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Nick Sloane regaled Old Boys at the Cape
Town branch’s October gathering, giving them
details of the remarkable salvage of the Costa
Concordia, as a result of which he found himself
pursued by media from across the globe.
From Left:
Doug Howieson (1969),
Derek Foster (1967), George Robinson
(2006), Angelo van Dyk (2006), John Wood
(1970), Peter Engels (1963), Bill Currer
(1963), Lillian Currer and Nick Sloane.
Front
:
Bruce Clemence (1970), Charles Foster (1970).
C
ertainly one of Kearsney’s most
high profile Old Boys this year has
been Captain Nick Sloane (1978,
Pembroke), senior salvage master and
international hero of the raising of the
Costa Concordia which ran aground off
the Tuscan island of Isola del Giglio in
January 2012.
After many months of precision planning,
the luxury passenger liner was raised to
an upright position during September,
ready to be towed to a mainland harbour
next year, in what was the biggest marine
salvage operation ever undertaken. Nick
is a veteran of many high-profile salvage
operations and is considered one of the
world’s best in his field.
“It is the most engineered salvage recovery
operation ever undertaken,” he said. “The
large size of the Concordia – almost three
football fields long and 114 000 tons in
H
enry and his team are attempting
to reverse engineer an entire brain,
one neuron at a time, to better
understand, treat and prevent mental
illness, traumatic brain injuries, behavioural
problems and neurological disorders such
as Alzheimer’s and epilepsy. He believes
that understanding the human brain is
one of the greatest challenges facing 21st
century science; and will provide profound
insight in the development of new
treatments for brain diseases.
The project models components of
the mammalian brain to precise cellular
detail, and simulates their activity in 3D.
Henry’s ambition is, within 10 years, to
unite all existing knowledge about the
human brain and to reconstruct it, bit by
bit, in supercomputer-based models and
simulations.
In the basement of his university in
Switzerland are four black boxes, each
about the size of a refrigerator, and filled
3
| Vol 11 December 2013
Greyhound News |
4
NOTABLE ALUMNI
NOTABLE ALUMNI
Kearsney was privileged
to have internationally
renowned neuroscientist
Professor Henry Markram
(1980, Gillingham) address
the school about the
billion euro Human Brain
Project which he heads at
the Swiss Federal Institute
for Technology (EPFL) in
Lausanne.
A brave new world
weight – meant that the scale was outside
of what had been achieved previously.”
Born in Kitwe, Zambia, Nick’s first
experience of life afloat was sailing on
Midmar Dam and in Durban harbour.
When not involved in marine salvage
operations in some remote spot on the
globe, Nick lives in Somerset West with his
wife Sandra and their three children.
High
Sea
Drama
with 2 000 IBM microchips stacked in
repeating rows. Together they form the
processing core of a machine that can
handle 22.8 trillion operations per second.
There are no moving parts and it is eerily
silent. When the computer is turned on,
the only sound is the continuous sigh of
the massive air conditioner. This is Blue
Brain.
Henry believes strongly in collaborative
science, where the strengths and diversity
of scientists from around the world, with
different areas of speciality, are harnessed.
They share research and findings to
advance science at a greater pace.
On his first visit back to Kearsney in
over 30 years, Prof Henry Markram
addressed boys, staff and the media,
before spending time with members
of Kearsney’s 12 Club (top Grade
12 academic achievers) who were
inspired and captivated by their
interaction with him.