Browsing by Author "Cherry, Michael"
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- ItemCouncil for Higher Education kowtows to Makgoba(AOSIS, 2011-02) Cherry, MichaelThe recent decision by the Council for Higher Education to suppress the publication of its audit of the University of KwaZulu-Natal bodes ill for the council’s reputation, as it sets a dangerous precedent.
- ItemHow could South Africa produce more PhDs?(AOSIS OpenJournals, 2010-11-19) Cherry, MichaelThe Academy of Science of South Africa’s PhD report, released in October, provides an incisive analysis of why the country’s doctoral production remains low. Most of its recommendations are sound, although that of large-scale training of South African doctorates overseas is probably a pipedream.
- ItemMathematicians aim to secure the next generation(Academy of Science of South Africa, 2003) Cherry, MichaelA new institute aspires to become a continental centre for mathematics teaching, starting with an advanced diploma course for graduates. It has the potential to address some of the existing problems in mathematics education at school level.
- ItemSouth Africa : serious about biodiversity science(Public Library of Science (PLOS), 2005-05) Cherry, MichaelIn 1772, Carolus Linnaeus wrote a letter, now oft-quoted, to Ryk Tulbagh, the Governor of the Cape—in which he envied Tulbagh’s “sovereign control of that Paradise on Earth, the Cape of Good Hope, which the benefi cent Creator has enriched with his choicest wonders”. Two and a half centuries later, South Africa’s biodiversity remains a great source of interest to the scientifi c community—and for good reason. Plant biodiversity, with over 20 000 different species, is in the foreground: South Africa, which comprises less than 1% of the world’s land surface, contains 8% of its plant species. Perhaps less well known is that the country also contains 7% of all bird, mammal, and reptile species, and 15% of known coastal marine species.
- ItemWhat can museum and herbarium collections tell us about climate change?(AOSIS, 2009-04) Cherry, MichaelIn 1926—the year of my late mother’s birth—the South African Museum conducted a collecting trip to South West Africa (now Namibia). The participants went by train to Windhoek, where they hired ox wagons, in which they spent three months travelling to the Kunene River and back. The staff walked beside the wagon train each day, collecting specimens as they walked to supplement the museum’s collection. Over eighty years later, is there much that biological collections such as these can tell us about climate change?