land area is degraded every year. In Africa, where much of the future growth in agriculture must take place, erosion has reduced yields by 8% and nutrient depletion is widespread.
“Soil fertility is both a biophysical property and a social property – it is a social property because humankind depends heavily on it for food production,” says Bob Scholes, who is a systems ecologist at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research.
Soil fertility was a mystery to the ancients. Traditional farmers speak of soils becoming tired, sick, or cold; the solution was typically to move on until they recovered. By the mid-20th century, soils and plants could be routinely tested to diagnose deficiencies, and a global agrochemical industry set out to fix them. Soil came to be viewed as little more than an inert supportive matrix, to be flooded with a soup of nutrients.
This narrow approach led to an unprecedented increase in food production, but also contributed to global warming and the pollution of aquifers, rivers, lakes, and coastal ecosystems. Activities associated with agriculture are currently responsible for just under one third of greenhouse gas emissions; more than half of these originate from the soil.
Replacing the fertility-sustaining processes in the soil with a dependence on external inputs has also made the soil ecosystem, and humans, vulnerable to interruptions in the supply of those inputs, for instance due to price shocks.
However, it is not possible to feed the current and future world population with a dogmatically “organic” approach to global agriculture. Given the large additional area it would require, such an approach would also not avert climate change, spare biodiversity, or purify the rivers.
To achieve lasting food and environmental security, we need an agricultural soil ecosystem that more closely approximates the close and efficient cycling in natural ecosystems, and that also benefits from the yield increases made possible by biotechnology and inorganic fertilisers.
"Answers generate more questions"
- By Wits University
Professor Anna Kramvis from the School of Clinical Medicine in the Wits Faculty of Health Science, delivered an inaugural lecture entitled Hepatitis B Virus: A Millionth of the Human Genome on 3 October 2013.The Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is the smallest DNA virus infecting man and it is second only to cigarette smoking as an agent causing human cancer.
Although an effective vaccine against this virus is currently available, inoculation will not help those already infected. Over two billion humans, a third of the world’s population, have been infected with HBV during their lifetime and at least 240 million individuals, of which 65 million reside in Africa, are chronically infected with the virus.
These carriers are at risk of death as a result of serious liver disease, including cirrhosis and liver cancer, which cause an estimated half a million deaths a year. Although chronic hepatitis B is listed in the top ten diseases in the world, its research in Africa is a low priority because it has been eclipsed by the major infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. The strains of the HBV circulating in Africa differ from those found in other regions of the world where the virus is hyperendemic.
This lecture focused on the research carried out to study of sequence variation of African HBV strains, their functional characterisation and their role in the clinical manifestation of liver disease.
The revelation of a major discovery kept a crowd of astronomy and geoscience enthusiasts, members of the public, and global media enthralled during a public lecture at Wits University on Thursday, 10 October 2013.
Three scientists described how they – together with local and international collaborators – gathered the first ever evidence of a comet entering Earth’s atmosphere, about 28 million years ago. The comet exploded in Earth’s atmosphere, raining down a shock wave of fire which obliterated every life form in its path and created a molten layer of sand in the Egyptian Sahara.
“The only known impact of a comet with a planet occurred in 1994 when Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 fragmented and ploughed into Jupiter. The speed was around 60 kilometres per second. But tonight marks a story of catastrophic proportions and it’s the first documented case in history,” said Professor David Block of Wits University.
The explosion resulted in the formation of a huge amount of yellow silica glass which lies scattered over a 6 000 square kilometre area in the Sahara. A magnificent specimen of the glass, polished by ancient jewellers, is found in Tutankhamun's brooch with its striking yellow-brown scarab.
Perhaps most importantly, the explosion left behind comet material, which is very elusive. Comet fragments have not been found on Earth before except as microscopic sized dust particles in the upper atmosphere and some carbon-rich dust in the Antarctic ice.
“Comets contain pristine material from the epoch of the formation of our solar system some 4.5 billion years ago. One way of securing comet material is to go there. This of course costs billions of dollars,” said Block.
Dr Marco Andreoli of the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa) described how the late Professor Friedel Sellschop of Wits University had sparked decades of detective work with his interest in diamonds.
The lead author on the paper which is soon to be published, Professor Jan Kramers of the University of Johannesburg (UJ), described the complicated chemical analyses which proved by process of elimination that a comet had in fact struck earth.
The research was a collaboration between not only scientists at UJ, Wits University and Necsa, but also scientists at the University of Cape Town and multiple other local and international institutional settings.
“This is a discovery of global, earth shattering nature which is a product of African scientists, and a product of African scientists at multiple institutions. Science has no national boundaries and it has no institutional boundaries,” said Vice-Chancellor and Principal of Wits University, Professor Adam Habib.
“There is an enormous amount of collaboration which is occurring in the higher education system, and we are particularly proud of that. Simultaneously, our higher education system requires both collaboration and competition. It keeps us all sharp, and if we are all sharp, the collaboration itself is of a much more fundamental and innovative nature.”
SA unravelling under weight of corruption
- By Erna van Wyk
Roger Jardine, former CEO of the Aveng Group called on government and business to sign an “Integrity Pact” to stamp out corruption and collusion and curb the high levels of cartel behaviour in various industries in South Africa.
Jardine delivered a public lecture titled Rejecting Collusion and Corruption: Where to for the government and the private sector? at the Wits Business School on Tuesday, 8 October 2013.
He resigned as CEO in August 2013 following five years at the helm of the Aveng Group which was one of 15 construction firms that reached a settlement for collusive tendering in terms of the Construction Fast Track Settlement Process following the Competition Commission’s investigation into collusive tendering in the industry. Although the incidents of collusion occurred before Jardine joined the company, as CEO he led the process to investigate the allegations of collusion within the company.
He reflected on his experience in dealing with the investigation by the Competition Commission into the construction cartel and also gave some solutions: “We need an agreement between the government and all bidders for a public sector contract that they will abstain from bribery, both during the selection process and project implementation. Bidders must agree to disclose all commissions and similar expenses paid by them to anyone in connection with the contract, with penalties being imposed when violations occur. Such penalties can include: loss or denial of contract, forfeiture of the bid or performance bond, liability for damages, blacklisting of bidders for future contracts and criminal or disciplinary action against government employees,” Jardine said.
He praised the National Development Plan, but questioned how the implementation of these plans would be managed. Click to listen to an extract of his lecture.
David Lewis, former chairperson of the Competition Tribunal and current Executive Director of Corruption Watch, responded. Listen
The lecture was followed by a panel discussion and public interaction facilitated by Wits Vice-Chancellor, Professor Adam Habib.
ABOUT ROGER JARDINE:
Jardine was the national co-ordinator of science and technology policy in the department of economic planning of the African National Congress (ANC) from 1992 to 1995. In 1995, he became the director general of the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology.
He was non-executive chairman of the board of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa (NECSA) between 1999 and 2005. In 1999, Jardine joined Kagiso Media Limited as CEO and in 2006 became the COO of Kagiso Trust Investments.
He joined the Aveng Group in July 2008. The Aveng Group is a global infrastructure development company active in 30 countries and employing approximately 34 000 people. Jardine served as CEO for five years. He is also a Director of FirstRand Limited which includes FNB, Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) and Wesbank, and he serves on the board of the rugby franchise The Sharks.
Jardine holds a BSc (Physics) from Haverford College (1989) and an MSc (Radiological Physics) from Wayne State University (1991) in the US.
VC addresses Senate, Council
- By Wits University
“I would like to thank the members of Senate and Council for entrusting me with the responsibility to lead this incredible institution,” said Wits Vice-Chancellor, Professor Adam Habib at the annual Senate and Council Dinner held on Friday, the 18th of October 2013, at the Wits Club.
“I walked into this position facing a myriad of issues ranging from insourcing versus outsourcing to sexual harassment, from addressing tensions between management and staff to dealing with student disciplinary matters.”
He added that Wits is indeed one of the most politically animated institutions on the continent. “In my first Senate meeting, I had to chair issues relating to outsourcing, sexual harassment and the Israeli-Palestinian tensions on campus – issues which other institutions around the world have been battling to resolve for decades!”
He thanked all those who counselled him through this initial period and who offered him generous advice on key issues. “I have had to make some hard decisions, particularly with regards to funding, budgets and executive portfolios. I am in the process of reorganising the management structures and I am confident that we will have a full team operating in 2014 – a team that is committed to leading a University that creates an enabling environment for teaching, learning and research at the highest levels,” said Habib.
On relationships with key constituencies like staff, the SRC and unions, Habib commented: “Wits is a University with incredible potential and depth. We have remarkable intellectuals and a vibrant community that is not afraid to engage in robust discussion about substantial issues of the day. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the outgoing Students’ Representative Council and to welcome the incoming group. We have had differences of opinion in the last year but that has made us, and Wits, stronger. I would also like to thank the unions – we are partners in a common project – wanting to make Wits an even greater university than it already is.”
Listen to the audio recording .
No evidence that we’ll run out of energy resources
- By Kanina Foss
There are many constraints on economic growth, but no constraints – for the foreseeable future – on available energy resources. This is according to Group Chief Economist and Vice President of BP, Christof Rühl, who spoke on BP’s recently released Energy Outlook 2030 at Wits University on Tuesday, 1 October 2013.
There will be 8.6 billion people in the world by 2030, GDP is expected to double, and energy consumption is expected to grow by just over 30%. Almost 100% of the future energy demand growth will occur in developing countries. “There’s a huge, pent up demand for industrialisation,” said Rühl.
He referred to the assumption that if China, India and Africa continue to grow at their current pace, the world would run out of energy resources, and said he commonly heard the concern that we would need four planets to fuel the kind of growth that is expected.
“There is, in the data for the foreseeable future, no evidence of this.”
Although there are many constraints on economic growth, proved reserves (resources which can be produced with given technologies and given prices) have gone up by almost 60% over the last 20 years. Natural gas went up by about 50%.
“Over the last 10 years energy prices have been steadily rising and are now record high. If you take the last five years and compare them with a five year period 10 years ago (from 1997 to 2002), with all prices in real terms, inflation adjusted, a basket of oil prices are up 240%, a basket of coal prices are up 140%, and a basket of natural gas prices are up 90%,” said Rühl.
