News

Prominent VUT Scientist on Steering Committee of International Science Forum

The Vaal University of Technology’s Dr Tozama Qwebani-Ogunleye has been selected on to the Steering Committee of the World Science Forum (WSF) 2021 being held in Cape Town.

The WSF is an international conference series on global science policy inaugurated in Budapest, Hungary in 1999 under the auspices of UNESCO and the International Council for Science. It was initially held biennially only in Hungary but now takes place outside that country every second year.

The Forum provides an opportunity for scientists, policy-makers, representatives of civil society and industry, and science communicators, to discuss the social and economic relevance, influence and responsibilities of science globally.

Qwebani-Ogunleye said she was thrilled at […]

Cancelling “Cancel Culture” – what does it mean and how can we do it?

Cancel Culture is a term that is thrown around a lot these days, particularly on social media, and its one which brings about an interesting idea – that a person can essentially be “cancelled”, but what on earth does this actually mean? The notion of ‘cancelling’ a person largely revolves around their social media presence, and through the act of ‘cancelling’ them, they are “culturally blocked from having a prominent public platform or career” (Vox). The emergence of cancel culture has unsurprisingly  had a divisive effect with some believing that cancel culture is a necessary method of keeping people, particularly public figures, or […]

SA’s Crime Stats – where do we stand in 2020

“Indeed, we are not where we want to be; however, we are pleased with the improvements in most stubborn crime categories.” This is a statement that was made by Minister Bheki Cele regarding the release of South Africa’s latest crime stats. On the 31^st of July, Police Minister Bheki Cele released the 2019/2020 crime statistics, which painted a sobering picture of South Africa, particularly from a violent crimes as well as a gender based violence perspective. These have been especially prevalent throughout South Africa’s lockdown period. In terms of benchmarking and comparing crime rates year on year, murders are considered “one of the most reliable indicators […]

Take A Load Off

With the daily bombardment and continual information overload, it’s no wonder that your brain may feel like it’s turning to mush, or that there is a haze hanging over you. Well, the good news is that you are not alone in feeling like this. Much like the global collective experience of vivid dreaming that has been increasingly reported since the onset of the pandemic, “load theory” as concept has now been labelled, is the reason why we may be feeling less like ourselves, or somewhat “out of sorts” explains Nilli Lavie, a professor of psychology and brain sciences at University College London.

Our brains, as sponge-like as they sometimes seem – have a […]

Uber who? Kasi catering to the townships

When South Africa’s COVID-19 ‘state of disaster’ lockdown regulations were lowered to level three, many people rejoiced as this meant the return of some of our favourite creature comforts, as well as a welcome excuse not to cook a meal ourselves. However, on a more serious note and on a much greater scale, it also allowed for certain sectors of the economy to open up under the strictest of conditions and regulations and resume limited forms of trading. While many in the restaurant sector found operating under these conditions impossible or not worth the overheads, many rose to the challenge and got creative in terms of their takeaway menus, […]

What’s up with WhatsApp

WhatsApp like many other applications has taken advantage of the current COVID-19 climate and has chosen to release some of its latest application capabilities while usage is at an all time high. The latest features, which will be released in the upcoming weeks include improvements to its video calling capabilities, something that has become an increasing necessity given the rise in popularity and dominance of competing video calling platforms such as Zoom and House Party to name a few. Other feature updates include animated stickers (which you may have already seen) as well as the implementation of QR codes.

WhatsApp Messenger simply known by most as WhatsApp, owned by Zuckerberg’s Facebook, is used […]

South Africa’s quest for COVID-19 Vaccine

On the 23^rd of June 2020, through a virtual conference hosted by the University of the Witwatersrand, it was announced that the first clinical trial in the country for a COVID-19 vaccine known as the South African Ox1Cov-19 Vaccine VIDA-Trial would commence over the coming months. The purpose of the vaccine of course is to prevent future infections of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19.

As it stands, and at the time this article was written, South Africa has over 220 000 diagnosed cases of COVID-19 and over 3500 deaths attributed to the virus. The month of June has boasted some of the largest single-day infection increases with incremental increases in the […]

The role of data dashboards in COVID-19 & beyond

Esri’s ArcGIS may sound like a random assembly of letters strung together, but it actually refers to a type of technology that most of us have been interacting with either on our laptops, desktops or phones. One of the most relevant examples of ArcGIS in action is the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Dashboard (Johns Hopkins Covid-19 Dashboard) which is a website that was assembled by the University’s Centre for Systems Science and Engineering. The dash board tracks the total number of infections world-wide, as well as by country. The dashboard also tracks global deaths as well as the number of recoveries in the US. The dashboard’s focal […]

Non-lethal? Not necessarily so.

With a resurgence of civil unrest in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in the US, has come an exacerbated re-employment of varying levels of nonlethal crowd control and protest dispersion methods. With police brutality taking centre stage as part of the reasoning behind the world wide protests, the irony of the police retaliating with varying degrees of nonlethal weapon usage is rife. In essence, nonlethal weapons consist of stun guns, water cannons, flash bangs, pepper spray, tear gas and rubber bullets. And while these are all deemed nonlethal, if used incorrectly or with enough force, they certainly challenge their ‘nonlethal’ status by doing a lot of damage. Rubber bullets […]

Up, Up & Away for the SpaceX Dragon

SpaceX, more formally known as Space Exploration Technology Corp., is Elon Musk’s brain-child and was founded in 2002 in order to “revolutionise space technology” through the provision and manufacturing of advanced spacecraft and rockets. One of Musk’s goals is to ‘commercialise’ space travel through the Commercial Crew model, in essence the idea is that anyone with enough cash to flash could buy a ticket to orbit into the lower stratosphere. According to Benji Reed, the director of crew mission management at SpaceX: “We want to send all kinds of people to space. Everything we’re doing is to open that new chapter in the space age.”

On the 29^th of […]