Academy of Science of South Africa
The World Academy of Sciences - Regional Office for Sub-Saharan Africa (TWAS-ROSSA)Not a member yet
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Quest Volume 6 Number 3
No full textLaser processing: the world of advanced manufacturing technologies: Lasers have changed the way we use materials and so the face of manufacturing, providing impetus for a new generation of engineers and technologists; Shaping light: Modern optics and adaptive mirrors use the physics of diffraction to shape the light inside a laser; Lasers in the sky: LIDAR and atmospheric particulate measurement: QUEST found out how lasers are measuring, and so helping us to understand the effects of pollution across southern Africa; How lasers can help us understand HIV and other illnesses: Highly focused light provided by lasers forms 'optical tweezers' that can tease out the secrets of disease by manipulating single cells; Bringing science to the people: How students from the University of
Stellenbosch Laser Physics unit are making sure that no-one is left out of the celebration of 50 years of lasers.
Richest of the rich: South Africa's biodiversity treasure trove South Africa has an enormous range of species both plant and animal; all are of vital importance to the nation; Biodiversity conservation: a new way of looking at our heritage: Sustainable living is impossible without maintaining biodiversity; Crop damage: Crop damage by insects is a major threat to food security in Africa; Molecular technology may provide some of the answers; CSIR biennial conference: science real and relevant: QUEST finds out just how close to the cutting edge CSIR are; Pumping iron and climate control: The continuing story of phytoplankton, iron fertilisation and climate control; First images from the KAT antennas: The KAT radiotelescope array is starting to show its worth to the global scientific community.Academy of Science of South Africa: Department of Science and Innovatio
Quest Volume 5 Number 2
No full textContents: Roots, bugs and venison: Prehistoric cuisine at Swartkrans Cave - How did diet shape human evolution? The rich assemblage of early hominin fossils at Swartkrans has helped to uncover this important aspect of our past: Uncovering early human behaviour Excavations at Swartkrans show the contribution of the fossils found there to our understanding of Early and Middle Stone Age hominins; Were our early ancestors murderers and head-hunters? A prehistoric detective story - Raymond Dart was convinced that early hominins were savage hunters, but Bob Brain shows that they were the hunted: Gamma-ray astronomy in southern Africa:
the quantum leap from HESS to CTA - Gamma-ray astronomy in southern Africa has taken a giant leap with the installation of a new dish that will add significantly to the HESS telescopes capabilities: South Africa on the brink: climate change on our doorstep - QUEST looks at two books that should give us pause for thought: A braai-wood index - It really doesn't matter what you burn on the braai does it, or does it? Some woods are more eco-friendly than others, it would seem: Rare dragons and damsels return - A conservation success story - the return of endangered species to rehabilitated environments in the Western Cape: Unlocking the secrets of the sea: new fish species in the Indian Ocean - South African biologists and oceanographers are conducting pioneering oceanographic research in the western Indian Ocean: Models of hope: Developing molecules for fighting breast cancer - Cell biologists in South Africa are carrying out some important research into potential chemotherapeutic agents against breast cancer: Carbon isotopes, photosynthesis and archaeology - An understanding of the different pathways that occur during photosynthesis allows us to reconstruct prehistoric diets: Viewpoint - Teaching and learning about evolution: Evolution makes sense of biology - but no topic in science is more controversial: Citizen science flourishes at the Animal Demography Unit - The University of Cape Town's Animal Demography Unit offers anyone the opportunity to take part in important research: Careers in science - What can we learn from skeletal material? Knowing what the bones of the dead can tell us can make for an exciting and varied career:The Department of Science and Innovation: Academy of Science of South Afric
Quest Volume 5 Number 1
No full textContents: Astronomy for Africa - The International Year of Astronomy 2009 is important to Africa, celebrating the continent's long history of astronomy and our world-class research facilities: The history of the Universe: cosmology up to 1995 - Cosmology is the grandest study of all, asking the really big questions, such as how the Universe began, which we have only begun to unravel in the last 90 years: Dark energy: cosmology since 1995 - The Universe is not only expanding, but it is accelerating as it does so, under the influence of a dominant energy form that no-one has yet seen: Is there somebody out there? Are we alone in the Universe or is there life elsewhere? - Since the early 1990s we have had the technology to search beyond our own Solar System for extra-solar planets: Black holes in our Galaxy and beyond - Black holes are no longer the stuff of science fiction stories or even just theoretical constructs, but objects that are