Increasing prices should theoretically see more fuel supplies become available, and maybe some innovation as people are incentivised by high prices. “This is indeed what happened. We are not only seeing more of the same – more coal in South Africa, more natural gas in neighbouring countries – we are also seeing more technological innovation. The most prominent innovations in the fossil fuel sector have been shale gas and tight oil,” said Rühl.
Recently, the single biggest decline in carbon emissions has come from a country not known for its climate change policies – the US. This is due to the revolution in shale gas and tight oil.
Conversely, after 20 years of climate change policy, Europe has increased the percentage of coal in its energy mix. What happened?
The year 2011 was the beginning of the Arab Spring and the civil war in Libya. “For oil markets that meant that 1.2 million barrels of oil was taken off the market – the single biggest supply disruption since the collapse of the Soviet Union,” said Rühl.
In 2012, some of the Libyan oil came back, but there were sanctions against Iraq, plus a number of smaller disruptions.
The OPEC countries saw these outages, they witnessed the debate on Iran sanctions, and they produced more oil to compensate. But actually the single biggest increase in oil production last year came from tight oil the US.
On the demand side, consumption of oil by OECD countries started decreasing in 2005. “Oil consumption is back to where it was in 1992. In the European Union, it’s back to where it was in 1969. Population growth is stagnant. Everyone who wants a car has a car. So what you have is massive efficiency improvements outpacing demand. And these efficiency improvements are as a result of these very high prices,” said Rühl.
In 2005, US oil imports peaked. Since then they have fallen by 45%. At the same time, Chinese imports last year had gone up by 85%.
When it comes to gas, demand has been driven by the usual suspects of high economic growth, but also by the urgent need of Japan to replace its nuclear power after Fukushima. This has led to very high prices for liquefied natural gas in Asia.
On the other end of the extreme, prices are at a record low in the US – a direct effect of the increase in shale gas. “In 2011, there was a record increase in shale gas production. By the beginning of 2012, there was already a massive oversupply of natural gas in the US. The Americans cut back on imports but it wasn’t enough to deal with the oversupply,” said Rühl.
In the end, the only sector capable of absorbing the oversupply was energy generation.
(Globally, the biggest user of energy is the production of other energy sources. The second biggest user is industry, and the third biggest user is transport. In Africa, the transport sector plays a bigger role than it does globally, because of the huge demand for cars. People in the non-OECD countries, particularly those with higher incomes, are very prepared to spend a higher fraction of their income on continuing buying cars rather than cutting down on transport when it comes to tightening the belt.)
In the US, there was a massive 20% increase in natural gas used for power generation, with a 12% decrease in the use of coal. With all the redundant coal, it became 35% cheaper for Europe to buy American coal and create power with coal than to use imported liquefied natural gas. As a result, Europe had an almost equally massive switch out of gas and into coal, and let expensive gas deliveries pass on to Asia. “These huge cargos of gas passed by Europe and disappeared into Asia,” said Rühl.
According to Rühl, attributing the massive increases in oil and gas production in the US and Canada to an increase in reserves would be a mistake. “We know that Venezuela has more reserves than Canada. And yet nothing came out of Venezuela in response to these 10 years of high and rising prices,” said Rühl.
His explanation boils down to the existence of competitive energy markets – free entry markets, where anyone can and does invest. “Competition bred the new technologies. If you double the price for jackets, you will get innovation for jackets in a few years. In the energy market, it might take 10 years. And worldwide, in this industry, innovation doesn’t come from markets controlled by governments which exclude incentives to experiment.
“There is going to be an increasing role for political discussions in determining where future production will come from. We are used to a situation where nature distributes it and then much of the politics are concerned with who controls those supplies. Because of the widespread nature of this new resource (shale gas and tight oil), you’ll see a lot of discussion centred around competition entry and environmental considerations.”
BP’s forecast, which it describes as being at very pessimistic end of the spectrum compared to other forecasts, is that by 2030, about 9% of global oil supplies will be produced with tight oil.
What does this mean for oil prices? “If the oil market was a market like any other, prices would come down. But the oil market has a cartel – OPEC. We think that OPEC will be willing and capable of cutting production to neutralise this new production,” said Rühl.
What does it mean for the oil market in general, and geopolitics in particular? “For the last 50 years, oil was the dominant fuel and the Middle East was the primary supplier. That’s going to change. Twenty years ago, China was a net energy exporter. By 2030 it will be importing roughly 80% of its oil and more than 60% of its gas. Europe, already a big importer, will remain the same.
“Where things are going to change is the US. They are already exporting coal and there’s no reason to think that will change. Everybody agrees it will become an exporter of natural gas. It may be conceivable that a Mr or Mrs American President looking at some trouble in the Middle East and thinking: no skin off my nose – we need very little oil, and what we need, we can get from Mexico and Canada.”
North America’s shift from oil into gas also has good news for climate change. Although renewable energy increased its share of global energy consumption from 2.2% to 2.4% last year, BP’s prognosis is that it will take a long time for that share to increase. By 2030, it is expected to be around 7%. According to Rühl, renewable energy – like nuclear energy – will hit a glass ceiling if massive subsidies have to continue to support a lack of cost efficiency.
However, creating energy using gas rather than coal already creates a 50% reduction in carbon emissions. “A shift between coal and gas is going to dwarf any gains made by switching to renewable energy,” said Rühl.
Perhaps the most promising point to come out of the Energy Outlook 2030 is that there is a hint of a gap starting to open up between energy consumption and GDP, , driven by market forces.
There’s been a shift in energy consumption. In 2009, the non-OECD countries started consuming more energy than OECD countries. Over the last 20 years, global energy consumption increased by about 50%, and over the last 10 years, it increased by 30%. Almost all of that 30% came from non-OECD countries.
In the last five years, for four out of five years, energy consumption in the OECD countries has declined. Three out of these four times of declining energy consumption, it happened despite positive economic growth.
“We at BP have long held the view that oil consumption in OECD countries has peaked. I think it’s too early to make a similar call for primary energy for the totality of all the fuels. But certainly this is a very interesting phenomenon. Is it possible, over long periods of time, to have economic growth with declining energy consumption?”
Rühl’s presentation was based on two publically available documents:
Future students of Wits Business School (WBS) might find themselves doing some of their studies at the Warsaw School of Economics after a bilateral agreement encouraging student exchanges was signed by the Rector of the Polish institution, Professor Tomasz Szapiro and the Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Academic of Wits University, Professor Andrew Crouch, in Johannesburg yesterday.
The three year partnership will not only facilitate student exchanges, but will also encourage and support joint academic activities, including the exchange of staff members who may serve in lecturing or research roles in the host institution.
The international exchange of ideas and research is being encouraged with the aim of enriching the scholarly efforts of the students and staff of both Schools.
It is the first time that the Warsaw School of Economics has entered into a partnership with a South African institution. It is believed that the collaboration with the WBS will contribute to stronger economic ties between South Africa and Poland.
The bilateral agreement, signed at the Michaelangelo Hotel in Sandton, is the result of an earlier cooperation between the two Schools under the rubric of the Partnership in International Management (PIM) network.
The signing ceremony was witnessed by Higher Education and Training Minister, Dr Blade Nzimande, who said: “We thank the Polish government for investing in South Africa’s education. This bilateral agreement will go a long way in opening doors for our learners and making sure that we produce world class graduates.”
“The joint research, conducted in multicultural and international teams, will contribute to the better understanding of the processes shaping the world economy, as well as to finding solutions to problems of the contemporary world. The accumulated research experience of Warsaw and WBS scholars will allow for research projects of the highest academic standards that will pose significant input into global science,” said Acting Head of the WBS, Dr Adam Gordon.
Maria Marchetti-Mercer inducted as full professor
- By Wits University
Maria Marchetti-Mercer, Head of the School of Human and Community Development in the Faculty of Humanities became a full Professor when she delivered her inaugural lecture on Monday, 30 September 2013.
The presentation of an inaugural lecture represents a crowning moment in the career of an academic. Upon acquiring full professorship status at the University, incumbents are requested to present an inaugural lecture which is a scholarly presentation related to their research interests, discipline or teaching focus. Marchetti-Mercer will now join Senate – the University’s highest academic decision making body.
Marchetti-Mercer's lecture titled “Still looking for home”: A personal and professional journey into the experience of emigration provided a personal and professional experience on the losses and challenges linked to the emigration experience.
Linking emigration to a process of uprooting where the disruption of social networks can be seen as the most serious consequence of emigration, she recounted the findings of a recent study exploring the impact of South African emigration on family life.
As a psychologist, her study offers fresh insight on the impact of emigration, which is often understood in economic terms such as “the brain drain”, quantifying the skills lost cost to South Africa. Listen to her lecture by clicking.
Her lecture was poignant and drew on her personal experiences as a hybrid of two countries. Marchetti-Mercer arrived in South Africa from Italy, the land of the world’s most loved cuisine and fast cars at the age of 11.
Professor Tim Noakes, Discovery Health Professor of Exercise and Sports Science at the University of Cape Town, and Director of University of Cape Town/Medical Research Council Research Unit for Exercise Science and Sports Medicine in the Sports Science Institute of South Africa, presented a lecture entitled "Is the 'heart-healthy' prudent diet the single worst medical mistake of the 20th Century?"
Noakes, hosted by the Royal Society of South Africa, spoke on the politics, commercial influences and the absence of science that drove the adoption of dietary guidelines, in 1977, advocating the eating of 6-11 servings of grains and cereals per day and an avoidance of dietary fat. He presented evidence that suggests that unless we radically alter our current dietary advice we will be powerless to prevent or reverse the epidemic of obesity and diabetes that is already apparent in all South African youth.
"Carbohydrates make us fat and stimulate hunger. Carbohydrates drive calorie consumption and the high carbohydrate diet they put you on 20 years ago, gave you high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease," said Noakes.
He raised some eybrows when he claimed that, contrary to popular belief, "artery clogging alone cannot cause a heart attack. Something else is required, which the doctor don't tell you."
Listen to Noakes' lecture: and
New evidence on lightning strikes
- By Kanina Foss
Lightning strikes causing rocks to explode have for the first time been shown to play a huge role in shaping mountain landscapes in southern Africa, debunking previous assumptions that angular rock formations were necessarily caused by cold temperatures, and proving that mountains are a lot less stable than we think.
In a world where mountains are crucial to food security and water supply, this has vast implications, especially in the context of climate change.
