Courtesy Julian Brown/Brandeis Photography
"We have your dog," read the cut-and-paste ransom note taped to Chris Miller's office door one day in the late 1990s. A biophysicist and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., Miller regularly brought his West Highland terrier, Charlie, to the lab. "They even left a picture of the dog holding that day's newspaper," he laughs. Charlie was eventually returned, but only after Miller paid up, producing a stack of fill-in-the-blank, signed recommendation letters: "____ is the best person I've ever had in my lab. ..."
Miller is actually generous and efficient with recommendation letters. The ransom was a random joke, and a very good one, says Miller, who has been the target of countless pranks during his 30-odd years at the bench. His favorites, though, are the biological surprises that have essentially directed his science. "One of the best things about ...
