WIKIMEDIA, JANE GITSCHIERBritish geneticist Mary Lyon died near the end of 2014 (December 25) at age 89. Lyon graduated from the University of Cambridge in 1946, a time when women did not officially receive degrees from the institution. In 1961, she developed the idea of X-chromosome inactivation, the random switching off of one of the two X chromosomes in each cell of female animals. “In her own quiet way, she was a tremendous inspiration and supporter of young scientists and all those who were starting out a career in genetics,” the Medical Research Council Harwell, where Lyon worked from 1955 to 1990, stated in a news release. The process of X-inactivation is also known as “lyonization” in honor of her theory.
JOHNS HOPKINS MEDICINEVernon Mountcastle, the neuroscientist who mapped the functional landscape of the mammalian neocortex, died early this year (January 11) at age 96. In the 1950s, he was recording neurons in the cat neocortex when he recognized a pattern: those neurons that responded similarly to a stimulus—say, a particular type of touch—were stacked on top of one another. Though his results were controversial at the time, his conclusions were independently confirmed. “He was one of the great giants in neuroscience research,” Solomon Snyder, Mountcastle’s colleague at Johns Hopkins, told The Washington Post.
WIKIMEDIA, NIBIBCharles Townes, who won the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics for his invention of the laser, died last winter (January 27) at the age of 99. As part of a US Navy effort to use microwaves to enhance communications, Townes came up with the laser’s predecessor, the maser, in 1951. Later, Townes replaced the microwaves with infrared light to create the laser; the first such was built in 1960. Townes was “one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century,” Ahmed Zewail of Caltech told the Los Angeles Times.
WIKIMEDIA, CHEMICAL HERITAGE FOUNDATION
Carl Djerassi, who synthesized a hormone that was key to the creation of the birth control pill, died this past winter (January 30) at age 91. Djerassi made his pioneering discoveries on cortisone, menstrual disorders, and cancer at drug company Syntex in Mexico City, The New York Times reported. “Yes, ...