Professors Jasper Knight and Stefan Grab from the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies at Wits University used a compass to prove – for the first time ever – that lightning is responsible for some of the angular rock formations in the Drakensburg.
“A compass needle always points to magnetic north. But when you pass a compass over a land’s surface, if the minerals in the rock have a strong enough magnetic field, the compass will read the magnetic field of the rock, which corresponds to when it was formed. In the Drakensburg, there are a lot of basalt rocks which contain a lot of magnetic minerals, so they’ve got a very strong magnetic signal,” says Knight.
If you pass a compass over an area where a lightning strike occurred, the needle will suddenly swing through 360 degrees.
“The energy of the lightning hitting the land’s surface can, for a short time, partially melt the rock and when the rock cools down again, it takes on the magnetic imprint of today’s magnetic field, not the magnetic field of millions of years ago when the rock was originally formed,” says Knight.
Because of the movement of continents, magnetic north for the newly formed rock will be different from that of the older rock around it. “You have two superimposed geomagnetic signatures. It’s a very useful indicator for identifying the precise location of where the lightning struck.”
Knight and Grab mapped out the distribution of lightning strikes in the Drakensburg and discovered that lightning significantly controls the evolution of the mountain landscapes because it helps to shape the summit areas – the highest areas – with this blasting effect.
Previously, angular debris was assumed to have been created by changes typical of cold, periglacial environments, such as fracturing due to frost. Water enters cracks in rocks and when it freezes, it expands, causing the rocks to split apart.
Knight and Grab are challenging centuries old assumptions about what causes mountains to change shape. “Many people have considered mountains to be pretty passive agents, just sitting there to be affected by cold climates over these long periods of time.
Image: Professor Jasper Knight
“This evidence suggests that that is completely wrong. African mountain landscapes sometimes evolve very quickly and very dramatically over short periods of time. These are actually very sensitive environments and we need to know more about them.”
It is also useful to try and quantify how much debris is moved by these blasts which can cause boulders weighing several tonnes to move tens of metres.
“We can identify where the angular, broken up material has come from, trace it back to source, and determine the direction and extent to which the debris has been blasted on either side. Of course we know from the South African Weather Service how many strikes hit the land’s surface, so we can estimate how much volume is moved per square kilometre per year on average,” says Knight.
The stability of the land’s surface has important implications for the people living in the valleys below the mountain. “If we have lots of debris being generated it’s going to flow down slope and this is associated with hazards such as landslides,” said Knight.
Mountains are also inextricably linked to food security and water supply. In Lesotho, a country crucial to South Africa’s water supply, food shortages are leading to overgrazing, exposing the rock surface and making mountain landscapes even more vulnerable to weathering by lightning and other processes.
Knight hopes that this new research will help to put in place monitoring and mitigation to try and counteract some of the effects. “The more we increase our understanding, the more we are able to do something about it.”
A research paper to be published in the scientific journal, Geomorphology, is available here.
Courting the intellectual project
- By Vivienne Rowland
You do not have to be in Professor Ruksana Osman’s company for long before you realise that she is an experienced academic and a thoughtful and hands-on administrator.
The new Dean of the Faculty of Humanities is passionate about her work, the students and the staff members she serves. She speaks openly about what she thinks it will take to “advance the intellectual project”.
Appointed as the Dean from 1 August 2013, Osman has been acting in the position since January 2013, before being officially handed the reins after she made a compelling case for support, expansion, growth and academic excellence for the Faculty for the next five years. Before this, she was the Head of the School of Education for more than three years.
“I enjoyed being the Head of School very much. Now, since acting as Dean and in the short period since being officially appointed, I enjoy working with Heads of Schools, Assistant Deans and Directors of Centres and Units. This gives me fresh insights into the Faculty. I am inspired by my colleagues in the Faculty and the academic and intellectual work that they do,” says Osman.
A Wits alumnus, Osman holds degrees from two Universities. She is an eminent academic, member of ASSAF and serves on various academic and advisory boards and research committees. A former Spencer doctoral fellow, she completed her PhD in Higher Education Studies and Policy.
It was under her tenure that the School of Education recently won the Educational Research in Africa Award in the category Most Enabling Institutional Environment for Educational Research, at a ceremony in France. Also under her tenure, Education at Wits is in the top 200 in the world rankings of subjects. In August this year, her hometown Laudium, near Pretoria, together with the Department of Health and Social Development, named her Laudium’s 2013 Woman of the Year, recognising that “the mother of three has been an example of success and an inspiration for all the women who look to her achievements”.
In addition to this, Osman is the convenor of the UNESCO Research Chair in Teacher Education for Diversity and Development. Her research interests are in the area of higher education studies and teacher education, with a particular focus on higher education policy, pedagogy and student experiences of higher education.
She has published her work in a variety of journals and books and she is also co-editor of Research-led teacher education: Case studies of possibilities (2012); Service learning in South African Higher Education: Studies in selected disciplines (2013); and Large Class Pedagogy: Interdisciplinary Perspectives for Quality Higher Education (2013).The latter she co-authored with Dr David J. Hornsby and Dr Jacqueline De Matos-Ala, senior lecturers in International Relations at Wits, which will officially be launched on Thursday, 10 October 2013.
She says as the Dean, she is looking forward to focussing on the broader aspect of the Faculty and strengthening the intellectual ties between schools centres and units within the Faculty.
“There is a complexity about heading up a Faculty which is quite different to when you are heading up a School. In the faculty role you have to have standing as an academic yourself and you have to advance and champion the academic interests and disciplines of others in the Faculty. I am committed to the intellectual project of the Humanities because I find it inspiring getting to know the diversity of the Faculty, understanding its complex architecture, the work that the staff do and the particular projects that interest our students,” says Osman.
According to Osman, as a Dean, one needs to think carefully about how you position your faculty within the wider university and prioritising the intellectual interests of the academics and matching these with what students want. In addition, one has to find ways in which a faculty creates a society that can promote and advance the humanities.
“We have to create spaces in which academics can do their work exceptionally well by looking at the big picture and across different disciplines and intellectual traditions. The School of Education was a good learning curve and prepared me for this because it encompasses almost all the disciplines that you will find in the Humanities.”
Osman says she would like to introduce some new initiatives and continue with some of the well-established projects within the Faculty.
“The Wits Art and Literature Experience (WALE) is a signature initiative, so we would not like to lose the brand but we are discussing possible reformatting. I feel strongly that WALE has an important role to play in student life more broadly for students across the university. Furthermore I would like the Faculty to influence the city we live in and vice versa. Such a relational positioning for the Faculty and the City provides a fertile platform for creative research and teaching; of course it also allows us to draw in a diverse range of staff members and postgraduate students.”
Another area that the Faculty has a good contribution to make is in exploring what humanities pedagogies look like and how to grow such pedagogies.
Osman is committed to a faculty ethos that is inclusive and she says that new leadership presents new opportunities to consolidate and innovate.
Wits CERN team on Nobel Prize
- By Wits University
Researchers at the University of the Witwatersrand, who made significant contributions to the Higgs boson discovery in July 2012, were overjoyed today when the Nobel Committee awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics to physicists François Englert (Université Libre de Bruxelles) and Peter Higgs (University of Edinburgh).
The researchers are part of a team at the European Organization of Nuclear Research (CERN) who collaborated on the ATLAS experiment whose discovery was also acknowledged and cited by the Nobel Committee during its announcement on Tuesday, 8 October 2013. Read more
The Nobel Prize was awarded to Englert and Higgs “for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider.
The Higgs boson, an elementary particle originally theorized in 1964 and jointly discovered by the ATLAS and CMS experiments in July 2012, confirms the existence of the Higgs field and explains the origin of mass for some fundamental particles.
Tantalizing hints of a new elementary particle with a mass around 125 GeV were first reported by the ATLAS and CMS experiments in December 2011. Both experiments confirmed this excess with additional data taken in 2012 and made a joint discovery announcement in July of that same year. In March 2013, after having analysed two and a half times more data than was available for the discovery announcement, ATLAS and CMS released preliminary measurements of some properties and interactions of the new particle, strongly indicating that it is indeed a Higgs boson.
The University of the Witwatersrand team working on the ATLAS experiment is comprised of lead physicists Dr Oana Boeriu, Professor Bruce Mellado and Dr Trevor Vickey (who all relocated to South Africa to lead the University's involvement in the experiment), as well as over two dozen staff members, postgraduate students and post-doctoral scholars. http://hep.wits.ac.za
“Even more data will be required to understand if this particular Higgs boson corresponds to the one predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics or whether it is connected to theories beyond the Standard Model which predict new physics. Regardless of the outcome, we can say with confidence that a new era in the field of fundamental physics has just begun. The study of this new fundamental particle, its properties and its interactions, will last for decades and will be connected with the development of new technologies to face the new challenges posed by this endeavour. We are very proud of the significant involvement from Wits and the role that we played in this discovery," said Vickey.
According to Mellado, the “discovery of the Higgs boson is a milestone towards the understanding of the origin of mass in the universe. The newly discovery particle is believed to be responsible for the origin of mass of a small fraction of the mass in the universe. However, it is known that about 25% of the universe is made of Dark Matter, the origin of which is not yet understood. The discovery of the Higgs boson opens the gate to understanding the mechanism that leads to the generation of Dark Matter and with it some of the deepest mysteries can be unveiled. We can say that we now live in the era of the Higgs boson. I am very excited to be in South Africa now given the strong support to fundamental sciences. I am confident that South Africa will play a strong role in the next generation of experiments designed to explore the nature of the Higgs boson and its connection to other particles.”
The Wits team are investigating a wide range of physics with the ATLAS experiment at CERN. This includes measuring the properties of the Higgs boson, as well as searching for exotic particles, additional Higgs bosons, and even microscopic black holes. The group is continuing to develop a robust effort for the maintenance, operation and upgrade of the ATLAS detector. This effort initiated the construction of a world-class electronics laboratory in the School of Physics on the Wits campus, which provides a great opportunity for the training of students and staff in state-of-the-art techniques for high-throughput data-transfer.
The Wits team is also involved in the development of a high-throughput supercomputer. “There are over one-hundred thousand computers working all over the world analysing data recorded by the CERN detectors,” says Boeriu, “In particular, Wits is expanding the Tier-3 Grid computing centre on campus where we can store and large volumes of the ATLAS data and host the Monte Carlo simulation needed to perform our different search analyses.”
