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| September 2006 |
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Review of a series of Biotechnology Posters which uses comical engineering to cross the far side with Madam and Eve and put Biotechnology into a hyper understandable formatby Dr Garth CambrayAs part of the Deparment of Science and Technology's Public Understanding of Biotechnology (PUB) programme, PUB have produced a clever series of cartoon posters explaining the broad concepts of biotechnology, and placing issues of importance to biotech in South Africa into an easy to understand format that will appeal to all. From an artistic perspective, Rapid Phase has comically engineered the poster series by splicing aspects of Stephen Francis & Rico Schacherl's Madam and Eve style with a bit of Gary Larson's Far side. In other words wise little kids, mischievous cows and other comical creatures. The result is an easy reading series that gets its points across with ease. The entire series is available in Afrikaans, English, Sesotho and Zulu. This is an excellent move as it places very important ideas into a format that is accessible to young children in rural areas who may not necessarily have an adult close at hand who has the ability to translate the concepts properly. The structure of the series is well thought out. If I had to arrange them in some order so that I could use them to explain biotechnology to a group of seven year olds I would start with some real world applications of biotechnology. The first poster deals with Traditional biotechnology, which cleverly suggests that 'noticing' differences in organisms and harnessing these is the foundation of traditional biotechnology. Hence it shows the difference between wine making and cheese making. It also has a great little section of Gregor Mendel and his work on habitability of genes. Other topics covered include penicillin, inbreeding and a little on selective breeding. And that is all on one poster!! The next poster on iQhilika, biotechnologies golden brew shows how honey is converted to mead. It shows the transition from a simple traditional biotechnology process, where wild hives are raided for honey, to a modern traditional biotechnology process where managed beehives are cropped and honey is fermented in a controlled system. This shows learners of any age how a traditional process can be adapted into a modern traditional process. The Selective Breeding poster uses cows as an example of how selective breeding works. It also has little side panel showing two parents with red hair producing a young Calvin (from Calvin and Hobbes) type offspring. Sadly, the significance of the red haired kid is not explained. The cow series is well explained and shows how taking an African lineage of cows and hybridising them with a European beef producing lineage can produce beef producing offspring that are also disease resistant. In a simple to understand way it also politely suggests that farmers buy a good bull and share him among their cows to achieve these sorts of crosses. Wisely, the next poster shows the importance of wetlands - those special livers of our ecosystems that help purify the water and air for us. Showing how plants and microbes work together to do this, the poster then suggests to learners how a constructed wetland can be made to deal with human waste (in this case comically being deposited into a septic tank by a guy on a loo reading a newspaper), and clean it up for us. The following poster deals with medicinal plants and craftily takes the reader on a journey from unsustainable wild harvesting of plants to the more sustainable multiplication of plants using tissue culture technology, showing the learner how biotech can help us live sustainably. So these posters have all placed traditional methods of biotechnology in perspective and equipped the reader with the necessary vocabulary to move to more complicated concepts in modern biotechnology. The next groups of posters are more focused around the foundation of biotechnology - genetics - with three excellent posters explaining DNA in a way that I wish my high school biology textbook had, followed by genetic conditions and cloning. All three posters are an excellent resource as they explain these concepts in extremely humorous fashion, hopefully burning these vitally important concepts onto the memories of a new biotechnologically empowered generation of learners. An extremely important poster details the logic behind genetic modification of crops. It covers both the basic ideas behind improving crops through genetic engineering and also deals with the sensitivities surrounding these issues. The second last poster details how forensic biotechnology works, from helping to convict a beautifully suspicious looking suspect, to identifying real parents of a child and then another panel on forensic entomology, which sort of fits in with the rest. The final poster that I would show is probably the one that was supposed to be first. Following a strand of DNA from the dawn (outside Africa) of time to the present, the good old spiral staircase of our code takes the reader from early stock farming through Darwin, Watson and Crick to genetic engineering to the Cartagena Protocol. And then of course there is the back page which deals largely with the transfer of genes, although in this case how Futhi (South African cloned cow) was cloned and how one would go about getting a genetically modified organism certified for use. The whole pack comes in a rather neat folder explaining what PUB is, complete with more mischievous cows and Madam and Eve style kids, and of course the PUB contact details in large text. See: www.pub.ac.za to order posters or email speakup@pub.ac.za. More information:
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