present in the Universe in some numbers, even in the centre of our own Galaxy: The Milky Way and other galaxies - We sit inside the Milky Way, just one of many galaxies in the Universe; some spiral and some elliptical, but all fascinating: The life and death of stars - The Sun is our nearest star and without it the Earth would be a very different place, but there are countless numbers of other stars. which have been forming and dying over the ages: Big eyes on the stars - Humankind has been looking at the stars for centuries, but in the past few decades the technology to do so has become more and more complex, providing us with more and more information: When a crocodile eats the Sun - Indigenous astronomy - Africa has a long history of astronomy, shown by rock engravings by the San people and the rich heritage of the Timbuktu manuscripts: MeerKAT coming on track during IYA2009 - South Africa has put in a bid to host the Square Kilometer Array, an array of telescopes that will help to answer the big questions about the Universe and the
MeerKAT, the Karoo Array Telescope may form its core: The physics behind astrophysics - Physics is not just a dry, academic subject, but the backbone of the exciting world of astronomy and astrophysics: When the light goes out: Pluto and Charon - Astronomers have developed techniques that allow us to characterise distant objects in the Universe that cannot be observed directly: Astronomy at the Cape - As with many other things, the Cape has a long history of astronomy, initially developed through the necessity to find ways to successfully navigate past it:The Department of Science and Innovation: Academy of Science of South Afric
Local Economic Development in Small Towns, Housing Delivery and Impact on the Environment. Forum proceedings
No full textCite: Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf), (2008). Local Economic Development in Small Towns, Housing Delivery and Impact on the Environment. Forum proceedings. [Online] Available at: DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/assaf/0016This Forum on Local Economic Development in Small Towns, Housing Delivery and Impact on the Environment is the second in a series that are being convened by the ASSAf Forum Committee on Science for Poverty Alleviation.
Noting that poverty is a major issue of concern in South Africa; it is a very broad topic that can be addressed as a combination of selected elements. Local economic development in small towns, several cases on this important topic has been tried. The purpose of this workshop was therefore to bring all these cases together and critically address them as a whole. The plenary decided to structure the workshop to consider the following issues that would guide the national strategy: The population in small towns; Creating entrepreneurship culture amongst the youth; Infrastructure and resource development, e.g. railway lines, artisan schools, etc; and look at economic versus physical model approach. The outcome of the workshop is therefore not necessarily a strategy but rather a methodology of how ‘local economic development in small towns’ can be achieved.United States National Academies
Academy of Science of South Afric
Science in Action: Saving the Lives of Africa’s Mothers, Newborns, and Children
Get PDFCite: Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf), (2009). Science in Action: Saving the Lives of Africa’s Mothers, Newborns, and Children. [Online] Available at: DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/assaf/0039Science in action: Saving the lives of Africa’s mothers, newborns, and children presents an overview of the current status of maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH) in sub-Saharan Africa and reports a new analysis of how many lives could be saved if science translated into action through health systems. This publication was prepared for the Fifth Annual Meeting of the African Science Academy Development Initiative (ASADI), hosted by the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences on 10-11 November 2009 as part of its 50th anniversary celebration. ASADI is a project funded by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation through the United States National Academies to strengthen African academies of sciences in advising their national governments on matters of science and technology. This report includes data for all of sub-Saharan Africa but focuses specifically on the seven countries participating in ASADI.Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation through the United States National Academies to strengthen African academies of sciences
Revitalising Clinical Research in South Africa
Get PDFCite: Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf), (2009). Revitalising Clinical Research in South Africa. [Online] Available at: DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/assaf/0036Clinical research in a developing country like South Africa contributes to health care at all levels by identifying the causes of problems, facilitating diagnosis, improving the efficiency and effectiveness of care, and promoting good policy-making. It also supports the training of competent health professionals of all kinds, and contributes to global knowledge about locally, as well as generally, prevalent diseases in terms of prevention and treatment.
