We’ve been busy with some outreach events over the last few weeks, attending the Eskom Science Expo, organising our own messy event (we made oobleck with the kids) at a local library as part of National Science Week and attending a career expo at Ushaka Marine World. It’s been great fun interacting with all these young enthusiastic learners and sharing some of the awesome science and scientists that are working in South Africa and the continent.
Our animation short, ”SuperScientists - Origins” will be seen by audiences in Thailand, Burkina Faso, South Africa, Namibia, Cameroon, Brazil, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore through the Goethe Institute Science Film Festival. It will even get dubbed into a few different languages 🤙
Of 1503 films from 110 countries ours made the cut of 123 films in the festival. We can't wait for people across the world to see our little film and learn about some of the awesome science in South Africa.
We were featured in a lovely two page spread (just look at those layout skills) in Huisgenoot, South Africa’s most popular magazine by circulation. Lovely to see it and hear from Afrikaans speaking friends that it was a lekker article.
It’s not that we wish that there were baddies out there, though they do make for better stories, but as we all know there are all sorts of agents in the world fighting against the truth and science.
Here are just a few of the things we need to watch out for - The Washer (green washing and more), the Beguiler (bright and shiny with a silver tongue, telling a story that isn’t true), Miss Information (like it and share it but don’t read it or scrutinize it), Little Prince What About (he thinks there’s two sides to every argument no matter what the evidence says, but what about…) and The Straw Man (just waiting for you to prove your point by knocking down this straw man of an example).
More to come with these in the future hopefully. Disinformation and misinformation aren’t going anywhere!
A great article about Keneiloe in the fabulous series by Nature “Where I Work”. The author, Raeesah Chandlay,-reached out to us to use art for the article, but we had no idea that this would be the title. It’s very cool and I think just speaks to how the idea of SupersScientists resonates with people.
Read it here!
A new dinosaur museum, the Kgoodumodumo interpretative centre, just opened last month in the Golden Gate Highlands National Park in Free State. The area has been, and continues to be, a rich site for dinosaur fossils. One of the stars of the centre is Massospondylus, a dinosaur depicted below (more to proper scale on the right) that was first discovered in 1854 in SA and was one of the earliest dinosaurs named - our palaeo cred goes way back.
Dr Kimi Chapelle, aka Dinova is one of the lucky palaeontologists who has been able to study this dino, in particular its fossilised eggs and embryos. She was also the lead scientist on the development of the museum! Check it out next time you're in the Clarens area.
Thanks to GENUS Palaeoscience for the initial funding to make Kimi's character
Art by Clyde Beech and Natalia Jagielska
We had the pleasure of sharing the story of SuperScientists in a recent article in the journal - w/k- Between Science and Art. Interviewed by Crystal-Leigh Clitheroe and Anna-Sophie Jürgens of Australia National University, Justin Yarrow and Clyde Beech talked about how the project came to be, what’s involved, and the art that makes it shine. It’s a great summary of the work we’ve done and why it resonates with kids. A big thanks to Crys for reaching out to make this happen!
Dr Tebogo Makhubela is a newly awarded NatGeo Wayfinder! One of only 15 in the world for this year. Congratulations to Tebogo for this well deserved achievement. He’s the current lead geologist at the Rising Star Cave system where Homo naledi was discovered working hand in hand with Prof Lee Berger, Dr Keneiloe Molopyane and other impressive geologists and palaeontologist colleagues.
Tebogo grew up in Soweto and is the first in his family to go to university. He turned down a job with the gold mines to pursue an interest in human evlolution.
I just love the picture of him putting together his science project like many you see at a science expo. From there to muddy explorations and the lab, from university graduation to masters and PhD. So many scientists can link their interest back to that first science expo or first experience when they were given a real chance to do and explore science. Here’s to more!
