Comments for ASSAF Blog

Comment on What’s in a name? The naming of Australopithecus sediba by JOHN B SAMBO

JOHN B SAMBO — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 09:27:49 +0000

I love reading about fossils and Au. Sediba has made my love grow for knowledge about origins of life, the universe etc. The article is devoid of scientific words and thus make it accessible to ordinary folk like myslef.

Comment on Public lecture on open access: Prof Tom Cochrane by Louise

Louise — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 12:03:21 +0000

We are in the process of loading the podcast. Due to the size it is unfortunately taking a bit longer than expected.

Comment on Public lecture on open access: Prof Tom Cochrane by Michael Meadon

Michael Meadon — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 13:32:29 +0000

Where’s the podcast?

Comment on HIV vaccines: should SA be focusing on alternatives? by Ed Rybicki

Ed Rybicki — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 12:38:48 +0000

Any discussion of HIV vaccines in SA HAS to address the fact that the Dept of Science and Technology killed a perfectly good programme that was well-rated by an international panel of scientific advisors – because they didn’t like the governance of the SA AIDS Vaccine Initiative.

Really: they took away the R10 million or so per year that was going into development of a vaccine pipeline, effectively stalling any development of anything not at the end of the pipe – and then put it into the SHARP programme run by the BRICs, which after about a year managed to fund ONE vaccine-related project, that was a start-up from scratch.

Net result: two vaccine candidates in clinical trial, NO further development of anything at an earlier stage, and now close to three years of development time lost. Oh, and a whole lot of well-trained and experienced scientists lost to any future programme through being made redundant.

Hell of a way to try to make vaccines, people.

Nice to see a facility for doing this, BTW!

Comment on The state of Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis [MDR TB] in South Africa: two-day workshop by A van den Berg

A van den Berg — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 12:24:02 +0000

Ons 4 jarige kliendogter wat met Juvenile Rheumatiod arthritis geklassifiseer is en vir een jaar nou op Humira en metrotexrate behandeling was is nou geklassifiseer met MDR TB,wat sal die effek van die behandeling op die arthritis en TB saam wees.Ons is baie bekommerd en sal hulp waardeer.

Comment on National Science Week 2010 by Admin

Admin — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 12:20:39 +0000

Whilst we acknowledge that attendance problems were experienced at the TUT Arcadia Campus where two lectures had to be cancelled, the TUT management managed to recruit students from classes to attend the event. As a result only one lecture was offered by Prof Fred Otieno. We however regret that two of our valuable speakers from DST and CSIR did not have the opportunity to share their work with students. We have the assurance from the DST and SAASTA that the 2011 National Science Week call will be issued in October 2010 to allow for grantholders to have more time for logistical arrangements for the 2011 NSW event. Whilst it is regrettable not having reached the targeted audiences in all cases, valuable lessons were learnt in coordinating events of this magnitude.- ASSAf Management

Comment on National Science Week 2010 by invited speaker TUT

invited speaker TUT — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 06:22:00 +0000

if any reader of the above gets a sense the event at Tshwane University of Technology took place, this needs correction. I was one of the invited speakers, and can confirm that while hundreds of sandwiches lay on the tables, not a single student or faculty member showed up. One of the invited speakers is a Deputy Vice Chancellor who was flown in from KZN to go sit in an empty hall. Someone needs to be held accountable for this grand flop. However, since we’re talking about taxpayers’ money, who really cares?

Comment on Science Education in SA by Mark van Heerden

Mark van Heerden — Wed, 05 May 2010 09:49:39 +0000

The idea of ‘Knowledge Practice standards’ for Teachers needs to be developed starting with Numeracy and literacy as foundation. Teachers need a firm foundation of knowledge and skills in order to teach the subjects. The education department needs to work with relevant roleplayers such as academics, other depoartments, NGO’s, training organisations but most notably to engage with excellent and experienced teachers.

Comment on Science Education in SA by Mark van Heerden

Mark van Heerden — Wed, 05 May 2010 09:49:17 +0000

Any pre or inservice training of Teachers should be seen as aligning capability with continuous development. I agree that isolated interventions are partially effective.
A Framework needs to be developed that replaces the current IQMS system with a more streamlined CPDT point system. To implement this a network of Professional Practice Schools with a central District Educational resource centre needs to be put in place. This would then serve Teacher learning communities.

Comment on SAJS in the news by хостинг

хостинг — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 06:35:51 +0000

baie geleer