There were 24 participants comprised of editors of local and regional scholarly journals from southern Africa (Lesotho, South Africa and Swaziland). The aim of the workshop was to enlighten journal editors about the challenges and benefits of open-access publishing and empower them to adopt an open-access publishing model for their journal. 

The themes discussed and presented by the editors were:

• Challenges and problems facing journal editors today
• Sharing best practices in the editorial process
• Current open-access journals and developing an open-access model and business plan

The last session was devoted to a demonstration of Open Journal Systems, which is an open-source manuscript management and publishing system used to publish journals online – a gateway to open-access publishing.  

Presenters shared the challenges they face as editors of scholarly journals and in considering and adopting an open-access model, as well as possible solutions to these challenges.  

Whilst all editors in principle accepted the benefits of open access, it was acknowledged that there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach. A sub-committee of editors will be convened to discuss how some approaches can be implemented within South Africa.

The theme this year was: “Changing landscapes of academic research and publishing”. 

The day-long Editors’ Forum was divided into two sessions; the first session was a closed meeting between ASSAf and Forum members or their representatives. ASSAf gave a progress report back on the activities/projects undertaken in the past year. 

The agenda for the closed session included report back and discussions on five topics:

1. Introduction and explanation of the role of the Organizing Committee and the further evolution of the Forum
2. National free-online e-publication platform: SciELO SA update 
3. Relationships/contracts between journals and SciELO
4. Ministerial project: Possible national licensing of core commercial databases
5. Discipline-grouped peer review of South African journals 

The second session included a discussion on the open access business models and a panel discussion on open access themes. 

The meeting was attended by 90 people, made up of scholarly editors, publishers, members of the Committee for Scholarly Publishing in South Africa and ASSAf staff.

Brazilian mammal-like fossil find suggests link to South Africa 

The discovery of a 260-million-year-old Tiarajudens eccentricus in Brazil that was announced to the world in March this year may for the first time suggest that anomodonts roamed both continents in the Permian period. 

The Tiarajudens find in Brazil consists of a partial skull with an ~120 mm long, laterally compressed canine, 5 leaf-shaped incisors and 13 expanded palatal teeth that formed a grinding surface. Scientists were able to recognise a resemblance to Anomocephalus, a basal anomodont recovered in 1999 from the Tapinocephalus assemblage zone of the Beaufort Group of the South African Karoo beds, near Williston in the Northern Cape. 

Previously, the two continent s  have had only dinocephalians and an aquatic reptile, Mesosaurus, in common. Basal anomodonts have been found in China, Russia and South Africa. The discovery of  Tiarajudens represents the first basal anomodont from South America and its discovery contributes to understanding of the biogeographical distribution of the Anomodontia and the early radiation of the Therapsida.

Read more:

Chinsamy-Turan A. Tiarajudens: A significant mammal-like reptile. S Afr J Sci. 107(5/6), Art. #717, 2 pages. doi:10.4102/sajs. v107i5/6.717 

A focus on land use and soil organic matter in South Africa 

This in-depth look at land use and soil organic matter in South Africa takes the form of two articles in the latest SAJS. The first of the articles reviews spatial variability and the influence of rangeland stock production and the second, the influence of arable crop production. 

Degradation of soil due to land use poses a threat to sustainable agriculture in South Africa, With stock farming uses the majority of land in South Africa, restoration of soil is of the utmost importance. The article suggests a countrywide baseline study to quantify organic matter contents within and between soil forms.

The ultimate aim of the study is to develop a soil protection strategy and policy for South Africa. Such a policy is important because organic matter influences the characteristics of soil disproportionately to the quantities thereof. Development of such a strategy and policy require cognisance of the extent and impact of soil degradation processes.

Read more:
Du Preez CC, Van Huyssteen CW, Mnkeni PNS. Land use and soil organic matter in South Africa 1: A review on spatial variability and the influence of rangeland stock production. S Afr J Sci. 2011;107(5/6), Art. #354, 8 pages. doi:10.4102/sajs.v107i5/6.354

Read more:
Du Preez CC, Van Huyssteen CW, Mnkeni PNS. Land use and soil organic matter in South Africa 2: A review on the influence of arable crop production. S Afr J Sci. 2011;107(5/6), Art. #358, 8 pages. doi:10.4102/sajs.v107i5/6.358 

South Africa loses distinguished poet 

Well-known poet, Stephen Watson, has died at the age of 56 in Cape Town, the city most depicted in his writings, along with the Cederberg where he walked all his life. 

PR Anderson of the University of Cape Town salutes Watson who in the last decade was the powerhouse behind UCT’s emergence as a creative writing school. He reviews his diverse writings which reflect the landscape of the city, Cape Town, and the Cedarberg, and the social and historical worlds underlying them. 

Read more:

Anderson PR. Stephen Watson: Poet, scholar and critic (1954–2011). S Afr J Sci. 2011;107(5/6), Art. #744, 2 pages. doi:10.4102/sajs. v107i5/6.744 

The impact of acid mine drainage in South Africa 

Environmental damage caused by acid mine drainage (AMD) in South Africa is severe and likely to continue for decades, posing a serious threat to future generations of South Africans. 

