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Featured article
No Zen for Gen X-Tinction
Children and teenagers everywhere are worried about the climate crisis — often unhappily so. Why should parents try to ease their anxiety, and how? Or should they save their energy for action?
Read moreA billion copies, a life of adventure and a taste for murder: The life and legacy of Agatha Christie
Care to guess who the world’s best-selling author of all time is? A billion copies in print, in multiple languages – a literary phenomenon.
06.2025 | Sean Billings
The paradoxical force of islands
Something about islands captures the human imagination, evoking visions of utopia or hell, depending on the circumstances.
06.2025 | Jon Stilwell
Langa, a flawed yet culturally-rich township
A bustling hub of activity, Langa township in Cape Town, South Africa, is truly unique in so many ways. On every street corner, different small businesses are displayed.
05.2025 | Tendani Mulaudzi
Mosaic warfare: The evolution of military strategy in the 21st century
“Asymmetric warfare” quickly became one of the buzzwords as renewed terrorist activity brought the world into a new era of conflict on September 11, 2001.
05.2025 | J.A. McCallister
There’s a fingerprint on my motherboard!
Do you ever take a moment to think about the complex processes that go into creating tech gadgets that are almost inseparable from our daily lives? Under the surface of your smartphones, laptops, and countless other devices lies a world of critical components called Rare Earth Elements (REEs).
05.2025 | Irvan Damon
Thoughts on the utility of history
If it be true that the only thing history teaches us is that it teaches us nothing, and if it is also true that the more things change the more they stay the same, then why on earth would we bother the next generation with truckloads of useless information?
05.2025 | Peter Dearlove
The Wild Horses of the Overberg
The mention of wild horses conjures up images of mustangs running unbridled on the dusty plains of the American West;
04.2025 | Adrian Ephraim
The many facets of the Dunning-Kruger effect
It was 1999 when social psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger decided to conduct a little experiment. Of course, a ‘little experiment’ doesn’t win a Nobel Prize
04.2025 | Toni Botes
The Mandela effect: the mysterious phenomenon of collective false memories
The Mandela Effect is a phenomenon where a large group of people remember something differently from how it actually happened.
04.2025 | ME van Heerden
The story of an African crusader
Olive Schreiner may be widely known and best remembered for her novel The Story of an African Farm, but her influence extends so much further than that.
04.2025 | Ingrid Wood
PART 2: The hazards of interplanetary settlement and travel
A journey to Mars, or space in general, presents an inexhaustible list of complexities and hazards that could endanger both the mission and the astronauts on board.
04.2025 | Joshua Gordon
The striking similarities between diet and skincare culture
According to recent research, the global skincare market size was valued at USD 130.50 billion in 2021 and is expected to continue to grow exponentially at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.6% from 2022 to 2030.
04.2025 | Rebone Masemola
The need to bleed: Taking on extreme sports to control your pain
In Ethiopia, men participate in brutal stick-fighting battles and sometimes bash each other’s heads in, all to win a woman’s heart.
04.2025 | Haji Mohamed Dawjee
For the love of curry: the history, evolution and global spread of curry
Say the word “Curry”, and you can see it, smell it and taste it – an array of aromatic and flavourful dishes now enjoyed around the world. Originating from the Indian subcontinent,
03.2025 | Tanya Steyn
10 Tech Breakthroughs We Only Have Because of War
War! What is it good for? Well, actually, technology. Throughout history, war has been a catalyst for technological innovation.
03.2025 | Sarah Edelmann
Queen: The Amazing Life of Madam CJ Walker
23 December 1867 in a town called Delta. Former slaves and sharecroppers Owen and Minerva Breedlove toil away, barely at a subsistence level, in the harsh sun and humid heat of Louisiana.
02.2025 | Amanda Jones
Is purpose a decision or a discovery?
We would all like to have a sense of purpose in our lives that drives us forward regardless of the obstacles in our path. But is our life purpose a decision or a discovery? Many of us are drawn to the notion of a singular, overriding passion.
02.2025 | Kibo Ngowi
Silence in the city: The quest for tranquillity amidst urban chaos
There is a cacophony in the air. It is relentless and it reigns supreme, but in the background that very cacophony is being countered by the desperate hum of something far more superior, the sound and pursuit of silence.
01.2025 | Haji Mohamed Dawjee
Pythagoras and his cult: Unravelling the mysteries of an ancient mathematical sect
Pythagoras is synonymous with the Pythagorean theorem, a fundamental concept in mathematics that students encounter early on in their maths education.
