... sense of humour: the informationdemands in genomicsarestaggering. The genomecontainstwokinds of digitalinformation,onethatencodes the proteinandRNA‘molecularmachines of life’,and the otherbeing the regulatorynetworksthatspecifyhowthesegenesareexpressed in time,spaceandamplitude.DNAinformation is layeredandarranged in ahierarchy,startingwith the gene,then the RNA, then the protein, then the protein interactions, then the proteincomplexes,then the networks of proteincomplexes in a ... waspreserved in Arabicmanuscripts’(Lewontin199 5: 148).There is noquestionthat the libraries of Alexandriawerecentralto the cityand the broadregionincludingwhattoday is the Middle-East,NorthAfricaandmuch of CentralandWesternEurope;thattheywerenot the onlyonestoexistbutwerepart of alargerset of institutionstoemergefrom the concatenations of cultural,scholarlyandotherareas of learningandapplication of whatwerethen the advancedsocieties of thispart of the world. The agency of theirruin is notsocertain,neither is itclearwhatitwas in volumeandsubstance that the librariesactually contained. The institutionwascreatedbyPtolemyISoterfirstasamuseumtowhichhissonPtolemyPhiladelphusaddedalibrary.ItwasJuliusCaesar,someclaimed,whodestroyed the library,othersput the blameonChristianmobs,andyetotherspeddle the storythatitwas‘[o]n the orders of Omar,Caliph ... academies of sciencetoassess the quality,scaleanddepth of the teaching of modernbiologyatallAfricanuniversities.Adisturbingtrend is thatorganisationsthataremakinganameforthemselves in thisareaareincreasinglyuninvolved in the teachingarena,andindeedseeitasaburden,whichmeans the benefits of newknowledgeremainlockedup in the corporationorgovernmentdepartmentor in the narrowhalls of the institute.What is the use of thatforfuturegenerations,andhowdisturbingit is for the vocation of educationtobereduced in suchamanner? The success of seriousbiologicalscience in Singapore,saysSydneyBrenner,wasnotsimply the investmentfromgovernment,whichwasindeedgenerous,buthavingacriticalmass of scientists,postdoctoralstudentsanduniversitydepartmentstocarry the initiativeforwardwiththeirexpertiseandenergy–andlookat the resultstheyachieved.It is, from the point of view of research,obviously the casethatmanyscientists in Africadoongoingresearch of greatimportance,andjudgingby the workdoneat the 2004Cairo, the 2003Spierandotherdiscipline-basedconferencesthathappenall the time,wearenotacomplacentcommunity.It is, though,alsoquitestriking,ifnotaltogetherunsurprising,thatAfricanorAfrican-trainedscientistswhoreceivewhat is regardedas the pinnacle of globalrecognitionbyway of the NobelPrizes in ChemistryandPhysiologyandMedicineinvitesuchrecognitionbyvirtue of workdoneatresearchlaboratoriesatuniversitiesorinstitutes in the North,andspecifically in the UnitedStatesandUnitedKingdom. In thesecountriesthereareabundantresources,...