A review on the impact of AMD related to gold and coal mining maintains that the longer-term impacts of these industries, and especially the coal mining industry, are likely to be far more severe in South Africa than in other countries. This is attributed to South Africa’s unique combination of geography, climate, population distribution and the scale of the deposits. The coal mining industry, in particular, has had an adverse impact on the water quality in the Olifants River system. 

The review which focuses on mining in the Vaal and Olfiants River systems, calls for acumen in especially allowing further coal mining in the catchments of the Vaal River and rivers draining the eastern escarpment. 

These are not the only areas in the country afflicted by this problem, but because of the particular local conditions, the problems these two basins are huge by comparison and pose a serious threat to future generations of South Africans. 

Read more:

McCarthy TS. The impact of acid mine drainage in South Africa. S Afr J Sci. 107(5/6), Art. #712, 7 pages. doi:10.4102/sajs.v107i5/6.712

A  keynote speech by South African Minister of Science and Technology, Ms Naledi Pandor, highlighted the under-representation of women in the field of science and technology as a whole, as well as their under-representation in research management positions and policy-making.

Leading scientists from developing countries were invited to present keynote papers, followed by workshops with papers and discussions on the scientific contribution of women to these critical areas. Eminent women scientists from the South presented their research work, stressing policy issues pertaining to the participation of women in science and technology in their countries.

TWOWS is an international organisation whose central role is to promote women’s access to science and technology (S&T), enhancing their greater involvement in the decision-making processes for the development of their countries and in the international scientific community. Created in 1989, TWOWS’ overall goal is to work towards bridging the gender gap in S&T. TWOWS uses its forum for intellectual discussions to assist in the development of national capabilities to evolve, explore, and improve strategies for increasing female participation in science. The South African national chapter is hosted by ASSAf, who provide a secretariat for the implementation of its activities.

The first person to describe a new fossil gets the rights to name it. This has got be done at the time of the first publication as the privilege is not retrospect. Hesitate and someone else will pip you at the post. The payout is pretty impressive because the once the fossil has been named, the name is there forever with your priority stamped all over it in Latin.

But not everything in the name game is about priority and bragging rights. The whole system of classification is an art, not a science, and the choice of name tells you as much about the researcher as it does about the fossil.

Lee Berger and his team have just had the rare opportunity to name a new hominid species.  They have chosen the name Australopithecus sediba for the debut of the fossils from Malapa in the Cradle of Humankind and the new taxon is on the tip of the tongue of lots of South Africans, from the Deputy Minister of Technology to the kids in school who have been given the chance to give a popular name for the fossils.  

So what is in the name? What statement has Lee Berger made with his choice?  In fact, he has made two statements, one that concerns the genus name Australopithecus and the second concerning the species name sediba.

Let’s start with the easy one: sediba.  The language is seSotho and the meaning is ‘wellspring’ or ‘fountain’. Not a bad choice at all. Making use of one of the indigenous languages of South Africa is a smart move if South Africans are going to ‘take ownership’ of this new specimen. If Berger really wanted to go back to ‘roots’ for the name, he could have chosen one of the ‘Bushman’ languages for inspiration in the same way that we have for our national motto. It reads: !Ke e: /xarra //ke, and means “Unity in Diversity” or more literally “Diverse People Unite” in the extinct language of the /xam. In fact, an extinct language is exactly what is needed for national motto as you don’t want confusion about the precise meaning and a dead language never changes. But seSotho is not only very much alive, it is the first language of 4 million South Africans and a second language of nearly the same number. This is about claiming heritage for the living, not the dead, and Berger’s selection is a good one.

The choice for the genus name needs to be viewed from a cold scientific perspective. Choosing a genus name is about linking the specimen to other discoveries and it plants a flag at a point on the evolutionary road. The specimens from Malapa were clearly related to other fossil forms from around the same age, so the choice was not about a new name, but it was about deciding which name to link it to. In the end Berger chose Australopithecus rather than the more controversial Homo. It doesn’t sound like it, but this is pure philosophy, not science.

Had Berger chosen Homo, he would have been recognising human-like attributes in the bones implying that they were ‘real men’ and not ‘ape men’.  The accepted consensus is that Homo had the ability to make tools, manipulate the environment, probably used speech, and, in Phillip Tobias’s words, was at a “new level of organisation”. But Berger has chosen to lump his new fossils into Australopithecus, meaning that his new discovery had not yet reached Tobias’s new level of organisation.  

But Berger hasn’t quite excluded his new specimens from the human line because the species name sediba implies that his species is at the point of transition from Australopithecus to Homo. Berger is quite up front about this. In his opinion, his discovery is the root of humanity as we know it.

Well this is where the fun in science begins. There has already been some debate about Berger’s claims. The fossil seems too late in time to be at the origin point for Homo. There are also other candidates and the anatomically oriented anthropologists will need to discuss the meaning of the morphology of the new specimens in the light of the detailed anatomy of its predecessors and contemporaries. As I have always told my students, the best thing to do is to wait when a new discovery is made and affinities are proclaimed. It will take at least 5 years for the consensus to develop and much academic blood will be probably be shed in the process.

