Latest News Archive
Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
08 April 2020
|
Story Prof Francois Vreÿ, and Prof Hussein Solomon
The international response to the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) as a health security threat stimulated an international response that commenced with drastic, but localised actions in China, but responses rapidly manifested in more extreme measures in the rest of the world. Amidst international efforts imposing extraordinary national and international movement restrictions and a rush to find a medical cure, two questions arise. First, how does COVID-19 as a health security threat feature within the global security debate and second, how to explain the harsh responses that one observes.
Read more...
Inaugural lecture on high energy universe delivered at the UFS
2009-03-25
 |
Prof. Pieter Meintjes from the Department of Physics at the University of the Free State (UFS) recently delivered his inaugural lecture on the Main Campus in Bloemfontein. The topic of the lecture was “The high-energy universe: Exotic objects and cataclysmic outbursts”. According to Prof. Meintjes, head of the department’s Astrophysics Group, we are entering a golden age regarding synergies of very large and very small objects. “Astrophysicists are playing a leading role in studying nuclear fusion in extreme environments such as neutron stars and graviation spots. This knowledge can be used by future generations to produce useable energy. Rotating gravitation spots can also produce “wormholes” in the universe, which makes space trips on galactic outer galactic scale a reality for generations to come. “The Astrophysics Research Group already plays a prominent role in multi-wavelength astrophysics in South Africa,” said Prof. Meintjes. At the inaugural lecture were, from the left: Prof. Hendrik Swart, head of the Department of Physics, Prof. Meintjes, Prof. Teuns Verschoor, Acting Rector, and Prof. Herman van Schalkwyk, Dean of the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences at the UFS.
Photo: Stephen Collett |