Professor John Carter, Head of the Wits School of Physics said, “We congratulate the winners of this year’s Nobel Prize for Physics, Britain's Peter Higgs and Francois Englert of Belgium, for predicting the existence of the Higgs boson particle. Here, at the School of Physics, University of the Witwatersrand, we are all extremely proud that our own Wits-ATLAS research team comprising Prof. Bruce Mellado, Dr. Trevor Vickey and Dr. Oana Boeriu together with their postdoctoral scholars and postgraduate students played an important role in the discovery of the Higgs boson. The strong presence of the Wits-ATLAS group over the last several years at LHC was made possible by through the SA-CERN programme funded through the Department of Science and Technology together with the strong backing of the University. Wits Physics has demonstrated its ability to participate and lead in ground breaking high-energy physics discoveries.”
BACKGROUND:
The Higgs boson, an elementary particle originally theorized in 1964 and jointly discovered by the ATLAS and CMS experiments in July of last year, confirms the existence of the Higgs field and explains the origin of mass for some fundamental particles.
Tantalizing hints of a new elementary particle with a mass around 125 GeV were first reported by the ATLAS and CMS experiments in December 2011. Both experiments confirmed this excess with additional data taken in 2012 and made a joint discovery announcement in July of that same year. In March 2013, after having analysed two and a half times more data than was available for the discovery announcement, ATLAS and CMS released preliminary measurements of some properties and interactions of the new particle, strongly indicating that it is indeed a Higgs boson.
Dr Oana Boeriu graduated from the University of Freiburg, Germany in 2003 and joined the ATLAS experiment in 2010, coming to Wits in July of that same year. During her career Boeriu has worked on four major particle physics experiments (OPAL, D-Zero, CMS and ATLAS) and co-authored over 500 peer-reviewed publications. Most recently, Boeriu has been involved—together with her postdoc and students—in searches for exotic particles theoretically known as leptoquarks, which are believed to be the link between leptons and quarks (the smallest building blocks of matter) in the early stages of the Universe.
After graduating from Columbia University in 2001 Professor Bruce Mellado joined the ATLAS experiment at CERN. Mellado has been dedicated to the preparation and the ultimate discovery of the Higgs boson. Mellado has made several seminal contributions to the ATLAS seatch strategy. He played a critical role in introducing the search of the Higgs boson in association with hadronic jets. He pioneered the use of jet binning in Higgs searches and other techniques that were used for the discovery. Several of his papers have been cited by Higgs boson related publications by ATLAS. Mellado was the convenor of the two important subgroups for five years during which the ultimate search strategy was defined. Mellado is the recipient of the APS-IUSSTF Professorship Award and was awarded a CERN fellowship, among others. He has given numerous presentations and organized international workshops and physics schools.
Dr Trevor Vickey graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2004 and has worked on both the CDF and ATLAS experiments. He has been exploring different Higgs boson search techniques at ATLAS since 2005 and came to Wits in January 2010. He has made seminal contributions to the search strategy for the Standard Model Higgs boson decaying into two tau particles (tau particles are heavier and unstable cousins of the electron). He was leading the ATLAS team searching for the Higgs boson with this decay signature (a group of approximately 100 physicists) when the Higgs boson was discovered in July 2012. Vickey is a recipient of the National Research Foundation’s President’s Award (P-rated scientist), in 2010 was awarded the University of the Witwatersrand’s Friedel Sellschop Award, and is a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom.
Children's health issues to be highlighted
- By Wits University
The Millennium Development Goals; Advances and new developments in paediatrics and child health Primary Health Care Re-engineering; and An essential health package of care for South Africa’s children, are some of the topics which come under the spotlight at the taking place this week.
The conference takes place from Thursday, 31 October 2013 to Saturday, 2 November 2013 at the Charlotte Maxeke Hospital Auditorium at the Wits Medical School in Parktown and is hosted by the Division of Community Paediatrics in the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health in the School of Clinical Medicine under the theme Getting the basics right: Child Health in 2013.
With less than 1000 days to the deadline for realising the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the conference will focus on the actions required to achieve the MDG’s child health related goals. Although it is certain that South Africa will not meet MDG number four – a two-thirds reduction in under-five mortality – recent successes in reducing child mortality in South Africa are encouraging news to child health practitioners.
, convenor of the conference and professor in the Division of Community Paediatrics says the conference will examine reasons for the unacceptably high on-going child mortality, but more importantly, participants will deliberate on how the situation can be rapidly improved.
“Solutions lie within health systems changes, improving access to care, programme implementation and extracting accountability. Prominent national experts such as Professor Gerry Boon, Professor Alex van den Heever and Mark Heywood will offer their insights on these issues,” says Saloojee.
Recognising that child health needs to move beyond child survival, the conference will highlight progress in national plans aimed at guaranteeing healthy childhoods for South Africa’s children through early child development and school health programmes.
Saloojee says primary health re-engineering has been a favoured strategy advocated to revive South Africa’s ailing health service, and a conference session will examine successes and challenges in realising the new strategy’s goals. “High quality, successful child health projects will be showcased in another session,” he says.
With more than 37 invited speakers packed into a two and a half day high intensity programme, conference participants can expect to be rewarded with a highly stimulating and inspiring event.
Renowned advocate and Wits alumni George Bizos is featured on ‘21 ICONS SA’, a series of short films and portraits that continues to celebrate the country’s iconic individuals. Bizos, who, in a career spanning more than fifty years, has used the law in an exemplary manner to protect people from the abuse of state power. The short film will be screened on SABC3 every Sunday, three minutes before the 7pm news. Read .
Talented duo has stage on fire in Hayani
- By Vivienne Rowland
A perfect combination of comedic timing and professionalism to the very end, the cast of Hayani is a theatre match made in heaven.
The actors, Nat Ramabulana and Atandwa Kani, two of South Africa’s brightest young and upcoming stars, portray their own lives to the hilt on stage every night in Hayani, a truly Wits production about the meaning of “home” in South Africa.
Written and performed by Ramabulana and Kani, and directed by Warren Nebe, the Director of the Drama for Life programme in the Wits School of Arts, the play is being staged at the Market Theatre in Newtown since 18 September 2013, a performance that has been entertaining and enthralling audiences since 2008.
Off-screen the rapport between the actors is evident and the friendship shines through more than the on-stage partnership when they are relaxed. “We met while studying drama at Wits in 2004 and we hit it off since the first time we were on stage together. We united as friends because we both had a need to establish ourselves as ‘us’,” says Ramabulana.
“We developed this friendship and it just worked. Like the A-Team!” says Kani, son of one of South Africa’s foremost and most respected actors, John Kani.
The talented duo says the idea for Hayani came after they were asked to create it at the request of the Wits Transformation Office, and that through the years, the dynamics of performing the play and the intensity have changed.
“The content of Hayani has never changed since we started performing it, but it grows in an organic and autobiographical way – it lives and breathes with us. The more we do it and the older it gets, the more mature, defined and intimate the play becomes,” says Kani.
Hayani, performed in a small venue to create intimacy and closeness with the audience, takes you on a journey through the lives since childhood of Ramabulana and Kani, told unapologetically and unembellished by the actors; and portrayed as honestly and vividly as possible. The journey starts in the actors’ hometowns, Thohoyandou and Port Elizabeth, and the ferrying to and fro between Johannesburg and the towns. It also weaves deeply personal narratives against the tumultuous transitional years in South Africa.
A poignant tandem performance through and through, the play touches on good moments, happy experiences, historical events, sad occurrences, comical incidents and sometimes unflattering portrayals of family life as told through the eyes of Ramabulana and Kani.
They say their families’ responses to the play have been surprising, since they were nervous to show it to them in the beginning.
“My mom has never seen it because she lives in England, but my brothers and some family members have come and said how proud they were of me. That meant a lot,” says Ramabulana, who grew up down the road from Wits, in the leafy suburb of Greenside.
Kani says his mother and father had different reactions to the play. “My mother loved it and even made suggestions on what else we could add to the content. She lauded us for being brave and unapologetic about our family lives. My father said it cut close to home, but it was also the first time he spoke to me as a fellow actor and not only his son. It is quite scary, yet liberating to perform it in front of the very people you are portraying,” says Kani.
In a way Hayani is their own “homecoming” when they return to their drama roots at Wits taking a break from their countless commitments. Kani is currently on our television screens in the SABC2 soapie Muvhango and can soon be seen alongside British actor Idris Elba in the movie Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, portraying young Nelson Mandela, while Ramabulana stars in the eTV soapie Rhythm City and various television commercials. They are also regulars on the Wits Theatre stage in different productions.
The award-winning thespians have both been celebrated for their work on many occasions. Kani has received a Naledi Award for Best Newcomer and has been nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Award for the Naledi and Fleur du Cap Awards, while Ramabulana has raked in a Naledi Award for Best Supporting Actor and nominated in the Best Actor category for the Naledi and Fleur du Cap Awards.
They agree that there is room for Hayani evolving into something bigger or even different, with its roots in the original play.
“There is definitely potential for it but it depends on how you do it. We will work on it, but not as Hayani 2 as such. The next one will come when it comes,” says Kani.
Ramabulana says they are trying to push the Hayani experience for as long as they can. “We want to enjoy the experience because it is not easy creating a play. But we wait for inspiration and will move on from Hayani at some stage.”
The two – Ramabulana a married father of one and Kani a father of twin boys – say they would like their children to be proud of their work and look up to their life’s achievements.
“I want my children to be proud of my career and see that I did what I could while establishing myself in the industry. I would like it to be something they can look back on and be proud of me,” says Ramabulana.
Like the end monologue of Hayani says: “We travel from place to place. From heart to home. And home is where the heart rests.”
*Hayani is on at the Market Theatre in Newtown until Sunday, 27 October 2013. Book through www.compucticket.com or contact Drama for Life (Gudrun.kramer@wits.co.za / (011) 717-4733).
* Warren Nebe was awarded the 2013 Vice-Chancellor’s Individual Transformation Award. The programme, “a first of its kind in the international arena in its scope and practice” is renowned for “building a culture of transformation” at Wits.
Top nuclear physicist joins Wits
- By Wits University
Dr Zeblon Zenzele Vilakazi joins Wits University on the 1st of January 2014 as the new Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research and Postgraduate Affairs.