Note: Read Prof Morris’s article on Australopithecus sediba appearing in the South African Journal of Science.

From almost every corner of the Anglophone world, the complaint is the same: “The Humanities are under threat”. I use the qualifier because, sadly, my ability to access other language worlds – beyond  the Dutch-Afrikaans link – is limited.*

The question is what is to be done to recover and revive the Humanities?

Research and deliberations into ASSAf’s own Consensus Report on the Humanities in South Africa is well under way and the hope is to issue a preliminary report in late October, 2010. My own view of this issue is framed by an understanding of political economy – the rise of neo-liberal economics has emphasized economic growth and efficiency and, in this particular universe, the Humanities have no place ( the State of Science in South Africa, pg 210). This is a fallacy, of course. Take the creation of jobs. In this country alone, right now, one of the strongest areas of economic growth is Afrikaans cultural production – most of this is both creates jobs and pushes economic growth.

But this ignores a series of issues into which the Humanities can shed light – the planetary crisis – known as ‘Climate Change’ – which is generated by mindless economic growth is perhaps the most obvious example. Another example, of course, is the financial crisis of late-2009: here, reckless speculation on money markets helped to generate the most severe financial crisis for 80 years and raised serious questions about the discipline of Economics which remain to be addressed.

But re-igniting interest in the Humanities (which for these purposes includes the Social Sciences) cannot be the responsibility of academies and of Blue Ribbon Panel-types alone. The responsibility falls upon us all – even upon Natural Scientists many of whom have a deep appreciation for the importance of the Humanities but, as the battle for resources in academia has intensified over the past three decades, have turned away from what we might call a ‘dual loyalty’ to intellectual life.

It is certain so that in many instances the Humanities are themselves to blame for the reversal in their fortunes. But the test of their viability should be quality and excellence, through peer-review, not whether they can generate economic growth.

Writing in London’s The Guardian, on these issues, the acclaimed journalist, Simon Jenkins, Scientists may gloat, but an assault is under way against the arts (an article by Simon Jenkins, 25 March, 2010; The Guardian) recently issued a warning to Natural Scientists. Any hope they might have that sweeping the Humanities to the corners would benefit them, was a risky proposition. For one thing, budgetary savings might encourage successive generations of politicians and bureaucrats that further cuts could be made in research funding – this would certainly come from the Natural Sciences.

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* Incidentally, in 2009, the Dutch issued a Blue-Ribbon report called “Sustainable Humanities”.

The Minister of S&T, the honourable Naledi Pandor, will participate in a symposium on the “Impact of the Global Financial Crisis on Research and Education in Developing Countries” together with her counterpart Ministers from India, Brazil and China.

Other symposia in which South Africa will feature strongly are those on “Astronomy in Developing Countries” and “S&T Education for Development”. The programme features a large number of invited presentations from distinguished scientists such as Michael Atiyah whose lecture is titled “Truth and beauty in mathematics and physics”, as well David Block and Monty Jones. The presence of a large number of eminent scholars in the country has prompted the DST through the South African Agency for Science and Technology Advancement  (SAASTA) to mount  a “Meet the Scientists” initiative which will connect TWAS fellows with teachers and learners in three KwaZulu-Natal centres in an attempt to promote science and careers in science amongst Grade 11 learners.  

ASSAf is proud to be hosting this prestigious conference, which is being held for the first time in South Africa, thanks to the generous support of the DST and the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF), the German Federal Ministry of Education and  Research.

TWAS is an autonomous international organisation, founded in 1983 in Trieste, Italy, by a distinguished group of scientists from the South under the leadership of the late Nobel Laureate Abdus Salam of Pakistan. Its mission is to promote scientific excellence and capacity in the South for the purposes of advancing sustainable development. TWAS operates under the administrative umbrella of UNESCO and receives generous core funding from the Italian government. Presently it has more than 900 members from 100 countries. Nearly 85% of its members live and work in developing countries.

TWAS also hosts and works closely with a number of Trieste-based international organisations that share the Academy’s broad-ranging objectives. These organisations include: Third World Organisation for Women in Science (TWOWS), InterAcademy Panel on International Issues, (IAP), InterAcademy Medical Panel (IAMP) and the Consortium on Science, Technology and Innovation for the South (COSTIS).

Want to read more?

Check out Daniel Schaffer’s articles on the TWAS website (www.twas.org) on Science and Change in South Africa, and an interview with Minister Pandor on Science.

This year’s science week was launched in the Northern Cape province by DST Minister, Naledi Pandor. Through ASSAf’s regional mentorship lecture approach, which targeted both learners and educators, scientist were able to interact with learners, provide guidance on science-based careers, and understand some of the challenges that are facing educators within the science system in South Africa. This also provided an opportunity to increase the awareness of ASSAf among learners, educators, and other key stakeholders.