Article

Celebrating Science in Africa

Christina Scott

A sneak preview of South Africa's upcoming national festival of science, engineering and technology (March 16 to 22 2005) is now available in a flyer released by the organisers, the Grahamstown-based Sasol Scifest, with the title "celebrating science."

With more than 600 events targeted at everyone from toddlers to Nobel prize-winners, and more than 30,000 visitors each year, the Scifest is bigger than the better-known arts festival and does a good deal more than simply take over the quiet university town - although it does dominate the city, with interactive exhibitions and workshops at Rhodes University, the hilltop 1820 Settlers monument, the two Albany museums below and the famous South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity which first discovered the mysteries of the "fossil fish" the coelacanth.

The Scifest is not only considered the biggest science festival on the African continent, and a key trigger behind many high school students' decision to register for university science degrees, it is also developing an international imprint which opens up dialogue between local and developed-world scientists.

Confirmed guests for next year include for the first time experts from the snowy north, in this case Canada and Finland. Cleone Todgham will be talking about environmental issues in Jasper National Park in the famous Rocky Mountains while Marjo Virnes and Erkki Sutinen will be focussing on the technical excellence for which the Finns have become famous.

Other international visitors include Wendy Sadler, on the physics of music, and Zbig Sobiesierski on nanotechnology, both from Wales, as well as Frenchmen Christophe Scicluna and Arnaud Leroy, who will blow up rockets and present a new series on communication from semaphore to satellite.

To mark the fact that 2005 is the World Year of Physics, the Scifest is bringing out a prominent African-American scientist and a world expert on certain intriguing types of stars. Professor Gibor Basri is from the University of California in the USA, and his trip coincides with South Africa's push to host the massive US $ 1 billion Square Kilometre Array radiotelescope project using its strategic location in the southern hemisphere, clear weather and lack of light pollution.

And a British scientist, Professor Nancy Rothwell of Manchester University, will speak on the topic of "tracking down killers in the brain." Rothwell heads a research group investigating how the brain communicates with the immune system and responds to illness and injury.

There will also be a video conference link up with the Wrexham Science Festival in the United Kingdom and Grahamstown's St Andrew's College, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary in 2005. The Scifest is always held in the first term of the school year so that it can attract as many school visits as possible, some of which come from far across the country, and many teachers credit the Scifest in feedback sessions with improving their ability to teach science subjects.

The Scifest is also celebrating homegrown heroes, including several important female scientists. The keynote lecture will be delivered by a world-renowned expert in dinosaur bone microstructure, Professor Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan of the University of Cape Town. Chinsamy-Turan has done extensive science outreach work in Cape Town communities and is a strong believer in using dinosaurs to seduce students into scientific concepts such as evolution, which was banned under the apartheid regime and is still not openly placed on the scientific curriculum.

The Frances Ames Memorial lecture, to be held at the Scifest for the first time, is held by the Department of Science and Technology on an annual basis in memory of the South African physician and single mother who single-handedly exposed the complicity of several doctors in the assault and death of anti-apartheid hero and black consciousness leader Steven Bantu Biko, even though Ames was threatened by both the medical and political establishment of the time. This will be delivered by Professor Patricia Berjak of the University of kwaZulu-Natal, an acknowledged global leader in the field of preserving seeds of plants threatened with extinction and successfully growing a new generation of the plants. Berjak has been particularly successful with preserving the so-called recalcitrant seeds and is trying to fund the plant genetics version of a Noah's Ark for Africa. Berjak was the recipient of the Department of Science and Technology's lifetime achievement award for Women in Science this year.

In addition, Rhodes University chemistry professor Tebello Nyokong will speak on how she uses red light lasers to fight cancers in conjunction with light-sensitive drugs. Nyokong won South Africa's Shoprite Checkers/SABC2 Women of the Year award in the science category in 2004 for her work, which includes extensive mentoring of black female students.

More information:

The booklet is available from the email scifest@foundation.org.za or an updated programme can be found on the internet at www.scifest.org.za

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