Author Archives: admin

Defiance

I AM IN AWE. If you listen to one thing this week, listen to this interview: Legendary BBC presenter and China editor Carrie Gracie, live in London, on the Sinica podcast. “It is the defiance that I learned in China … Continue reading

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Kite

Watching an eagle soar across the hilltop circle of Bukit Dumbar Reservoir Park, and then be ambushed from seven o’clock by a Brahminy kite with its cotton-white head and red-rust body, and seeing a large snake writhe in the eagle’s … Continue reading

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Oh Leila

Half an hour to curfew. The streets are already silent. People often ask me if I’m afraid to be out at night. To cycle at night. To walk at night, a woman alone in Durban. It seems foolhardy but in … Continue reading

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What is the taste

Recently, I like to heave open the half-jammed balcony door and take my food or coffee outside. The unspoken, superficial excuse is the piece of paper on the door of the lunchroom printed “Maximum 3 persons in this room”; I … Continue reading

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The labyrinth

(crossposted to Facebook) In my dreams there is a labyrinth that comprises the world. Every landmark building in my earlier life has dissolved into this amalgam. The first time I went to a hospital. The first shopping mall I saw. … Continue reading

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Overseas

“I think that if you go overseas with a superficial attitude, intending to come back home in a year, you won’t get much out of the experience. Particularly if you’re young, you should go with the intention of completely immersing … Continue reading

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A Journal of the Plague Year

Link to my review on Goodreads (same text as below). The book, free on Gutenberg.org. This was pretty entertaining reading in the grip of a pandemic. Just to be clear, Defoe himself was a small kid at the time of … Continue reading

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BSL3 birdwatching

There are two large black-and-white corvids in South Africa, the pied crow and the white-necked raven. The reason I know this is because I had an argument with my partner’s friend who’s an older South African guy. He took us … Continue reading

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Tuberculosis research for dummies

This is a work in progress article to form an easily understandable starting point for biologists new to TB research. I’m publishing it in incomplete form mainly as a to-do list for myself. The goal is to link to a … Continue reading

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Life Sciences in the Apocalypse

Thought experiment no.1: If you were trapped at work during the zombie apocalypse, how long could you survive on lab reagents? drink tissue culture medium like soup. Add BSA (bovine serum albumin), or Western blot blocking reagent (skim milk), or … Continue reading

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