A beer pioneer, South Africa's first Black female brewery owner trains a new generation
'When you are brewing you must constantly check your mixture,' Nxusani-Mawela instructs them. 'We are looking for a balance between the sugar and the grains.'
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Winnipeg Free Press
9 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
‘Lord of the Rings' director backs long shot de-extinction plan, starring New Zealand's lost moa
WASHINGTON (AP) — Filmmaker Peter Jackson owns one of the largest private collections of bones of an extinct New Zealand bird called the moa. His fascination with the flightless ostrich-like bird has led to an unusual partnership with a biotech company known for its grand and controversial plans to bring back lost species. On Tuesday, Colossal Biosciences announced an effort to genetically engineer living birds to resemble the extinct South Island giant moa – which once stood 12 feet (3.6 meters) tall – with $15 million in funding from Jackson and his partner Fran Walsh. The collaboration also includes the New Zealand-based Ngāi Tahu Research Centre. 'The movies are my day job, and the moa are my fun thing I do,' said Jackson. 'Every New Zealand schoolchild has a fascination with the moa.' Outside scientists say the idea of bringing back extinct species onto the modern landscape is likely impossible, although it may be feasible to tweak the genes of living animals to have similar physical traits. Scientists have mixed feelings on whether that will be helpful, and some worry that focusing on lost creatures could distract from protecting species that still exist. The moa had roamed New Zealand for 4,000 years until they became extinct around 600 years ago, mainly because of overhunting. A large skeleton brought to England in the 19th century, now on display at the Yorkshire Museum, prompted international interest in the long-necked bird. Unlike Colossal's work with dire wolves, the moa project is in very early stages. It started with a phone call about two years ago after Jackson heard about the company's efforts to 'de-extinct' – or create genetically similar animals to – species like the woolly mammoth and the dire wolf. Then Jackson put Colossal in touch with experts he'd met through his own moa bone-collecting. At that point, he'd amassed between 300 and 400 bones, he said. In New Zealand, it's legal to buy and sell moa bones found on private lands, but not on public conservation areas – nor to export them. The first stage of the moa project will be to identify well-preserved bones from which it may be possible to extract DNA, said Colossal's chief scientist Beth Shapiro. Those DNA sequences will be compared to genomes of living bird species, including the ground-dwelling tinamou and emu, 'to figure out what it is that made the moa unique compared to other birds,' she said. Colossal used a similar process of comparing ancient DNA of extinct dire wolves to determine the genetic differences with gray wolves. Then scientists took blood cells from a living gray wolf and used CRISPR to genetically modify them in 20 different sites. Pups with long white hair and muscular jaws were born late last year. Working with birds presents different challenges, said Shapiro. Unlike mammals, bird embryos develop inside eggs, so the process of transferring an embryo to a surrogate will not look like mammalian IVF. 'There's lots of different scientific hurdles that need to be overcome with any species that we pick as a candidate for de-extinction,' said Shapiro. 'We are in the very early stages.' If the Colossal team succeeds in creating a tall bird with huge feet and thick pointed claws resembling the moa, there's also the pressing question of where to put it, said Duke University ecologist Stuart Pimm, who is not involved in the project. 'Can you put a species back into the wild once you've exterminated it there?' he said. 'I think it's exceedingly unlikely that they could do this in any meaningful way.' 'This will be an extremely dangerous animal,' Pimm added. The direction of the project will be shaped by Māori scholars at the University of Canterbury's Ngāi Tahu Research Centre. Ngāi Tahu archaeologist Kyle Davis, an expert in moa bones, said the work has 'really reinvigorated the interest in examining our own traditions and mythology.' At one of the archaeological sites that Jackson and Davis visited to study moa remains, called Pyramid Valley, there are also antique rock art done by Māori people – some depicting moa before their extinction. Paul Scofield, a project adviser and senior curator of natural history at the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch, New Zealand, said he first met the 'Lord of the Rings' director when he went to his house to help him identity which of the nine known species of moa the various bones represented. 'He doesn't just collect some moa bones – he has a comprehensive collection,' said Scofield. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Toronto Star
2 days ago
- Toronto Star
A beer pioneer, South Africa's first Black female brewery owner trains a new generation
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — After pouring brown, gritty liquid from a huge silver tank into a flute-like container known as a refractometer, South African beer brewing master Apiwe Nxusani-Mawela gives an expert nod of approval and passes it around to her students, who yell their observations with glee. 'When you are brewing you must constantly check your mixture,' Nxusani-Mawela instructs them. 'We are looking for a balance between the sugar and the grains.'
