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Order Of Mapungubwe
The Order of Mapungubwe is a South African civilian honour awarded by the President of South Africa. It recognises South African citizens whose achievements have international impact and serve the interests of South Africa. It is South Africa's highest honour. The order is named after the ancient civilisation of Mapungubwe, which was located in modern-day South Africa. It was instituted on 6 December 2002, and its first recipient (in the highest class) was former president Nelson Mandela Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela ( , ; born Rolihlahla Mandela; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist and politician who served as the first president of South Africa f .... Classes The order originally had three classes, and was enlarged to four in 2004: * Platinum (OMP), for exceptional and unique achievements; * Gold (OMG), for exceptional achievements; * Silver (OMS), for excellent achievements; and * Bron ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
President Of South Africa
The president of South Africa is the head of state and head of government of the Republic of South Africa. The president directs the executive branch of the government and is the commander-in-chief of the South African National Defence Force. Between 1961 and 1994, the office of head of state was the state presidency. The president is elected by the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, and is usually the leader of the largest party, which has been the African National Congress since the first multiracial election was held on 27 April 1994. The Constitution limits the president's time in office to two five-year terms. The first president to be elected under the new constitution was Nelson Mandela. The incumbent is Cyril Ramaphosa, who was elected by the National Assembly on 15 February 2018 following the resignation of Jacob Zuma. Under the interim constitution (valid from 1994–96), there was a Government of National Unity, in which a member of Parliament ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hamilton Naki
Hamilton Naki (26 June 1926 – 29 May 2005) was a South African laboratory assistant known for his contributions to surgical research and medical training despite having no formal medical training. He worked with cardiac surgeon Christiaan Barnard at the University of Cape Town, where he was involved with organ transplant research on animals and trained medical students in surgical techniques. His contributions to medical science, particularly in an era of racial segregation and apartheid, have been recognized as remarkable. Following his death, controversy arose regarding false claims in multiple obituaries, including those published by at least five periodicals and the Associated Press, that stated he participated in the world's first human-to-human heart transplantation in 1967. These statements were later retracted due to lack of evidence. The incident has been cited as an example of inadequate fact-checking in journalism, and delayed correction of reporting errors. E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seed Science
In botany, a seed is a plant structure containing an embryo and stored nutrients in a protective coat called a ''testa''. More generally, the term "seed" means anything that can be sown, which may include seed and husk or tuber. Seeds are the product of the ripened ovule, after the embryo sac is fertilized by sperm from pollen, forming a zygote. The embryo within a seed develops from the zygote and grows within the mother plant to a certain size before growth is halted. The formation of the seed is the defining part of the process of reproduction in seed plants (spermatophytes). Other plants such as ferns, mosses and liverworts, do not have seeds and use water-dependent means to propagate themselves. Seed plants now dominate biological niches on land, from forests to grasslands both in hot and cold climates. In the flowering plants, the ovary ripens into a fruit which contains the seed and serves to disseminate it. Many structures commonly referred to as "seeds" are actually ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Patricia Berjak
Patricia Berjak (29 December 1939 – 21 January 2015) was a South African botanist known for her work on the biology of plant seeds, especially seed recalcitrance. She was professor for 48 years at the University of Kwazulu-Natal (UKZN). She earned a B.Sc. degree in biochemistry at the University of the Witwatersrand (1962), then went on to the University of Natal (now UKZN), earning a M.Sc. in mammalian physiology and biochemistry (1966) and PhD in seed biology (1969). She was a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa, and a Fellow of the University of Natal, the Royal Society of South Africa and the Third World Academy of Sciences The World Academy of Sciences for the advancement of science in developing countries (TWAS) is a merit-based science academy established for developing countries, uniting more than 1,400 scientists in some 100 countries. Its principal aim is t .... She was awarded the Order of Mapungubwe (Silver) in 2006. References Further rea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lionel Opie
Lionel Henry Opie (6 May 1933 – 20 February 2020) was a South African cardiologist. He was a professor of medicine at the University of Cape Town, where he conducted both experimental and clinical research on heart disease and cardiovascular physiology, metabolism, and pharmacology. He was the founding director of the university's Hatter Institute for Cardiovascular Research and the founding editor of the '' Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology''. He also served as president of the International Society for Heart Research. Early life and career Opie was born on 6 May 1933 in Hanover, a small town in the Karoo region of South Africa. He attended Bishops Diocesan College in Cape Town. His interest in medicine was inspired by the example of his father, who was a district surgeon, and by the discovery of penicillin. He attended the University of Cape Town, graduating in 1955 with first-class honours. He served his medical internship at the nearby Groote Schuur Hospital ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Francis Rayner Ellis
