Graduation leads, please

We are appealing for interesting graduation stories for the last edition of Monday Paper for 2005. This will be devoted to chronicling the incredible, the intelligent, the illuminating and the inspiring at the culmination of our academic year. Perhaps one of your postgraduate students has discovered a new species of sea slug or conducted their research in the eyries of the Drakensberg or deep in the sludge of a sewerage plant. Or perhaps you have a record number of students graduating with first-class passes. You may even have a student on track for their second or even third PhD. This is the edition we celebrate family ties: moms and dads capping their progeny, relatives travelling from the far ends of the earth to celebrate in the Jameson Hall. We're looking for heart-warming stories and heart-racing discoveries - anything that celebrates our graduands and their many tutors, lecturers, administrators and various supporters. If you have any suggestions, please send details to Helen Théron.

Oops

Last week (MP 24#27) we used a stunning image of the bird flu virus, H5N1, with our cover story, Birds of a deadly feather. We unfortunately omitted to credit Russell Kightley Media, which produced this and other eye-popping medical illustrations. We apologise for this oversight. To see more of Kightley's arresting work, feel free to visit www.rkm.com.au. We wish to thank both Kightley and Prof Ed Rybicki of the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology for kindly making the image available to us.

Dr Craig Venter presentation

J Craig Venter is regarded as one of the leading scientists of the 21st century. He is founder and president of the J Craig Venter Institute and the J Craig Venter Science Foundation, not-for-profit, research and support organisations dedicated to human genomic research, to exploration of social and ethical issues in genomics, and to seeking alternative energy solutions through microbial sources. He is currently circumnavigating the globe in a yacht, using his shotgun genome collecting technique to collect samples from the world's oceans for genome research. He will be making a stop in Cape Town this week and will make a presentation at UCT on Friday, 11 November, in the Baxter Concert Hall at 11h30 for 12h00. For tickets to the presentation, please contact Ursula Ross on 650 4436