Science and politics feed off each other, shape our view of the world around us
Late in August 1609, the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei wrote excitedly to his brother-in-law, relating the fast-moving events of that summer. A few weeks earlier, Galileo had heard rumours that a spyglass had been invented in Flanders (now part of Belgium). He quickly produced an improved version, setting off a...
‘HIV vaccine research has long been hindered by a missing sense of urgency’
In 2010, William Schief, an immunologist at Scripps and executive director of vaccine design at IAVI’s Neutralizing Antibody Center, working with a group of researchers began to work with a class of broadly neutralising antibodies called VRC01, the first to be discovered by the NIH Vaccine Research Center. First, they...
Is HIV/Aids vaccine in sight? Covid success provides scientists with a ‘wisp of hope’
When virologist José Esparza began working with the World Health Organization to combat the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, he and many of his colleagues were convinced that a vaccine would be the solution – and that it would come quickly. Their optimism rested on solid science: Researchers knew that...
When sea science needed money, Navy loosened purse strings and discoveries followed!
These two statements are uncontroversial: the path of science is more or less determined by the educated curiosity of scientists; the funding of science is sometimes based on condition of usefulness. So, does usefulness affect science’s path? Sometimes it does, especially when the funder has skin in the game. Pharmaceutical...
The Bill and Melinda Gates divorce, wealth memes are just too funny to ignore
First, let’s get one thing out of the way: Memes aren’t supposed to be comfortable or nice. Hopefully they induce laughter, but they’re not above doing it at others’ expense. I get all that. And yet, I have got to say, all of these memes about Bill and Melinda Gates’...
Facebook under fire for allowing drug, beer ads that target children below 17
Teenagers on Facebook can be targeted by adverts endorsing alcohol, drugs, gambling, smoking and eating disorders, according to a report by a watchdog group. The Tech Transparency Project created six test adverts and submitted them to Facebook, saying it wanted to reach users aged 13 to 17. Facebook approved all...
People will die, but what is the tolerable ‘new normal’ in a post-Covid world?
On April 24, Perth in Western Australia entered a snap three-day lockdown when two people tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 – the first community infections recorded outside hotel quarantine in the state in more than a year. Pubs, gyms and playgrounds shut, remembrance-day services were cancelled and people were confined to...
US support for Covid vaccines patent waivers kicks off fierce resistance
In a historic move, the US government has announced that it supports waiving patent protections for Covid-19 vaccines, a measure aimed at boosting supplies so that people around the world can get the shots. “The extraordinary circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures,” US trade representative Katherine Tai...
How South Africans who lost jobs since onset of Covid struggle to rebuild lives
Some 40 kilometres outside Cape Town, Leebah Bessick wipes sweat from her forehead as she digs a pitchfork into the earth at a neighbourhood community garden. It’s an unseasonably hot day at Blackheath Secondary School and even a shady corner of the garden offers Bessick and fellow gardeners little comfort...
Even in darkest realms of life, ‘Black and brown people are fetishes or body parts’
When Johnnie Keyes starred in Behind the Green Door, one of the first mainstream American adult films to feature a Black performer, he was credited merely as “African Stud.” It was 1972 and his co-performer Marilyn Chambers was a white woman, an influential casting decision that earned the film the...