George Francis Rayner Ellis, FRS, Hon. FRSSAf (born 11 August 1939), is the emeritus distinguished professor of complex systems in the Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He co-authored ''The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time'' with University of Cambridge physicist Stephen Hawking, published in 1973, and is considered one of the world's leading theorists in cosmology. From 1989 to 1992 he served as president of the International Society on General Relativity and Gravitation. He is a past president of the International Society for Science and Religion. He is an A-rated researcher with the NRF. Ellis, an active Quaker, was a vocal opponent of apartheid during the National Party reign in the 1970s and 1980s, and it is during this period that Ellis's research focused on the more philosophical aspects of cosmology, for which he won the Templeton Prize in 2004. He was also awarded the Order of the Star of South Afric ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Selig Percy Amoils
Selig Percy Amoils , born 1933, is a South African ophthalmologist and biomedical engineering inventor."Presentation of National Orders - 27 September 2006: Selig Percy Amoils (1933 – )." Accessed October 20, 2006. In 1965, Amoils refined the cryoextraction method of by developing a cryoprobe that was cooled through the [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Himla Soodyall
Himla (Himladevi) Soodyall (b Durban, 1963) is a South African geneticist involved in finding some of the oldest human genetic lines, mainly focusing on Sub-Saharan Africa. Her work on DNA has pointed to southern Africa as the most likely geographic region of origin of the human species. She is Director of thHuman Genomic Diversity and Disease Research Laboratory National Health Laboratory Service at the University of the Witwatersrand. She was awarded a Bronze Order of Mapungubwe in 2005 for her "Outstanding contributions in the field of science" in South Africa. Education Soodyall was born in Durban and educated at Gandhi-Desai High School before obtaining a BSc and BScHons at the University of Durban-Westville and an MSc in biotechnology from the University of the Witwatersrand. Her PhD, on human population and evolutionary genetics, was obtained in 1993 under the supervision of Trefor Jenkins. Career Soodyall spent 4 years on a Fogarty International Fellowship (from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tebello Nyokong
Tebello Nyokong (born 20 October 1951) is a South African chemist and distinguished professor at Rhodes University. She is currently researching photo-dynamic therapy, an alternative cancer treatment method to chemotherapy. In 2007, she was one of the top three publishing scientists in South Africa. Early life and education Tebello Nyokong was born in Maseru, Lesotho on 20 October 1951 but spent most of her youth in South Africa.Tebello Nyokong - South African Government Retrieved 9 May 2024 Nyokong came from a poor background facing challenging circumstances. After being sent to live with her grandparents in the mountains of Lesotho she partitioned her childhood caring for sheep and going to school. Nyokong ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Nabarro
Frank Reginald Nunes Nabarro MBE OMS FRS (7 March 1916 – 20 July 2006) was an English-born South African physicist and one of the pioneers of solid-state physics, which underpins much of 21st-century technology. Education Born 7 March 1916 in London, UK, into a Sephardi Jewish family, he studied at Nottingham High School, then at New College, Oxford where he obtained a first-class honours degree in physics in 1937 and another in mathematics in 1938. At the University of Bristol his work under Professor Nevill Francis Mott, a future Nobel Laureate in physics, earned him the Oxford degree of BSc (then equivalent to an MSc elsewhere). Then followed an M.A. in 1945. Within a few years he had risen to a leading role in the field of crystal lattice dislocations and plasticity. In this period he wrote a number of seminal papers which are still cited. Later papers and the books that he published cemented his dominance of the field. (See also Egon Orowan) Military and academic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aaron Klug
Sir Aaron Klug (11 August 1926 – 20 November 2018) was a British biophysicist and chemist. He was a winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his development of crystallographic electron microscopy and his structural elucidation of biologically important nucleic acid-protein complexes. Early life and education Klug was born in Želva, in Lithuania, to Jewish parents Lazar, a cattleman, and Bella (née Silin) Klug, with whom he emigrated to South Africa at the age of two. He was educated at Durban High School. Paul de Kruif's 1926 book, '' Microbe Hunters'', aroused his interest in microbiology. Klug was part of the Hashomer Hatzair Jewish Zionist youth movement in South Africa. He started to study microbiology, but then moved into physics and maths, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree at the University of the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg. He studied physics under Reginald W. James and obtained his Master of Science degree at the University of Cape Town. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daya Reddy
Batmanathan Dayanand (Daya) Reddy (born 10 March 1953) is a South African scientist. He is Professor Emeritus of Applied Mathematics and served as interim Vice Chancellor (President) at the University of Cape Town between March 2023 and July 2024. Reddy held the South African Research Chair in Computational and Applied Mechanics from 2007 to 2021, and is a former director of the Centre for Research in Computational and Applied Mechanics (CERECAM) there. From 2018 to 2021, he was the inaugural president of the International Science Council. Career After completing a bachelor's degree in civil engineering at the University of Cape Town and a PhD degree at Cambridge University, Reddy pursued postdoctoral study at the University College London, then returned to Cape Town, where he migrated eventually from joint appointments in civil engineering and applied mathematics to a chair in applied mathematics. He served as dean of faculty of science at UCT for seven years from 1999, and th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
