Culture of South Africa originated in South Africa. The first human-to-human heart transplant was performed by cardiac surgeon Christiaan Barnard at Groote Schuur Hospital in December 1967. Max Theiler developed a vaccine against Yellow Fever, Allan McLeod Cormack pioneered x-ray Computed tomography, and Aaron Klug developed crystallographic electron microscopy techniques. These advancements were all (with the exception of that of Barnard) recognised with Nobel Prizes. Sydney Brenner won most recently, in 2002, for his pioneering work in molecular biology. Mark Shuttleworth founded an early Internet security company Thawte, that was subsequently bought out by world-leader VeriSign. South Africa has cultivated a burgeoning astronomy community.
Nobel Prize controversies to LIGO, which led to the detection of gravitational waves. Despite the contributions of the upwards of a thousand scientists and engineers in LIGO, the Nobel Committee continued its tradition of only awarding the prize to three physicists. All three winners commented saying that the prize belongs to the entire LIGO Collaboration (LSC). Thorne said "It is unfortunate that, due to the statutes of the Nobel Foundation, the prize has to go to no more than three people, when our marvelous discovery is the work of more than a thousand." The 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics, awarded to Isamu Akasaki,