Dr Vilakazi was appointed Group Executive for Research and Development at the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (Necsa) in 2011, while also serving as the director of iThemba LABS – a position he has held since January 2007. He also currently holds an Honorary Professorship in the Department of Physics at the University of Cape Town.
He obtained his PhD from Wits in 1998 under the supervision of the late Professor J Sellschop, who also served as DVC: Research at Wits University. The title of his doctoral thesis is the Investigation of coherent correlated effects due to incidence of ultra-relativistic leptons on oriented crystalline matter. This was followed by a National Research Foundation (NRF) post-doctoral fellowship at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland.
He took up an academic post at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in 1999 where he was instrumental in establishing South Africa’s first experimental high-energy physics research group focusing on development of the High-level Trigger for the CERN-ALICE experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. He also served as a visiting scientist at the Atomic Energy Commission and Alternative Energy (CEA) in Saclay, France.
“Dr Vilakazi brings a wealth of experience, insight and knowledge to Wits and the Senior Executive Team. I am confident that he will work with the Executive to increase Wits’ quantitative and qualitative research output over the next few years. He will assist me in the hunt to attract other talented individuals to the institution. On behalf of Wits, I welcome him to the University, and look forward to working with him to implement Wits’ strategic research plan,” says Professor Adam Habib, Wits Vice-Chancellor and Principal.
Vilakazi also served as a chairman of the IAEA Standing Advisory Committee on Nuclear Applications from 2009 to 2011. He is a member of the Programme Advisory Committee for Nuclear Physics at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Russia and a member of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) Working Group for Nuclear Physics. In 2010 he was nominated by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader and is a member of the Academy of Sciences of South Africa. Vilakazi’s research interests include heavy-ion collisions at ultra-relativistic energies and computational physics – in relation to GRID computing. He has more than 80 refereed articles in Nuclear and High Energy Physics and is a regular invitee for talks and presentations at conferences and seminars.
“I look forward with great excitement to this opportunity of playing a key role in supporting and nurturing research at this august University, my proud alma mater. I am working from a solid basis that has been laid by my predecessors at Wits. I am excited to be back in this environment after spending eight years in the science management system in my capacity as the head of iThemba Labs and in my role at the NRF,” says Vilakazi.
Hailing from Katlehong on the East Rand, Dr Vilakazi is married and has four children.
Changing the world
- By Wits University
American teen wonder Easton LaChappelle realised early on that he wants to do something different with his life. The 17-year-old self-taught engineer has received global attention for his revolutionary upper limb prostheses which costs just a fraction of the standard price.
As a guest of the South African Institute of Electrical Engineers (SAIEE), LaChappelle presented a talk on the robotic hand he built on Wednesday, 9 October 2013, in the Wits Chamber of Mines Building.
“At the age of 14 I had an idea to create a robotic hand controlled by a wireless controlled glove,” he told budding engineers and relayed his incredible journey that has led to him meeting President Barack Obama and to his work being featured in magazines such as Popular Science and Popular Mechanics.
Born in Colorado, he first attempted to build a robotic hand using Lego pieces and relying on online resources he taught himself about sensors, motors and coding allowing him to manipulate the hand to carry out basic movements. This project saw him participate in the 2011 Colorado State Science Fair where he won the third place prize for his project.
During the competition he was challenged to build an affordable prosthetic arm after an encounter with a young girl wearing a prosthetic arm costing about R800 000, a cost that is out of reach for most people. Since then he has made great strides in improving his first model and has developed a more functional prosthetic arm and hand.
Apart from being part of TedX, LaChappelle has worked on NASA’s Robonaut project at the Johnson Space Centre and was placed second in the world in engineering at the 2012 International Science Fair.
to his lecture.
Witsies at biggest malaria conference
- By Wits University
Wits researchers from various disciplines will join the Wits Research Institute for Malaria at the sixth Multilateral Initiative for Malaria (MIM) conference in Durban next week, held every four years at an African venue.
Professor Maureen Coetzee, Director of the Wits Research Institute for Malaria and a world renowned entomologist, is one of the key speakers at the conference. The conference takes place from Thursday, 10 October 2013 from 16:30 at the Durban International Convention Centre.
The MIM will see the launch of the Pan African Mosquito Control Association (PAMCA),formed to promote control of and research on mosquitoes involved in disease transmission and to disseminate valuable information on the study of mosquitoes across Africa and worldwide. PAMCA is the first African organisation of its kind, comprised of entomologists and mosquito control specialists from across the continent and provides a unified voice for these professionals.
The Goodwill Ambassador for the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, well known South African singer Yvonne Chaka Chaka, will officially open the PAMCA during a brief ceremony to be held on Thursday.
Over 50 entomologists, researchers, and vector control specialists from around Africa will attend the meeting.
PAMCA’s function will be, among other things, to coordinate the sharing of information concerning vector control activities amongst Africans while promoting control of and research on mosquitoes, especially dissemination of information on the bionomics of mosquito vectors across Africa and worldwide.
The mission of PAMCA is to provide leadership, information, and training /education, leading to the enhancement of health and quality of life through the suppression of mosquitoes and the diseases they transmit, and the reduction of annoyance levels caused by mosquitoes and other pests of public health importance.
“This is the largest conference of its kind in the malaria world. This year researchers from Wits have been involved on the scientific organising committee. Wits participants come from the School of Pathology, the School of Therapeutic Sciences and the School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences, all of whom are members of the Wits Research Institute for Malaria,ʺ says Coetzee.
Membership of the organisation is open to any individual of high professional and ethical standing who works on mosquito/vector control across the entire African continent and who supports the objectives of the organisation.
1 000 RADMASTE certificates awarded
- By Wits University
Since the beginning of 2009, the Centre for Research and Development in Mathematics, Science and Technology Education (RADMASTE) has been providing in-service development opportunities to educators through Wits accredited short courses. These have been designed to meet the enormous need and demand for improvements in maths and science education. The courses are more focussed and responsive to the majority of educator needs than the now terminated ACE courses. Their emphasis is on building subject competence, with the methodology used being interactive and learner centred. Hands-on activities, such as geometry modelling in maths and microscience experiments in science, are used extensively. Class sizes are kept modest (<40) to ensure each educator gets quality attention.
While some courses take place at the School of Education campus, many take place elsewhere – including venues in other provinces (Limpopo, Mpumalanga, North West, KwaZulu-Natal). All courses are organised either through sponsorship (e.g. CIGRÉ, Kganya Education Fund Trust (KEFT), Rand Merchant Bank (RMB)) or under contract (e.g. ETDP SETA). School teachers (both GET and FET) have been the principal candidates for the courses, but there have also been courses for FET college lecturers and for curriculum/subject advisers. The certificates of competence specify the course content, assessment, number of SAQA credits and NQF level 6.
The courses are generally perceived by the educators as demanding and there is a substantial sense of achievement when candidates are successful. Inevitably there are drop-outs and failures, but the great majority of educators display admirable commitment. Their course evaluations, almost invariably, are positive with requests for more courses on different topics.
Four years of experience with these courses has resulted in the award of nearly 1 000 Wits certificates of competence. This is a substantial contribution to the improvement of maths, science and technology education in South Africa and is fully in accord with one key recommendation of the DBE Ministerial Task Team for Mathematics, Science and Technology published a few days ago. The Task Team, headed by RADMASTE Director, Professor John Bradley, was appointed in February and submitted its report in June, and was applauded by Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga for “the splendid job that they have done”.
Software decisions short-sighted
- By Wits University
In an article published on ITWeb, academics from the Wits School of Education’s Division of Educational Information Technology said it is unwise for South Africa to pin its hopes on software such as Microsoft Office alone and Delphi above Java. This is in response to a circular published by the Department of Basic Education on the standardisation of software tools in the implementation and accessing of Computer Applications Technology (CAT) and IT in schools.
The DST/NRF Centre of Excellence in Strong Materials (CoE-SM) invited schools and their learners to participate in the Materials Science Poster Competition based on strong materials. This newly established competition was formulated to attract more learners to the field of Material Sciences and hence develop their knowledge of properties and learn about the applications of strong materials. Science teachers were asked to assist their learners enter this exciting competition while using it as part of your programme of assessment!
The competition required teams to produce an A3 poster on the properties and applications of a strong material. Strong materials are materials that retain their distinctive and applied properties under extreme conditions and have established or potential commercial applications.
The prize giving for the winning schools was held on 16 October 2013 at Hofmeyr House, University of Witwatersrand.
Top three prizes were awarded to:
1st Place Award for Outstanding Scientific Comprehension and Overall Excellence Laura Chandler, King’s School, Robin Hills (Ms I. Krynauw) for the poster entitled “” (R15,000 for the School)
2nd Place Award for Outstanding Scientific Comprehension and Overall Excellence Michelle Firman, King’s School, Robin Hills (Ms I. Krynauw) for the poster entitled “” (R10,000 for the School)
3rd Place Award for Outstanding Scientific Comprehension and Overall Excellence Alexandra Bench, Ayesha Jadwat & Lisa Grewar, Parktown High School for Girls (Mrs K. Field) for the poster entitled “” (R5,000 for the School)
Special Awards were presented for the following:
Special Award for Excellent Organisation of Information Zakkiyah Peerbhai, Safwana Pandor & Raeesa Mahomed, Azaadville Muslim School (Mrs H. Khadija) for the poster entitled “”
Special Award for Excellent Organisation of Information Giana Meldau, Shalya Sarubdeo & Jessica Smit, Edenvale High School (Mrs A. Smit) for the poster entitled “”
Special Award for Excellent Organisation of Information Martine Demba & Ayanda Ngobeni, Redhill High School (Mrs I. Govender) for the poster entitled “”
Special Award for Creative Presentation Tarryn Friedman , Tamara Stransky & Bianca de Aveiro, Hyde Park High School (Miss A. Maharaj) for the poster entitled “”
Special Award for Creative Presentation Lucas Fernandes, Matthew Fugareau & Jaco van Rensburg, King’s School West Rand (Mrs V. Jansen van Rensburg) for the poster entitled “”
Special Award for Creative Presentation Dylan Richards, Michael Nortje & Paul Richardson, St David’s Marist Inanda (Mrs G. Dell, Mr Mudzingwa) for the poster entitled “”
Special Award for Good Scientific Comprehension Madison Tonkin, Taylor Tonkin & Amy Hales, Hyde Park High School (Miss A. Maharaj) for the poster entitled “”
Special Award for Good Scientific Comprehension Aleska Winetzki, Anran Chen & Gui Bragra, Hyde Park High School (Miss A. Maharaj) for the poster entitled “”
Special Award for Good Scientific Comprehension Tabo Kalima, Daniel Manson & Chloe Raftesath, King’s School West Rand (Mrs V. Jansen van Rensburg) for the poster entitled “”
We would like to congratulate all the learners, teachers and schools on their award-winning posters.
