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50% of you think that the South African Government has the potential to make the biggest impact on reducing carbon emissions in South Africa; |
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8% opted for the technology sector; and |
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42% opted for private industry. |
Shuttle Discovery landed for the last time at Florida’s Kennedy Space Centre on 9 March 2011. Discovery has completed 39 space voyages (its first being on 30 August 1984), has spent a total of 365 days in space and travelled more than 238 million kilometres during it’s lifetime.
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Vanessa Lynch, head of the DNA Project. |
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Dr Carolyn Hancock, a director of the DNA Project. |
Evidence is more often than not the deciding factor as to whether a criminal is found guilty or innocent. The first people on the scene of a crime need to keep everything exactly as they found it, not touch anything and make sure no one tampers with evidence. There is now training available that can educate you on doing just this.
The Public Understanding of Biotechonology (PUB) Programme awarded a grant to an NGO, the DNA Project, to conduct workshops on crime scene awareness and forensics to learners in Grades 9-12 as well as members of the public. A total of 25 workshops have been completed to date.
Vanessa Lynch heads the DNA Project, a non-profit, Public Benefit Organisation. She is a qualified commercial attorney who left her job in 2005 to run the DNA Project on a full-time basis. After her father was murdered during a robbery in 2004 she realised the vital role that DNA evidence plays in investigating crime and began lobbying to expand the existing DNA database in South Africa.
Dr Carolyn Hancock, one of the DNA Project’s directors and a well-recognised researcher who has extensive knowledge of the fields of general genetics and science education, assists Lynch.
The DNA Project’s training programme first began with the training of security guards on how to deal with forensic evidence. Lynch and Hancock soon realised that the training should be extended to a larger audience, the public should also be engaged and dialogue encouraged. Since forensic analysis is closely associated with biotechnology, an ideal opportunity arose for a partnership between PUB (whose mandate is to ensure public engagement with biotechnology) and the DNA Project to move ahead with its training programme.
An impact assessment will be done on the training that the DNA Project did in collaboration with PUB, after which further mutual beneficial projects may be considered, such as extensions of the training programme.