Coffee in the morning ...

Our ability to smell is one of those interesting problems of biology. We are able to instantly smell a molecule our noses never ever encountered before.

'This is impossible' writes Chadler Burr in her book The Emperor of Scent (2004, London, p.10) for the only thing our bodies instantaneously recognise must surely be stored in memory.

Our digestive system, for example, only instantaneously recognises those food molecules our ancestors encountered before. Over the thousands of years our bodies have evolved a system of a one-to-one match between what is known as an enzyme - the agent of digestion - and the molecule it must break down.

The Living History project kicked off in Cape Town on Saturday 8 September. Over 300 people, including Mayor Helen Zille, gathered at the Mallet Centre at the Diocesan College in Claremont.

Dr Wilmot James led participants on a quick tour of 200,000 years of human history as he set the scene for the understanding of migration patterns that led to the current demographic state of the world. Participants then scraped the insides of their cheeks with swabs to collect skin cells and now await their results.

The next Living History event is to take place in Durban. The provisional date for this is Thursday, 18th October in the Colin Webb Hall. More details will be released closer to the time.

Our ancient ancestor

I propose the introduction of a new field of study called the Molecular Humanities. It is about exploring the meaning of discovering and describing molecules and their structures. It is affects every field of existing knowledge, cutting through the boundaries of fields of enquiry, as we know it.

Most people know what it is I am talking about in the field of medicine and health. Discovering molecular structures like dysfunctional DNA leads to much better understanding – and potentially, diagnosis and treatment of – disease. The UCT Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine are for example about that very connection.

Understanding molecular structure is also becoming increasing useful for understanding human mental states and therefore mental disease. The balance of chemicals in the brain that provide for stability and instability has a repertoire shaped – even determined – by large protein molecules.