The key narrative of clinical research in South Africa over the last two decades has been that of a largely unplanned, but cumulative, disinvestment in publicly funded programmes, resulting from the withdrawal of the health departments of provincial governments from this sector (academic hospitals are now funded for service functions only), the absence of discounts for research tests from the business model of the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS), chronic underfunding of the Medical Research Council (MRC) despite its obviously important mandate for maintaining and developing medical/ clinical research capacity in the country, and the lack of funding streams to universities that might in principle have been applied to meet the overall shortfall in support.
These intersecting developments are a kind of ’elephant in the room’, well known to all participants, but very poorly documented. Tertiary service units struggle to remain active in research, and to translate their expertise into improved health service. As a result, many clinical researchers have been left with no option but to turn to the pharmaceutical industry for the funding of those clinical trials in which the companies concerned have an interest, or to international donors who conduct large-scale, short-to medium-term, projects in South Africa, with local researchers drawn into international teams, often led by outsiders. The pharmaceutical investment is directed predominantly at the profitable areas of chronic diseases of lifestyle, mental illness and allergy, while most of the external donor funding is directed at the serious local HIV and TB pandemics. Local and international clinical conference activity has accordingly begun to reflect the agendas of donors and industry. There is little likelihood that continuation of the present situation is compatible with rebuilding and sustaining solid research capacity in the clinical domain, nor can the ideal of well-coordinated state support for a health system, built on the ‘intelligence’ of good clinical research, ever be realised.
The serious decline in clinical research activity and capacity has prompted this study by ASSAf (http://www.assaf.org.za) in order to make recommendations on the overall revitalisation of clinical research in the country within the broad paradigm of essential national health research. An additional stimulus is the emphasis of government in its ten-year science and technology plan on the development of new medicines and other biologically useful agents (‘farmer to pharma’).1. Department of Science and Technology (DST)
2. United States National Academies (USNA) through their African Science Academy Development Initiative (ASADI) programme
Quest Volume 5 Number 4
No full textThe Centre for High Performance Computing: The future of computing in South Africa; Green computing at the CHPC: Green computing was an integral part of the planning of the Centre for High Performance Computing in Cape Town; Graphic visualisation: Graphic visualisation is used across the sciences, from physics to biology; Quantum information technology: a novel approach to information transfer: From Schrodinger's cat to information transfer: the applications of quantum mechanics; Space science and astronomy:
The role of high performance computing: High performance computing takes South African astronomy to the cutting edge of science; Modelling HIV: The science behind treatment and prevention - Understanding how the virus evolved and mutates is crucial to developing drugs and a vaccine; Where are we going with HIV vaccines?: The search for a vaccine to prevent HIV has not been without its difficulties, but there is light at the end of the tunnel; Vaccine research makes progress: The South African AIDS Vaccine Initiative: New vaccine trials have started in South Africa; Conflicting reports about an HIV vaccine trial: Results of a recent HIV vaccine trial in Thailand send out contradictory messages; Building the future of computing and science in South Africa: The Centre for High Performance Computing is trying to bridge the digital divide; Climate change and agriculture: Climate change may have grave consequences for agriculture in South Africa; Local action against climate change; Letting the dead speak: The role of DNA analysis: DNA analysis plays an important role in forensic science; Changes in our coastal environment: A newly rated NRF young scientist shares her love of science; KELT-south: The little telescope with big ambitions: The search for extrasolar planets continues; Mathematical stastistics flourishes in Africa: How a young African statistician is helping to control malaria; Freshwater biodiversity in Africa: The IUCN Pan-African Freshwater Biodiversity Assessment - what it means for the continent.Academy of Science of South Africa: Department of Science and Innovatio
The State of Science in South Africa
No full textCite: Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf), (2009). The State of Science in South Africa. [Online] Available at: http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11911/65This book has been prepared to mark the occasion of the hosting of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS) conference by the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) in October 2009 in Durban. TWAS is the largest and most significant individual-based, multinational science academy in the world. The visit to South Africa of some of the world’s most eminent scientists from the developing world provides an opportunity to profile science in our country. Through the publication of this book we hope to reflect on the state of science in South Africa; to consider the historical context and the key features that have shaped scientific research in the country and are determining its current trajectories; to highlight some of the future challenges and opportunities; and to celebrate some of the achievements of South African scientists.Academy of Science of South Afric
