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09 May 2019 | Story Ruan Bruwer | Photo Varsity Sports
Lefébre Rademan
Lefébre Rademan, new captain of the Free State Crinums netball team, could be one of the star players in the Premier League. She is a fifth-year Education student.
The Free State Crinums netball team, a de facto Kovsie team with all 15 squad members enrolled for courses at the University of the Free State (UFS), will draw inspiration from their success in last year’s Varsity netball tournament. The Kovsies won the student competition for a record third time. 

During the weekend of 10 May 2019, the Crinums will play their first match in the 2019 Premier League. They lost a couple of key players in captain Alicia Puren, Protea Khanyisa Chawane, (both playing for the national invitational team in the league), Khomotso Mamburu (moved to Cape Town), and Meagan Roux (injured). They do, however, still have the services of players such as Tanya von Berg (playing in her sixth Premier League, one of only a handful of players to do so), Lefébre Rademan, Sikholiwe Mdletshe, Ané Retief, Gertriana Retief, and Rieze Straeuli. Rademan is the new captain and was one of the standout players in last year’s Varsity netball, earning three Player of the Match awards, including the Player of the Final. 

The team will again be coached by Burta de Kock, who is also the head coach of the Kovsies. Under her leadership, the Crinums won the Premier League for the first three years (2014 to 2016). Last year, the Crinums ended fourth. De Kock will be assisted by Martha Mosoahle-Samm. She is a former Protea assistant coach who also captained South Africa and played for the UFS between 1997 and 1999.

There are four first-year students in the squad of 15 players: Oageng Khasake (wing attack), Ancia Pienaar (goalkeeper), Rolene Streutker (goal shooter), Boitumelo Mahloko (goal defence). Pienaar and Mahloko both represented South Africa at junior level in 2018.

■ Crinums squad: Ané Retief, Gertriana Retief, Jana Scholtz, Lefébre Rademan, Sikholiwe Mdletshe, Tanya von Berg, Rieze Straeuli, Claudia van den Berg, Zandré Smit, Oageng Khasake, Bianca de Wee, Ancia Pienaar, Rolene Streutker, Chanel Vrey, Boitumelo Mahloko.


News Archive

Extending new discoveries in the deep subsurface – UFS paper published in Nature Communications
2015-11-30



Scanning electron microscopy of some of the Eukarya recovered from two different mines. (a) Dochmiotrema sp. (Plathyelminthes), (b) A. hemprichi (Annelida), (c) Mylonchulus brachyurus (Nematoda), (d) Amphiascoides (Arthropoda). Scale bar, 50 µm (a,b), 100 µm (c), 20 µm (d).

Following the discovery of the first Eukarya in the deep subsurface (Nature, 2010) by a research group from the Department of Microbial, Biochemical, and Food Biotechnology at the University of the Free State (UFS) and their international collaborators, intense interest has developed in understanding the diversity of more complex organisms living in these extreme environments.

Prof Gaetan Borgonie from Extreme Life Isyensya, together with a group of UFS researchers, took this research further, resulting in a paper on this research released in Nature Communications – impact factor 11.47.  This paper is an extension of the first reports of more complex life at great depths, and their abilities to survive these harsh conditions.

Ten authors from the UFS contributed with the array of expertise needed to define this discovery. The group was supported by staff from the different mining groups, long-term leading collaborators from the USA and Canada, and the idea specialist driver of the paper, Prof Borganie.

“After a sampling campaign that lasted more than two years, we identified that Platyhelminthes, Rotifera, Annelida and Arthropoda are thriving at 1.4 km depths in fissure water up to 12,000-years old in the South African mines of Driefontein and Kopanang,” said Prof Borgonie, who was appointed as associated researcher in the Department of Microbial, Biochemical, and Food Biotechnology.

This paper really opens a “can of worms” so to speak. According to Prof Esta van Heerden from the Department of Microbial, Biochemical and Food Biotechnology at the UFS they extended to define protozoa and fungi. “However, they are present in low numbers,” she said.

Characterisation of the different species reveals that many are opportunistic organisms. In house-adapted video equipment was used to film inside the fissure for the home of the organisms.

This is the first-known study to demonstrate the in situ distribution of biofilms on fissure rock faces using video documentation. Calculations suggest that food, not dissolved oxygen, is the limiting factor for population growth. The discovery of a group of complex multicellular organisms in the underground has important implications for the search for life on other planets in our solar system.

More articles

The strange beasts that live in solid rock deep underground
A microscopic ‘zoo’ is found deep, deep underground

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