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Prestigious Japan Prize To Be Awarded To Two Researchers From U.S., Sweden Obituary -- Dixy Lee Ray 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 joined the Jet Propulsion Laboratory as a research scientist in 1944. He remained there for the next 32 years, becoming director of JPL in 1954. He retired in 1976. In November 1957, shortly after the launch of the Soviet space satellite Sputnik, Pickering and his JPL colleagues were part of a team assigned to send up the United States' first artificial satellite. Pickering's lab developed the upper three stages of the launching rocket, the telemetry equipment for data transmission from the satellite's cosmic radiation measuring instrument, and the system integration of the payload. Less than three months later, Explorer 1 was launched. In 1959, Pickering led the design of Pioneer 4, which became the first U.S. man-made object to escape from Earth's gravitational field. Pickering's research also contributed to the lunar topography survey by the Ranger and Surveyor spacecraft, the Mariner series' exploration of Venus and Mars, and the soft landing by Viking on Mars. Pickering's communications, data acquisition, and tracking research and instrumentation have led to the deep-space tracking network, a system of three stations equipped with 70-meter parabolic antennae. He also developed coding and decoding systems, and numerous other space-related systems. Under Pickering, JPL labs developed some of the first technology for digital communications and digital image processing, making possible later advances such as high- definition television. Carlsson is to be given the prize in the category of psychology and psychiatry. His research contributed to the clarification of the functions of monoamines, especially dopamine, in the brain. The 71-year-old emeritus professor at Gothenburg University in Sweden discovered in the late 1950s the reversal of reserpine-induced akinesia and sedation by DOPA, a direct precursor of dopamine. He also found that dopamine serves a critical agonist function in the regulation of psychomotor activity. This was the first evidence that dopamine acts as a neurotransmitter in the brain and led to a new understanding of the role of dopamine in motor functions, especially in Parkinson's disease, enabling doctors to treat the ailment efficiently. It also revealed dopamine's role in mental functions and in the actions of psychotherapeutic drugs. In the early 1960s Carlsson published the first evidence that neuroleptics, or antipsychotic drugs, act by blocking dopamine receptors, facilitating the development of several new drugs to treat psychoses. Other dopamine-related discoveries since then by Carlsson have led to understanding of the pathogenesis of Parkinson's and disorders associated with cognitive, emotional, and endocrine functions. Carlsson received his M.D. from the University of Lund in 1951, and taught there until 1959, when he became a professor and chairman of the department of pharmacology at the University of Gothenburg. He remained chairman of the department until 1976 and became an emeritus professor at the university in 1989. --Phil Beck Obituary - Dixy Lee Ray Dixy Lee Ray , former governor of Washington state and an accomplished zoologist, died January 2 in Seattle. Ray had suffered from a severe bronchial condition for several months before her death, according to reports. She was 79 years old. Ray began her career as an associate professor of zoology at the University of Washington in 1945, a position she held for the next 27 years. In addition, she was director of the Pacific Science Center in Seattle from 1963 to 1972 and a special consultant in biological oceanography for the National Science Foundation from 1960 to 1963. Her public-service career started with a position as chairwoman of the Atomic Energy Commission from 1972 to 1975. She was appointed an assistant secretary of state, overseeing the Bureau of Oceans, International Environmental and Scientific Affairs in 1975, and served as governor from 1977 to 1981. Ray was a strong supporter of the nuclear industry and a harsh critic of environmental groups she deemed excessive in their protests against it. An essay she wrote for Imprimis, a journal of Hillsdale College in Michigan, appeared in The Scientist ("Who's To Blame When The Public Misunderstands Science?" April 16, 1990, page 17). Ray earned her master's degree from Mills College in 1938 and her Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1945.

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