12.2024 | G.H. Thacker
Mentorship and mastery: the middle way to self-development
With pharmaceutical cognitive enhancements on the one side, and delayed or deferred adulthood on the other, is there a better way to develop to your full potential?
12.2024 | Lee Blake
The Handmaid’s Tale - too real to be fictional
As a woman, The Handmaid’s Tale hits a little too close to home. The series, adapted from the book of the same title by Margaret Atwood, contains social commentary so beautifully and frighteningly woven into every episode, the audience is almost always left with something to reflect on once the credits roll.
11.2024 | Tendani Mulaudzi
The magic of the Fibonacci sequence and the golden ratio
Across a multitude of creative disciplines and industries, artists, designers, musicians, and architects have all exploited this mathematical marvel in their work. Variations of this captivating number pattern, known as the Fibonacci sequence, show up all around us and have captivated the public imagination for centuries.
11.2024 | Rachel Edelstein
Now known as The Dakar, the first Paris To Dakar Rally was held in 1978. The world-famous endurance rally, recognised as the most gruelling off-road motorsport event in the world, has a fascinating history and its inception has been described as “something of a happy accident”.
11.2014 | Ingrid Wood
Bad science book review
A long time ago, in the more innocent time of the distant past, say, 2000, the words ‘Studies show’ were enough to end any argument. The appeal to the authority of science was enough to stop any charlatan in his tracks and restore sanity and balance to the world.
10.2024 | Les March
Faking it: The story special effects
You really can’t talk about movies without talking about special effects, and you can’t talk about special effects without talking about horror films.
10.2024 | Beth Brunnig
PART 1: The Hazards of travelling to Mars: Isolation and confinement
As humans, we have an inherent need for connection and social interaction with others. It is no surprise that we are social beings with social needs. Simultaneously, as we look to broaden our horizons, we enter environments that are not wellsuited to our needs.
09.2024 | Joshua Gordon
How we can (or can’t) experience the Schrödinger’s cat principle in everyday life
In the world’s most famous thought experiment, physicist Erwin Schrödinger described the uncertain predicament of a cat in a box.
09.2024 | Debby Edelstein
How much would you pay to be James Bond?
On the 9th of September 2015, an auction house in Guernsey had a peculiar item up for bid; amongst arts and antiques, there was a small plate with three digits on it.
08.2024 | Alistair Duff
The life and times of Hunter S.Thompson
A self-professed hillbilly, Hunter Stockton Thompson entered the world on the 18th of July 1937 and left it of his own accord in 2005. His life was a complex and bizarre mélange of impotent creativity set against a backdrop of seminal influence on almost everything he touched.
08.2024 | Toni Botes
What they don’t teach at engineering school (and what they do)
The chances are good that you’ve been exposed to the overuse of the phrases problem-solving and critical thinking. Almost in the next breath, you’ve probably heard about the insatiable demand for engineers in the workplace.
07.2024 | Rachel Edelstein
How Nadal and Djokovic became “mentality monsters” in entirely different ways.
YEARS ago – in keeping with his reputation as a man who didn’t mind a challenge – Rafael Nadal was asked if he was glad that fellow tennis great Novak Djokovic existed.
06.2023 | Simnikiwe Xabanisa
Decoding birds' brain signals into syllables of song
Could the unique song of a bird someday, miraculously, help give a voice to people who have lost the ability to speak?
06.2024 | Adrian Ephraim
What I learned making a video game
In 1981, the arcade game Centipede was released by Atari, a world leader of the video game market in the late 20th century. Following the same formula as several other famous arcade games of the time, such as Pac-Man and Galaxian, the game involves a moving, player-controlled object (also known as the Bug Blaster) that tries to eliminate the enemy (Centipede) that appears on the screen.
05.2024 | Rachel Edelstein
African animation is catching global attention
For the past few years, we’ve seen an increased global interest and demand in African stories, works and the creatives behind the work.
04.2024 | Rebone Masemola
When is appropriation appropriate?
The answer is almost always. Cultural borrowing and exchange are the fuel of human creative progress.
The idea that “cultural appropriation” must be guarded against, and rooted out, is arguably one of the wobbliest ideas that the era of identity politics has given us. Cultural appropriation is a vastly bigger and healthier process than its opportunist edges: in a very real sense, it is the engine of human intellectual progress.
04.2024 | Carlos Amato
Modern snakes evolved from a few survivors of a dino-killing asteroid
Love them or loathe them, there is now new information that suggests that snakes have an even more intriguing origin story than previously thought.
The ancestors of the modern snake may have been among the few reptiles to survive the giant asteroid catastrophe that erased dinosaurs from the face of the Earth at the end of the Cretaceous – a period in time that began 145 million years ago and ended 66 million years ago.