The CoE-SM would also like to thank the learners and teachers from the following schools for participating:
Azaadville Muslim School (Mrs H. Khadija)
Aadil Chothia, Hamza Harrar & Musa Kinz Iqbal
Ruqqaya A. Patel, Mishka Mohammed & Bibi Fatima Wadee
Rand Park High School (Mrs J.L. Young, Mr R. Adams, Mrs L. White)
Brandon Lang
Caylin Walker
Devyn Heuer
Nikita Oosthuizen
Thato Mabitsela
Wihan Meiring
Sailen Naidu
Manav Moodley
St David's Marist Inanda (Mrs G. Dell, Mr Mudzingwa)
Keiron Frost, Travis Hall & Adrian Rathbone
Peter El-Naddaf, Peter Michael & Kosta Michaels
Hugh Naidu, Luke Routier & Cahil Sankar
Sebastian Chapman, Stefan Pecelj & Michael Steere
Joseph Harraway, Thomas Harraway & Declan Rowe
Tygervalley College (Mrs Mbombo)
Anca Roode
Bilgrami on Gandhi's idea of the un-alienated life
- By Wits University
The Philosophy Department in the School of Social Sciences and the Centre for Indian Studies in Africa co-hosted the visit of Mellon Distinguished Scholar, Professor Akeel Bilgrami, for a public lecture titled:
A View from the south: Gandhian perspectives on the political enlightenment
Wits University – in collaboration with the University of Pretoria and the Department of Environmental Affairs, with financial support from the government of Norway – has successfully hosted the first southern African Regional Outreach Meeting on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2012 Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX).
Ninety-five percent of the loss of life due to extreme climate events over the last 30 years has been in developing countries. The goal of the workshop, which took place from 20 to 22 October 2013 in Centurion, was to encourage conversation on how to go from abstract concepts in the Report to real, life-saving action on the ground.
“We can’t anymore just sit and talk,” said Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, Edna Molewa, who opened the workshop. “We need to plan for the changes that are expected to occur. We need to adjust our ecological, social, and economic systems and change the way we do things. Our processes, our practices, and our structures must be properly aligned to reduce the impacts of, and vulnerability to climate change now as well as increasing the social, economic and environmental resilience to future impacts.”
Molewa said that the event came at an opportune time, following the recent release of the 5th Assessment Report of the IPCC on the Physical Science Basis for Climate Change. This report confirms that warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as evidenced by increases in global average temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising sea levels.
“The Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation emphasises the importance of integrating expertise in climate science, disaster risk management, and adaptation,” said Molewa.
Since the release of the SREX in 2012, the IPCC has used a series of workshops to help countries, cities, and international organisations understand the opportunities of improving adaptation to extreme events and disasters. The Centurion workshop was the latest in this series and gave nearly 100 leaders in government, business, and academics from across southern and eastern Africa the chance to learn about the report from IPCC authors and to discuss the report's findings in the light of their own experiences.
Chris Field, Co-chair of Working Group II of the IPCC, said: “SREX can help build the scientific foundations for sound decisions on infrastructure, urban development, public health, and insurance, as well as for planning-from community organisations to international disaster risk management. But success will require people working together, blending their expertise, at all levels.”
Deputy Director-GeneralClimate Change and Air Quality, Department of Environmental Affairs, Judy Beaumont, said: “The key issue is to reduce the risks to those who are particularly vulnerable and build resilience into our economy. And that requires conversation. We need very effective knowledge management.”
According to the Report, Africa, which accounts for the majority of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in the world, is highly vulnerable to climate change and variability. The continent is projected to experience increased warming, decreased rainfall, increased intensity of droughts and floods, as well as sea level rise that is expected to contribute to extreme coastal high water levels.
Some of the Report's other key findings are:
Changes in some extreme weather and climate events are already happening and economic losses from climate extremes have also increased. Since 1970, 95% of lives lost from natural disasters have been in developing countries. Economic losses are greatest in absolute terms in developed countries.
The strength and sophistication of coping strategies have often been key to the actual number of people and economic assets harmed.
In a changing climate, many climate extremes are projected to increase in frequency, duration, and severity over the 21st century with important implications for achieving sustainable development.
Understanding and addressing a wide variety of underlying 'vulnerability' factors such as levels of wealth and education, gender, age, and health will be crucial to reducing risks now and in the future.
The report points to a portfolio of options for decreasing vulnerability. Portfolio components can assist in reducing the risks to people and assets under a variety of possible climate change futures and extremes.
Options ranging from the individual and the family to the national and international levels can help manage the risks of extreme events in a changing climate, building on lessons learned from experience with disaster risk management and adaptation.
Many risk management measures make sense no matter the magnitude and extent of climate change. These "low regrets" initiatives include systems that warn people of impending disasters; changes in land use planning; sustainable land management and ecosystem management.
Other "low regrets" initiatives include improvements in health surveillance, water supplies, and sanitation and drainage systems; climate proofing of major infrastructure and enforcement of building codes; and better education and awareness.
The One Young World (OYW) summit, staged for the first time on African soil, kicks off on Wednesday, 2 October 2013.
The Summit will bring together 1 300 exceptional young people from around the world. These young delegates will converge on Johannesburg from 2 - 5 October 2013 to find solutions to local, regional and global challenges with a special focus on education, business, healthcare, sustainable development, human rights, transparency and good governance.
Wits University is proud to be part of this historic moment.
Several Wits students will take part in the official opening ceremony taking place at the Soccer City stadium at 17:30. The keynote address will be delivered by former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and renowned musician and philanthropist Sir Bob Geldof. A bus carrying Wits students will depart from the Amick Deck tomorrow at 14:00. Sign up at the SDLU offices, 2nd Floor, Matrix Centre or RSVP with jimmy.moyaha@takeawaycancer.co.za
Furthermore, exceptional Wits students will participate in the summit as delegates joining future leaders under the age of 30 from over 180 countries.
On Friday, Wits will host a group of these young leaders for a breakaway session. Delegates will engage in discussions with experts at the Origins Centre, the Wits Art Museum and other places of interest to experience the richness of Wits’ arts, science and cultural heritage contribution. The delegates will be at Wits from 14:00.
The OYW is the premier global forum for young people of leadership calibre. The OYW Summit gives brilliant young minds a voice, so that they can share wisdom and insights on common global challenges, billed as the place where the leaders of tomorrow can meet today.
The 2013 OYW Counsellors include: Kofi Annan; Sir Bob Geldof; Boris Becker, former tennis World champion; Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post; Antony Jenkins, Global Chief Executive: Barclays; Francois Pienaar, former South Africa Rugby Union captain; Fatima Bhutto, author; Ahmed Kathrada, former political advisor to former President Nelson Mandela; Ron Garan, astronaut; Lily Cole, model and actress; Paul Polman, Global CEO, Unilever; Natalia Voidanova, model and philanthropist; and Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.
A species of dung beetle in the Western Cape has given up its ability to fly and instead gallops across the sand in a behaviour which researchers suspect evolved as a way to navigate back and forth from home.
“This species of Pachysoma grabs bits of poo and gallops forward with it. That is really odd. Most insects walk with a tripod gait. They plant three legs in a triangle, while swinging the other three legs forward. It’s an incredibly stable way of walking because you’ve always got three legs on the ground. For an insect to abandon the tripod gait and use its legs together in pairs like a galloping horse is really radical. The big question is: why are they doing it?” says Professor Marcus Byrne of Wits University.
Pachysoma is also different to most dung beetles in that it collects dry dung and hoards it in a nest which it provisions with repeated foraging trips, instead of rolling one, wet, dung ball in a straight line away from competitors at the dung pile, never to return.
A team of scientists including Byrne and colleagues from Lund University in Sweden think the species might have changed the way it walks because it needs to be able to find its way back and forth from its nest.
“For most dung beetles, it’s always a one way trip – grab the poo, run away and never go back. The very marked pacing of Pachysoma’s gallop might be giving it a better signal in terms of estimating the return distance from the food to its nest. When it gallops, it slips less in the soft sand,” says Byrne.
Ants have been shown to count their steps as a way to navigate back and forth from home, and bees have been proven to use the optical flow of scenery across their retinas to measure how far they’ve travelled to forage from the hive. The team thinks the Pachysoma dung beetles are doing both.
“Bees use optic flow as a measure of how fast and how far they’ve flown. Dung beetles have two eyes on each side of their head, one on top and one on the bottom, looking at the sand and we think Pachysoma might be registering optic flow with its bottom eye over the sand,” says Byrne.
But Pachysoma has not only changed the way it moves across land, it has also lost its ability to fly.
“There are 800 species of dung beetle in South Africa and most of them fly. To fly makes sense because poo is a very ephemeral resource. It’s only useful for a few days and it’s very patchy – you don’t know where you’re going to find the next dropping. That’s why Pachysoma is so weird. Why would anyone give up flying?” says Byrne.
The team suspects that Pachysoma has sealed its wing cases to conserve moisture in the arid West Coast environment. “Breathing causes massive water loss. We think they’ve closed the elytra case to create a breathing chamber which keeps moisture inside,” says Byrne.
The unique behaviour of this galloping, flightless species has allowed it to dominate a niche market among dung collectors of the Western Cape.
Universities: ivory towers?
- By Vivienne Rowland
Minister in the Presidency responsible for National Planning, Trevor Manuel, says universities play a critical role in societal development and the gathering of data to understand societal trends and government's response to it.
“Today we have a broader understanding of demography, yet we still know so little. We know too little about the rural to urban migration, we know too little about what young people do when they leave school after matric, we know too little about the elderly, we know precious little about why marriage rates have fallen so rapidly in the last 20 years,” says Manuel.
He says demography and statistics are not only about having good sets of numbers.