Winnipeg Free Press
3 days ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
A beer pioneer, South Africa's first Black female brewery owner trains a new generation
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — After pouring brown, gritty liquid from a huge silver tank into a flute-like container known as a refractometer, South African beer brewing master Apiwe Nxusani-Mawela gives an expert nod of approval and passes it around to her students, who yell their observations with glee. 'When you are brewing you must constantly check your mixture,' Nxusani-Mawela instructs them. 'We are looking for a balance between the sugar and the grains.' The 41-year-old Nxusani-Mawela is an international beer judge and taster, and is believed to be the first Black woman in South Africa to own a craft brewery, a breakthrough in a world largely dominated by men and big corporations. Her desire is to open South Africa's multibillion-dollar beer-brewing industry to more Black people and more women. At her microbrewery in Johannesburg, she's teaching 13 young Black graduates — most of them women — the art of beer making. The science behind brewing The students at the Brewsters Academy have chemical engineering, biotechnology or analytical chemistry degrees and diplomas, but are eager to get themselves an extra qualification for a possible career in brewing. Wearing hairnets and armed with barley grains and water, the scientists spend the next six hours on the day's lesson, learning how to malt, mill, mash, lauter, boil, ferment and filter to make the perfect pale ale. 'My favorite part is the mashing,' said Lerato Banda, a 30-year-old chemical engineering student at the University of South Africa who has dreams of owning her own beer or beverage line. She's referring to the process of mixing crushed grains with hot water to release sugars, which will later ferment. 'It's where the beer and everything starts.' Nxusani-Mawela's classes began in early June. Students will spend six months exploring beer varieties, both international and African, before another six months on work placement. Beer is for everyone Nxusani-Mawela's Tolokazi brewery is in the Johannesburg suburb of Wynberg, wedged between the poor Black township of Alexandra on one side and the glitzy financial district of Sandton — known as Africa's richest square mile — on the other. She hails from the rural town of Butterworth, some 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) away, and first came across the idea of a career in beer at a university open day in Johannesburg. She started brewing as an amateur in 2007. She has a microbiology degree and sees beer making as a good option for those with a science background. 'I sort of fell in love with the combination of the business side with the science, with the craftsmanship and the artistic element of brewing,' she said. For the mother of two boys, beer brewing is also ripe for a shakeup. 'I wanted to make sure that being the first Black female to own a brewery in South Africa, that I'm not the first and the last,' she said. 'Brewsters Academy for me is about transforming the industry … What I want to see is that in five, 10 years from now that it should be a norm to have Black people in the industry, it should be a norm to have females in the industry.' South Africa's beer industry supports more than 200,000 jobs and contributes $5.2 billion to South Africa's gross domestic product, according to the most current Oxford Economics research in 'Beer's Global Economic Footprint.' While South Africa's brewing sector remains male-dominated, like most places, efforts are underway to include more women. One young woman at the classes, 24-year-old Lehlohonolo Makhethe, noted women were historically responsible for brewing beer in some African cultures, and she sees learning the skill as reclaiming a traditional role. 'How it got male dominated, I don't know,' Makhethe said. 'I'd rather say we are going back to our roots as women to doing what we started.' With an African flavor While Nxusani-Mawela teaches all kinds of styles, she also is on a mission to keep alive traditional African beer for the next generation. Her Wild African Soul beer, a collaboration with craft beer company Soul Barrel Brewing, was the 2025 African Beer Cup champion. It's a blend of African Umqombothi beer — a creamy brew incorporating maize and sorghum malt — with a fruity, fizzy Belgian Saison beer. 'Umqombothi is our African way, and everybody should know how to make it, but we don't,' she said. 'I believe that the beer styles that we make need to reflect having an element of our past being brought into the future.' She's used all sorts of uniquely African flavors in her Tolokazi line, including the marula fruit and the rooibos bush that's native to South Africa and better-known for being used in a popular caffeine-free tea. 'Who could have thought of rooibos beer?' said Lethabo Seipei Kekae after trying the beer for the first time at a beer festival. 'It's so smooth. Even if you are not a beer drinker, you can drink it.' ___ AP Africa news:
