Spot the CV

[ingwe]

He co-wrote and presented the award-winning 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which has been seen by more than 600 million people in over 60 countries, making it the most widely watched PBS program in history.[

[Rigil Kent]

Carl Sagan - busy reading one of his books at the moment.

Here's a tricky one. Born in 1986, this young American man gained internet fame by posting a hilarious video in 2004 of himself dancing to a song by the Moldovan pop group O-zone called Dragostea din tei. This video alone arguably justifies the existence of the web cam. The video was watched an estimated 700 milion times, enough to secure him a Guinness book entry in 2008.

[ingwe]

numa numa?

[Rigil Kent]

Not bad! After all this time Gary Brolsma's Numa Numa clip still has the power to turn me from a big Grinch into a mere grouch in one minute flat.

Maiya Hee!!
Mintaka

[ingwe]

I was guessing and honestly did not know the name!

 He(November 30, 1866, Paisley – April 6, 1951) was a South African doctor and paleontologist. He qualified as a medical practitioner in 1895 and received his DSc in 1905 from the University of Glasgow. In 1893 he married Mary Baird Baillie.

From 1903 to 1910 he was professor of zoö and geology at Victoria College, Stellenbosch, South Africa, and subsequently he became keeper of vertebrate paleontology at the South African Museum, Cape Town.

[benguela]

(November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996)He was an American astronomer, astrochemist, author, and highly successful popularizer of astronomy, astrophysics and other natural sciences. He pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI).

He is world-famous for writing popular science books.  He also wrote the novel Contact, the basis for the 1997 Robert Zemeckis film of the same name starring Jodie Foster. During his lifetime, he published more than 600 scientific papers and popular articles and was author, co-author, or editor of more than 20 books. In his works, he frequently advocated skeptical inquiry, secular humanism, and the scientific method.

pick me, pick me .... John Steinbeck?

[ingwe]

(November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996)He was an American astronomer, astrochemist, author, and highly successful popularizer of astronomy, astrophysics and other natural sciences. He pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI).

He is world-famous for writing popular science books.  He also wrote the novel Contact, the basis for the 1997 Robert Zemeckis film of the same name starring Jodie Foster. During his lifetime, he published more than 600 scientific papers and popular articles and was author, co-author, or editor of more than 20 books. In his works, he frequently advocated skeptical inquiry, secular humanism, and the scientific method.

pick me, pick me .... John Steinbeck?

It was Carl Sagan as Mintaka said on the 14th

[ingwe]

He(November 30, 1866, Paisley – April 6, 1951) was a South African doctor and paleontologist. He qualified as a medical practitioner in 1895 and received his DSc in 1905 from the University of Glasgow. In 1893 he married Mary Baird Baillie.

From 1903 to 1910 he was professor of zoö and geology at Victoria College, Stellenbosch, South Africa, and subsequently he became keeper of vertebrate paleontology at the South African Museum, Cape Town.

He was first known for his study of mammal-like reptiles. After Raymond Dart's discovery of the Taung Child, an infant australopithecine, his interest in paleoanthropology was heightened. his career seemed over and he was sinking into poverty, when Dart wrote to Jan Smuts about the situation. Smuts exerting pressure on the South African government, managed to obtain a position for him, in 1934 with the staff of the Transvaal Museum in Pretoria as an Assistant in Palaeontology.

In the following years, he made a series of spectacular finds, including fragments from six hominids in Sterkfontein, which he named Plesianthropus transvaalensis, popularly called Mrs. Ples, but which was later classified as an adult Australopithecus africanus, as well as more discoveries at sites in Kromdraai and Swartkrans. In 1937, he made his most famous discovery of Paranthropus robustus. These discoveries helped support Dart's claims for the Taung species.

The remainder of his career was devoted to the exploration of these sites and the interpretation of the many early hominid remains discovered there. In 1946 he proposed the Australopithecinae subfamily. He continued to write to the very last. Shortly before his death he finished a monograph on the Australopithecines and remarked to his nephew:


"Now that's finished ... and so am I." [1]

[Rigil Kent]

Thanks for that interesting piece Ingwe. I for one need to brush up on my SA archeology!

Mintaka

[bluegray]

I think technically ingwe is still it, but I'm stealing it
I was thinking of this guy, but the timeline didn't match up:

He is a South African palaeoanthropologist and Professor Emeritus at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. He is best known for his pioneering work at South Africa's famous hominid fossil sites, and is one of the world's leading authorities on the evolution of humankind.
He is best known for his research on hominid fossils and human evolution, having studied and described hominid fossils from Indonesia, Israel, Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Zambia. His best known work was on the hominids of East Africa, particularly those of the Olduvai Gorge. Collaborating with Louis Leakey, he identified, described and named the new species Homo habilis. He is closely linked with the archaeological excavation at the Sterkfontein site, a research programme he initiated in 1966.
In 1959 he became Professor and Head of the Department of Anatomy and Human Biology, succeeding his mentor and eminent scholar, Professor Raymond Dart.

[Spike]

Robert Broom?

[ingwe]

Robert Broom?

Broom died in 1951. So he is out.

[ingwe]

I would put the initials as P V T

[Spike]

Ah man!!  Talk about not seeing the wood for the trees!  I attended some of his lectures, for FSM's sake.

Tobias.  Duh.  Phillip Tobias.

[bluegray]

  Spike, your turn.