“We need to unpack the statistics to give abroad narrative that is consistent of the indicators. We need to understand the numbers to understand how migration works and why it changes over time. We need to answer the policy questions, such as how do we cope with rising numbers of urban population, what do we do about children living without adult parents, and so forth. Universities play critical roles in all of these tasks. They provide the methodologies for accurate statistics, they help analyse the data, they build tools to allow society to understand the data and they help answer difficult questions about what society should do about a particular trend.”
The lecture series was launched as part of Demography Week, which celebrated the 10 year anniversary of Demography and Populations Studies at Wits, on the eve of the centenary celebration of Statistics South Africa next year. The theme of the week is A decade of commitment to demography and population health teaching and research.
The ISIbalo Annual Lecture Series is a collaborative initiative between Statistics South Africa and the Demography and Populations Studies Programme at Wits for intellectual interaction on the use of socio-economic data for development planning.
The lecture programme included introductory remarks by Professor Stephen Tollman, Head of the Health and Population Division in the Wits School of Public Health; the Statistician General, Mr Pali Lehohla explaining the ISIbalo concept and initiatives; the lecture by Minister Manuel titled Evidence in national development efforts with specific reference to the role of ivory towers; a question and answer session; and responding remarks by Lehola, Manuel and Professor Adam Habib, Wits Vice-Chancellor and Principal.
Science Society recognises Wits Scientists
- By Buhle Zuma
Six Wits scientists have been elected to the Academy of Science of South Africa joining the ranks of the country’s esteemed researchers.
The national Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) aims to honour the country’s most outstanding scholars by electing them to membership of the Academy.
New members of the Academy are elected each year by the full existing membership. Through election to membership, ASSAf recognises the scholarly achievements of the individual/s.
The Wits professors are:
Ebrahim Momoniat, Head of the School of Computational and Applied (COMPS), Faculty of Science
Bao-Zhu Guo, Professor of Control Theory and Applied Mathematics in COMPS, Faculty of Science
Caroline Tiemessem, Head of the Cell Biology Research Laboratory within the Centre for HIV and STIs/National Institute for Communicable Diseases, National Health Laboratory Service, and holds a joint appointment with the Division of Virology in the School of Pathology in the Faculty of Health Sciences.
Anna Kramvis, Research Professor and Leader of the Hepatitis Virus Diversity Research Programme (HVDRP), Faculty of Health Sciences
Ruksana Osman, Professor of Education and convenor of the UNESCO Chair in Teacher Education for Diversity and Development, and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities
Lee Berger, Palaeontologist and Reader in Human Evolution and the Public Understanding of Science at the Institute for Human Evolution, School of GeoSciences, Faculty of Science
Guo, who joined Wits in September 2004 has published a book and 85 papers in peer reviewed international journals since 2005. The last nine years at Wits have been the most productive period as a researcher for Guo.
“The recognition by this high academic organisation in South Africa is a great honour. At the same time, it is also an extra force to push me to go forward in my research,” said Guo on the ASSAf election.
A prolific researcher, Guo, who began his academic career in 1987 as a PhD student at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, says he has many research ideas that he would like to explore.
Professor Adam Habib, Wits Vice-Chancellor and Principal, has congratulated the new inductees adding that “it is a great honour for the institution.”
His enthusiasm is shared by Professor Rob Moore, Deputy Vice Chancellor: Advancement and Partnerships who said: “This is a great acknowledgement of their stature in the Academy, and reflects very well on Wits too.”
Moore further wished the new ASSAf members the very best for the road that lies ahead.
About the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf)
The Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) is the official national academy of science and represents the country in the international community of science academies. As a collective resource, the Academy enables the generation of evidence-based solutions to national problems.
The strategic priorities of the Academy are closely matched to those of the nation, focusing particularly on the need for the greatly enhanced availability of high-level human capital and an increased use of the country’s best intellectual expertise in generating evidence-based policy advice that is practical and feasible. The ASSAf inaugurated 32 new members this year bringing its membership to 426.
First t-shirt design competition winner announced
- By Vivienne Rowland
A competition initiative which could become a fun legacy project emanating from Wits Pride 2013, saw its first winner being announced last week.
The Wits Pride 2013 t-shirt competition, which was aimed at all designers, fashion-lovers and artists, saw some interesting entries portraying the theme of Pushing Your Boundaries in unique and interesting ways.
The competition, a remnant from Wits Pride Week 2013 which took place between 9 and 13 September 2103, was won by 21-year old first year Architecture student Jason Temlett, whose design, Me and Everything I am, caught the judges’ favour.
The call for entries stated that the design should be a creative examination of expression of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex or Asexual (LGBTIA) identities at Wits; explore intersections between LGBTIA identity and other identities, i.e. race, class and disability at Wits; are innovative, fresh and original; and can be feasibly printed onto a t-shirt.
In his motivation for his design entry, Temlett said: “The main feature of the shirt design is the geometric pattern in the shape of a speech bubble coming from the wearer. The shape is informed by the Rainbow Flag, with vertical stripes made up of different coloured chevrons. The colours within the pattern come not only from the rainbow, but a diverse variety of backgrounds not limiting itself solely to the LGBTIA community, but rather allowing the wearer to be able to express their pride in whoever they choose to be recognised as.”
“It is clear that a lot of thought and work went into Jason’s winning design. The quality of the participation in the competition was very high, which aimed to get students to use different design skills and critical reflection to translate innovative concepts into designs,” said Tish White, Projects Administrator and Coordinator in the Wits Transformation Office.
The competition, held for the first time, is a collaborative project between Wits Marketing and Communications, the Wits Transformation Office, Wits Pride and Safe Zones @ Wits. Wits Pride has been celebrated annually at Wits since 2010.
“I want to extend my warm congratulations to Jason Temlett. His design gives a voice to people that are often rendered marginal in our society. Wits Pride is an important advocacy programme within the University as it seeks to foster a culture of respect for the human rights of the LGBTIA identifying members of the Wits community. We want to move beyond tolerance and towards respect for all human rights as articulated by our constitution,” said Hugo Canham, Acting Director of the Wits Transformation Office.
Temlett walked away with an iPod Nano for his winning design and will see his t-shirt printed to fundraise for resources for Wits Pride and Safe Zones @ Wits.
“The competition is for a very good cause and if South Africa is a country about freedom, then we have to be a University of equality,” said Temlett.
Muscle music and airbags for the aged
- By Kanina Foss
The sweet sounds of muscle music filled the air during the School of Electrical and Information Engineering’s Open Day on Thursday, 17 October 2013.
The event is an opportunity for final year students to display their final projects and engage with industry representatives, staff, fellow students and family members.
In a corner of the display area, student Jean Pereira was flexing his muscles. At the same time, musical notes were penetrating the air to the rhythm of his flexing.
According to Pereira and his project partner, Charita Bhikha, the design of their muscle controlled musical instrument forms part of an on-going collaboration between the disciplines of electrical engineering, music and interactive media at Wits.
Each year a unique artistic concept is explored. This year’s concept was to use the human body as an instrumental source. Pereira and Bhikha’s project takes the electrical activity produced by muscle contractions and converts it into music. The result: Biceps which sing like a bird!
In another corner, student David Way was also hooked up to a number of sensors. Together with project partner, Dinika Singh, he was demonstrating an invention called Airbags for the Aged.
The concept is to prevent the elderly from falling by giving them a belt containing airbags which inflate as soon as the angle of the person’s body indicates that they’re about to fall. According to Way and Singh, falling is the primary cause of hospitalisation in elderly people, and the primary cause of death in people older than 75 years.
Other projects on display included an educational computer game targeted at 10-year-olds in which the children have to use their knowledge of safety measures to prevent an avatar called Leo from getting struck by lightning.
Student Anton Dreyer said their results had shown increased safety awareness in a cohort of 150 children who were tested before and after playing the game. This is an important achievement in a country where, in January 2011, an estimated 17 people were killed by lightning in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga.
Safety was also the focus of a project which attempted to design smartphones which could detect when a car crash had occurred, with the aim of reducing the time taken for emergency services to arrive at the scene of the accident. Students Daniel Goldberg and Ariel Shapiro said the trick had been to prevent the smartphones from registering an accident when they were bumped or dropped. They found that the distinguishing feature of an accident is the length of acceleration above a certain threshold.
Head of School, Professor Fambirai Takawira, said the students had worked hard on their projects over the past six weeks, and that some of them had achieved remarkable things.
Guerrilla typewriters for Carlos Cardoso Lecture
- By Wits University
Gwen Lister, veteran journalist, founder of The Namibian newspaper, ferocious apartheid opponent and press freedom activist will deliver the 2nd annual Carlos Cardoso Memorial Lecture titled Guerrilla Typewriters – Fighting for media freedom before and after liberation at Wits University.
Carlos Cardoso was a Wits student deported to Mozambique in 1974 because of his support for the Frelimo government. He became a leading journalist, but while investigating a massive fraud case, in which politicians and their families were implicated, he was assassinated on the streets of Maputo on 22 November 2000.
The title for the lecture, Guerrilla Typewriters – Fighting for media freedom before and after liberation, is inspired by the spirit of pre-liberation journalists who, through their typewriters engaged in journalism warfare to advance the principles of democracy.
Gwen Lister
As a political correspondent, Lister often collided with her editors who attempted to restrict her reporting, leading to her resignation. She founded The Namibian in 1985 during a time when Namibia was still under South African administration. She and her staff were constantly targeted by security forces because of the perception that the newspaper supported the liberation movement. Throughout the jail detentions, office bombings and advertising bans, the newspaper never missed an edition.
Lister has won several international media awards for her work. She has served as a member of various bodies that seek to uphold press freedom and is a founder member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists in the USA.
Gwen Lister will deliver the 2nd Carlos Cardoso Memorial Lecture at Wits on:
This lecture is being held during Power Reporting – the African Investigative Journalism Conference taking place at Wits from 28 to 30 October 2013. During this conference leading journalists will share insights and skills.
Wits Physio celebrates 75 years
- By Wits University
The Wits Physiotherapy Department celebrates 75 years of service to the University, students and the public on Thursday, 3 October 2013 in an evening themed A passage through time. The milestone birthday will be celebrated with the publication of a special edition of the South African Journal of Physiotherapy, which will be launched at the event. The journal contains 12 research papers and articles produced by postgraduate students and staff members in the Physiotherapy Department.
