Norman Borlaug, the father of the “Green Revolution”, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 and celebrated by Time magazine in 1999 as one of the 100 most influential minds of the 20th century, died at his home in Dallas on 12 September 2009 from lymphoma.

In a cerebral interview in the Economist in 2007, Borlaug pointed out that global cereal production tripled between 1950 and 2000, but the amount of land used increased by only 10%. Using traditional techniques such as crop rotation, compost and manure to supply the soil with nitrogen and other minerals would have required a tripling of the area under cultivation. The more intensively you farm, Mr Borlaug contended, the more room you have left for rainforest.

In the 1960s India hadn't yet recovered from the Bengal Famine which left 3 million dead. Indian farmers in the 1960s produced only 12 million tons of wheat annually; significantly less than their population required. In 1965 M.S. Swaminathan, C. Subramaniam and B. P. Pal, along with Dr Borlaug introduced the use of synthetic fertilisers and pesticides to the subcontinent. Today India is a net exporter producing some 200 million tons of grain a year.

In 1836 Charles Darwin spent 18 days in and around Cape Town.  In 2009, the year that we are celebrating his Bicentennial, the importance of his visit to the Cape aboard the HMS Beagle is being reassessed.  The actual route he followed has been plotted and forms what is now designated as the Darwin Trail.

The Darwin Trail Map has been produced to enable you to follow the route that Charles Darwin took when he visited Cape Town This easy to consult publication is the perfect companion for those that enjoy history, hiking and heritage. The map will be distributed to schools, tourism bureaux at the various spots that are significant on the Trail and a number of other institutions.

The map was launched at Stellenbosch University using their Interactive Telematic Technology system to broadcast via satellite to ten schools: Aloe Secondary, Sinethemba Secondary, Manyano High School, Perseverance Secondary, Ashton Secondary, Desmond Tutu Secondary , Noorder Paarl Sec, Mandlenkosi Secondary, Naphakade Secondary and Albert Myburgh Secondary.
Introduced by MEC for Education Donald Grant, the schools heard the story of Charles Darwin’s visit as the trail was brought to life by Dr Wilmot James MP and anthropologist Nonhlanhla Dlamini.
James, who is a DA MP and Shadow Minister for Higher Education & Training iinitiated the Trail project as part of the Africa Genome Education Institute Darwin200 celebrations: a project to create greater awareness of Darwin’s legacy.

SKIN is a controversial film which tells the true story of Sandra Laing, a girl born in the 1950s to white Afrikaner parents, but who was classified black under apartheid because she displayed the physical attributes of a coloured person.

The film screens at the TriContinental Film Festival on Wednesday in Joburg and Heritage Day (September 24) in Cape Town.

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The Microsoft Innovative Teachers Forum recognises teachers who use ICT (information Communication technology) in interesting and engaging ways. Cheryl Douglas, Programme Director of the Teaching Biology Project, was one of the South African winners who attended the Pan-African Innovative Teachers Forum held in September in Mauritius.  Cheryl won the collaboration section for her project ‘Teaching for the Future: make learners aware of global issues with an emphasis on sustainability’ and will now attend the worldwide finals to be held in Brazil in November. The Teaching Biology Project website contains content on evolutionary biology developed by Cheryl and the website offers opportunities for teachers who have attended the Teaching Biology Project conferences to access resources and collaborate with colleagues as Cheryl uses the same principles on this site as she did in her winning project.

Am I Victorian to argue that the characteristics of Caster Semenya’s sex-determining genetics are surely not a subject for public discussion? It is private information and it should stay that way. The public has no right to such highly personal information. Genetic privacy should be protected in law.

Genes are assemblies of chemical letters called deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA that send signals to proteins to make the biological apparatuses of all living things. It has been only five years that the science community has been able to look at all of the millions of chemical letters that constitute the human genome.

Medical geneticists are able to read our genomes for disease propensity and increasingly have access to biomedical technologies that may have therapeutic applications to suit the individual’s condition. Genome genetics or genomics is therefore a frontier science and the issue of genetic privacy a relatively recent concept in the field of bio-ethics.

"I keep telling you guys my aim is to become a legend," said Usain Bolt, after smashing the world 200 metres record and becoming the first man to hold the 100 and 200 metres sprints in both the Olympics and the Athletics World Championships.

Competition at international sporting events is fierce and the pursuit of an edge, sometimes measured in hundredths of a second, leads some to cheat.  Steroid abuse aims to increase the strength, speed and endurance of what is natural.  But the androgens created by the body are not set to any standard.  Some people do genuinely produce more than others.  Figuring out what is normal and what is not is difficult.

And, sometimes, something else is going on.