12.2017 | Denise Slabbert
Fashion designer, Diane Von Furstenberg, once said “everything in fashion begins in the streets”. In the midst of our consumer culture, where fashion trends change quarterly and we feel pressure to adhere, we have become out of touch with the true ingenuity and creativity with which it all began
02.2024 | Rachel Edelstein
How rudeness leads to Anchoring in life and death situations
We’ve seen it all too often. A rush of blood to the head, a moment of insanity, an “emotional” decision taken through the spoken word, or an action that can never be taken back.
01.2024 | Adrian Ephraim
Other Voices - Confessions of a TV Translator
“I’m setting my lawyer on you,” said the furious woman, speaking from a Crimplene shop in Joburg. “You told lies on TV. When I tried to book the holiday you promised, they told me you made it all up. I can get you into big trouble.”
01.2024 | Tom Learmont
Lying is wrong, except when it isn’t, and morality is not as black and white as we sometimes like to believe. Scientifically.
One of my earliest memories is when my mother, to her embarrassment, forgot about a doctor’s appointment. Calling the doctor to reschedule, she made up an excuse supported by fictitious car troubles.
12.2023 | Josh Gordon
Guernica revisited – the resonance of Picasso’s masterpiece in today’s world
Fifty years after his death, Pablo Picasso remains one of the most prolific artists in the world, having created around 25 000 works throughout his life.
11.2023 | Eugene Yiga
When the guy in the changing room corner ends up as your coach one day
In a classic case of gamekeeper turned poacher, French international referee Alexandre Ruiz recently quit officiating to become a defence coach for club side Montpellier
11.2023 | Simnikiwe Xabanisa
A (black) mirror to the metaverse
After a break of more than four years, season six of Black Mirror is finally here. As is typically the case for this award-winning television series, the episodes take a closer and darker look at society’s dystopian side, but this time, they do so in a new way.
11.2023 | Eugene Yiga
Artificial intelligence vs the world.
‘Deep Blue versus Garry Kasparov’ was a clashing of six game chess matches between World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov and IBM supercomputer Deep Blue
10.2023 | Josh Gordon
Yes, they really are listening to us
Amidst all the revolutions that are sweeping the world, from economic to political, the omnipresent Fourth Industrial Revolution keeps powering ahead with no sign of reaching a peak or slowing down. One aspect of it which receives surprisingly little media coverage and rarely enters discussion is the radical development of voice profiling.
09.2023 | Athalie Russell Besseling
How ancient trees are becoming a hot new investment asset for the rich
After the financial crisis in 2008, rich people branched out into greener pastures by putting their generational wealth into acres of lands with roots in ancient trees. This global economic event alerted the rich because they saw their assets heavily affected, driving investments in safer commodities that grow in the long-term with a value that isn’t determined by unpredictable highs and lows of stock market forces.
09.2023 | Rebone Masemola
How Gaming Conquered the World
For many, the 70s marked the beginnings of the true modern phenomenon that is broadcast television. In 1976 South Africans gathered around these boxy units with fiddly buttons and bunny ear aerials waiting to be amazed, and they would not be disappointed.
08.2023 | Alistair Duff
Book Review: Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
Inspiration can strike at any moment. For two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author Colson Whitehead it was a playlist from a friend. More specifically, it was the song “Harlem Shuffle” that gave him the title for his novel, which debuted at number three on The New York Times fiction bestseller list and was named by Barack Obama as one of his favourite books of 2021.
06.2023 | Eugene Yiga
Born in 1548, a captured Ethiopian herdsman is sold as a slave in Yemen, taken to Baghdad and from there to present day India, Malik Ambar not only raised his own armies, but casually replaced kings when they became annoying. A remarkable true story that is not nearly as well-known as it should be.
05.2023 | Jen Isaac
Private Schooling – is it worth the costs?
Lush manicured lawns, posh accents, and parents with executive positions. Being a private school kid is something I’ve always worn with a badge of honour.
05.2023 | Tendani Mulaudzi
Medicine, Pigeons and Pattern Recognition
Pattern recognition is the automated recognition of regularities in data. In recent years, and particularly with the development of artificial intelligence and machine learning, it has become significant to many industries.
04.2023 | Rachel Edelstein
The future of flight technology
The delicately beautiful butterfly finds itself at the centre of new research which reveals a secret hiding in plain sight that could influence the future of flying technology.
02.2023 | Adrian Ephraim
Why adults should (sometimes) read children’s books
If you agree that age doesn’t define who you are, you’re certainly not too old to read children’s literature.
02.2023 | Ingrid Wood
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