Wits was a pioneer when it offered the first training of physiotherapy students in South Africa in 1938, being the only physiotherapy school in the country at the time – one of only many examples of where Wits provided a first for the country. From the early days when only 13 students were in a class in the 1940s and 1950s, the number has increased to 60 students per class in 2013. In the olden days, lectures were held at the Braamfontein Campus and the old Medical School premises in Hillbrow, before relocating to the current premises in Parktown in the 1980s.
Originally offering a diploma course since its inception, the Physiotherapy qualification was made a degree course in 1943. This coincided with the time when polio became an epidemic and Physiotherapy played an important intervention role in the treatment of patients with polio.
The Department, embedded within the School of Therapeutic Sciences in the Faculty of Health Sciences, has evolved immensely over the years. From only using basic clinical equipment to including advanced technology in the assessment of patients for treatment and for research purposes; the needs, knowledge and service offering of the Department have modernised as each decade passed.
Students are trained at Wits and within clinical facilities in order to have hands-on experience before graduating. The BSc Physiotherapy consists of four years of general practice training, involving all aspects of Physiotherapy.
Typically, the first year is made up of theoretical introduction. Gradually, time spent in supervised practice increases until the fourth year, in which the student generally spends about 80% in practice. In the fourth year, students are also expected to complete Physiotherapy research projects. Professional practice can only be entered into after a state governed, compulsory year of community service is completed by the student after graduation.
There are approximately 26 clinical placements – hospitals, day clinics and special needs schools – where Wits physiotherapy students undertake their practical training. This unique opportunity gives them the ability to provide a service to the community, under the strict supervision of qualified physiotherapists.
This hands-on training allows students to interact with the multidisciplinary medical team as well as the families where possible to provide holistic management to patients. Students also spend time in rural clinical facilities for their community physiotherapy service. The current rural clinical facilities are Elim, Siloam and Mokopane hospitals in Limpopo and Lehurutse hospital in the North West province. Students spend four weeks at one of these rural facilities to prepare them to meet the health needs of the urban and rural communities in South Africa.
In living their craft, the students offer relief to athletes at various sports events such as the Ride for Sight cycle race; the King Edward School water polo tournament; the Pirates half-marathon; St Mary’s hockey tournament; St. Peter’s water tournament and sports festival; the King Edward School and St John’s Easter rugby festival; the USSA athletics championships; the 702 Walk the Talk; the 94.7 Cycle Challenge; the Wits Kudu half-marathon; the Rand water race-cycling event; the annual Comrades marathon; the City-to-City marathon; and the Engen Knockout Challenge.
The staff compliment has also increased over the years and the academic interests have become more research-orientated, focusing on both the under-graduate and postgraduate training. The postgraduate programme has increased significantly from having two postgraduate students in 1994 to over 60 students in 2013. The research output has also increased over the years from about six publications per year in 1993 to about 12 publications a year in 2012.
“In recent years the department has focussed on developing its team and has certainly achieved much. Sixty percent of its staff members have PhDs, the Departmental throughput and pass rates are high and the current curriculum is responsive to the country’s needs,” says Dr Hellen Myezwa, Head of the Department of Physiotherapy.
In strengthening its research efforts and output, the Department has acquired in recent years a Movement Analysis Laboratory which supports a wide range of research oriented programmes in the biomechanical, kinematic and kinetic analysis of human movement. Current research projects that are being conducted in this movement analysis laboratory are lumbar movement control in chronic low back pain, validity testing of the Functional Movement Screen as well as a study on kinematic factors associated with injury in musicians.
This work and others will be featured in 12 articles in the special edition of the South African Journal of Physiotherapy which will be launched on 3 October 2013.
For the future, it is hoped that the Department will expand even more. Myezwa says the Department has a strong team and the focus is to build it from strength to strength.
“Our internal strength is present but now we need to look beyond ourselves in order to grow and build strong links with others within and outside the University. Collaboration in research and teaching as well as creating an environment that allows us to leverage beyond our capabilities is paramount. We embrace the University’s vision and believe we can contribute meaningfully with this approach,” concludes Myezwa.
Sexual harassment cases concluded
- By Wits University
MESSAGE FROM THE VICE-CHANCELLOR AND PRINCIPAL
You will recall that the University was investigating four academics who were accused of sexual harassment this year. Three of the accused were dismissed by the University with immediate effect, following the outcomes of their respective disciplinary hearings.
A fourth lecturer accused of sexual harassment has now resigned and is no longer in the employ of the University.
In effect, this brings to an end the individual cases that the University has been investigating around sexual harassment. It also provides us with an opportunity to remember that Wits has a zero tolerance policy towards any form of sexual harassment and that it will deal decisively with any such matters.
Wits is actively establishing an adequate Sexual Harassment structure, which will be stewarded by Professor Bonita Meyersfeld, and that will henceforth deal with all matters related to sexual harassment at the University. We will keep you updated of developments on this front, as they occur.
Once again, we express our appreciation to members of the Wits community who have participated in bringing these disturbing issues to the fore and we apologise to those who have been affected by this scourge. May these dreadful experiences never be repeated again – not on our campuses.
Professor Adam Habib
Vice-Chancellor and Principal
University of the Witwatersrand
Drug delivery pioneer wins research award
- By Vivienne Rowland
One of Wits’ most respected researchers and a pioneer in his own right, Professor Viness Pillay, has been awarded the 2013 Vice-Chancellor’s Research Award.
Pillay, Personal Professor of Pharmaceutics, holder of a National Research Foundation/Department of Science and Technology Research Chair and Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences, is the Director of the Wits Advanced Drug Delivery Platform in the Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology in the School of Therapeutic Sciences in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Wits University. Read more about Pillay here or visit www.wits.ac.za/waddp.
“This is indeed great news and a fantastic accolade for Professor Pillay and of course, for the School and the Faculty. I would like to convey my sincere thanks to the Fellowship Committee and to all those who were involved in the deliberations for this award,” says Professor Judy Bruce, Head of the School of Therapeutic Sciences.
“I am honored to be a recipient of this prestigious award, and especially at a time when the reigns at the helm of Wits is making research one of its top priorities. This award has not been achieved by individual effort alone but is a clear reflection of all the intellectually powered researchers that surround me and work with me on our globally-competitive research agenda. In my view, successful research can only be achieved by a combination of a passion to make your best contribution to science, education and technology as well as commitment and hard work,” says Pillay.
Iain Burns, Head of the Wits Research Office, said the purpose of the award is to stimulate research and research related scholarly activities by acknowledging and rewarding a quite exceptional worker who has been engaged in research and more general scholarly activity at the University.
“The Committee had an extraordinary difficult task in weighing up the respective merits of a number of strong applicants from disparate disciplines. The final view of the committee was that Professor Pillay would be a worthy winner of the Award,” said Burns.
The award is worth R250 000 and may be spent on any academic purpose the winner sees fit. It will officially be handed over to Professor Pillay at the annual Wits University Council dinner, to be held on Friday, 18 October 2013.
Maths monster tackled and conquered
- By Vivienne Rowland
The “monster that is Maths” was tackled and conquered by a group of teachers from various schools in Gauteng as they participated in two professional development courses offered by the Wits Maths Connect Secondary Project (WMCS).
The project, led by Professor Jill Adler, holder of the First Rand Foundation-National Research Foundation Chair in Mathematics Education, is located in the Wits School of Education.
At the end of 2012 the first cohort of teachers completed the Transition Maths 1 course which focuses on the transition from Grade 9 to 10 mathematics. Now, after a year of hard work, a second cohort of teachers has completed the course.
In July 2012 another cohort of experienced maths teachers signed up for the Transition Maths 2 course which focuses on the transition from school to university maths with, and ultimately aims to increase the number Grade 12 learners obtaining A, B and C-symbols in mathematics. This will make them eligible to study mathematics-related qualifications at university. This group completed their course in June 2013.
At the celebration ceremony on 30 October 2013, more than 20 teachers celebrated their success in the courses. It was clear that the journey since the early, uncertain days when they signed up for the courses has left an indelible mark on the teachers.
Testimonies were heard of perseverance, hard work and finally success and reward for the teachers from schools in Ivory Park, Alexandra and other Johannesburg suburbs.
“The exposure and the availability of resources were great. It is nice to have a group of people in the same boat coming together and sharing ideas,” said Comfort Chigabo, one of the Transition Maths 2 participants.
“I am now ready to take on Grade 10. The course taught me to think deeper and I know now I can make it far. Maths is not a monster,” said Julia Mabiletsa, a Transition Maths 1 participant.
Craig Pournara, programme manager of the WMCS said Transition Maths 2 had been conceptualised and delivered in partnership with the Roedean School and St Johns College.
“This was a vital partnership because we were able to capitalise on the professional knowledge and grounded expertise of practising teachers,” said Pournara.
He said the second pilot of the Transition Maths 1 provided them with the opportunity to refine the course, and to further explore and develop a model of professional development that foregrounds key mathematical ideas, and also to pay careful attention to typical aspects of mathematics teaching such as choosing good examples and producing good explanations.
“The pervasive discourse on schools and teaching bemoans poor learner performance, teachers’ lack of content knowledge and the low impact of professional development. Within this gloomy landscape the teachers on both courses stand tall in their commitment to deepening their own mathematical knowledge and to supporting their learners to learn mathematics,” said Pournara.
Addressing the gathering, Adler thanked the teachers for their hard work and urged them to “go and make a difference”.
“Teaching is hard but the public don’t always understand. Go and make a difference and make it easier for the leaders of tomorrow that you are teaching,” said Adler.
Some of the top performers received extra rewards and incentives for their hard work. Awards were given for excellent performance to teachers who obtained 80% or more for the maths component, who had attended at least 12 of 16 contact days, and had submitted the required number of mathematics and teaching tasks.
Awards were also made to teachers who made substantial progress in their mathematics learning, for example obtaining end of course scores that were 15-20 percentage points higher than their pre-test scores.
For their perseverance the WMCS will pay the teachers’ registration fee to attend the annual Association for Mathematics Education of South Africa National Congress in 2014. In addition, if teachers present a paper or a workshop based on their learning in the project, the WMCS will provide additional financial support to cover some of their conference expenses.
“In this way teachers get to participate actively within the broader mathematics education community in South Africa, to share their experiences and to learn from others,” said Pournara.
