American astrophysicist William H. Pickering, whose contributions to space technologies have been central to space exploration, and Arvid Carlsson, a Swedish neuropsychopharmacologist who discovered dopamine as a neurotransmitter and its role in mental and motor functions and disorders, have been named recipients of the 1994 Japan Prize. At about $467,000 for each recipient, the prize, to be presented in a ceremony in Tokyo in April, is one of the world's richest scientific awards.
Pickering, an 83-year-old emeritus professor of the California Institute of Technology, is being honored in the category of aerospace technologies for "leadership in unmanned lunar and planetary exploration and for pioneering achievement in the development of spacecraft and deep-space communications," according to the Tokyo-based Science and Technology Foundation of Japan, which awards the prize.
After obtaining a Ph.D. in physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1936 and while an assistant professor of engineering there, Pickering ...
