An award-winning project by UCT landscape architecture student Tara McCaughey illustrates that the Cape Town suburb of Woodstock remains a beacon of hope in a country where inner-city degeneration has taken a heavy toll.

McCaughey collected the prestigious Corobrik award for the Most Innovative Final-Year Landscape Architecture Project at UCT, together with a R7 000 prize, for proposing a living system that not only celebrates everyday activities through the creation of a network of public squares and streetscapes, but also provides an opportunity for nature's processes to occur.

Corobrik's manager for the Western Cape, Christie van Niekerk, said the award shows how South Africa's future landscape architects are rising to meet increasingly complex challenges.

In a role that will help shape policy-making in South Africa, University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business professor and emerging-market economics expert John Luiz has been named a national member of the Council of Statistics South Africa.

Responsible for all social and economic statistics in the country - ranging from censuses, to monthly and quarterly reports on the Consumer Price Index, to official unemployment rates - Statistics South Africa plays a key role in ensuring that decision- and policy-making in the country is informed by accurate statistics.

Carbohydrate intolerance is the root cause of many modern human ailments, and much heartache could potentially be avoided by testing individuals' tolerance of what has become a ubiquitous source of energy, argues Professor Tim Noakes.

Speaking last month at an open lecture hosted by the UCT Heritage Society in partnership with the UCT Summer School, Noakes, who holds the Discovery Health Chair of Exercise and Sports Science, expanded on his thesis - "and this is not one that is widely taught, or believed" - that chronic diseases are largely based on insulin resistance.

"We are either profoundly carbohydrate-tolerant, or we're normal, or we're carbohydrate-intolerant. It's different for each and every one of us," he said.

Copies of The Real Meal Revolution - the bestseller co-written by Noakes and three others - have sold out in all major cities around the world.

Author and physician Dr T Lee Baumann recently received a gold pin from UCT Vice-Chancellor Dr Max Price, marking his entry into the Chancellor's Circle.

The Chancellor's Circle pin was in acknowledgement of Baumann's donation of R800 000 for the establishment of the God at the Speed of Light scholarship for African students studying at UCT.

Baumann is the author of God at the Speed of Light and many other books on spirituality and quantum physics. He has established 32 God at the Speed of Light scholarships at various institutions in America, and now in South Africa.