/ Stars that died in 2023

Monday, June 9, 2014

James F. Crow, American geneticist, died he was 95.

James Franklin Crow was Professor Emeritus of Genetics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison died he was 95.

(January 18, 1916 – January 4, 2012)  


 Some of his most significant peer-reviewed contributions were coauthored with Motoo Kimura.[6][7][8][9][10] His major contribution to the field, however, is arguably his teaching. He wrote an influential introductory textbook on genetics and a more advanced one with Kimura, and the list of his graduate and undergraduate students and postdocs includes Alexey Kondrashov, James Bull, Joe Felsenstein, Russell Lande, Dan Hartl, Takeo Maruyama, Terumi Mukai, Wen-Hsiung Li, Chung-I Wu, Charles Langley, and many others.

Biography

Crow was a pioneer and giant in the field of genetics. His University of Wisconsin genetics faculty profile reviews his historic contributions through research, teaching, public service, ethical analysis, and leadership. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, The American Philosophical Society, the World Academy of Art and Science, the National Academy of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was a long-time member of the Madison Symphony Orchestra, playing viola. He was a president of both the Genetics Society of America and the American Society of Human Genetics. He was a foreign member of the Royal Society. He helped define the meaning of genetic counseling.

Early life and education

Crow was born in 1916 in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, where his father was a teacher at Ursinus College. The family moved to Wichita, Kansas, two and a half years later, in 1918, where Crow was part of the 1918 flu pandemic. He went to school in Wichita, then to Friends University, at the time a Quaker school, also in Wichita, graduating in 1937.
At school, he enjoyed physics and chemistry, but pursued chemistry more strongly at university. He picked up biology as well, and double majored in chemistry and biology. A genetics course in his junior year was his first exposure to that field, even though the syllabus omitted the modern synthesis.
Delaying the decision of whether to become a biologist or chemist, Crow applied for graduate fellowships in both biology and biochemistry. He took up the first positive reply, a position with H. J. Muller at the University of Texas at Austin, in spite of knowing that Muller was in Russia at the time. It turned out that Muller had no intention of returning to his position in Texas, and so J. T. Patterson became Crow's supervisor there. Under the influence of Muller, Patterson was starting to switch to Drosophila genetics, having previously worked on the embryology of the armadillo, and so it was that Crow came to study the genetic isolating mechanisms in the Drosophila mulleri group. This included a combination of doing mating crosses between species and looking for chromosome rearrangements using polytene chromosomes. (Polytene chromosomes are large aggregations of actual chromosomes which, once appropriately stained, facilitate the discovery of chromosome rearrangements through an ordinary light microscope. Polytene chromosomes are mostly found in the salivary glands of some species.) In his studies of pre-mating isolation, Crow was one of the first to study genetic reinforcement, and also observed that species occurring together were sexually isolated, while those living apart were not.
A great influence on Crow at the time was W.S. Stone, who encouraged him to learn more mathematics, while he himself knew none. Crow later admitted to struggling with some of the advanced maths and physics courses he took as a result, but also said they had been rewarding.

Dartmouth College and the war

Crow graduated with his PhD in 1941 and moved to Dartmouth College just prior to the American entry into World War II, where he remained until 1948. The original plan had been to get a postdoctoral fellowship to work with Sewall Wright at the University of Chicago, but this proved difficult just at the start of the war.
His appointment in Dartmouth was to teach genetics and general zoology, but as faculty were drafted off into military endeavors, Crow took on an increasing number of courses. Crow particularly delighted in being able to teach embryology and comparative anatomy. When it seemed likely that he himself would be drafted, Crow took a course in navigation, at which, owing to his mathematical training, he proved so adept that he was asked to teach it. As parasitology became relevant to the war (as it did on the opposing front, where Willi Hennig was active in this area), he was asked to also teach parasitology and haematology. Not long after, he was also teaching statistics. It may be that, having to teach many hours each day, Crow discovered his love for teaching at this point. He later recounted that there were several students all of whose courses were taught by him.
He, like many of his colleagues of the era, had college-time involvement with pacifist groups that had communist leanings. During WWII, he tried to enlist, but was deferred until the end due to his teaching commitments.

Race and IQ controversy

Crow wrote "Genetic Theories and Influences: Comments on the Value of Diversity," an article in the Harvard Educational Review reprinted in the review's reprint series[11] responding to Arthur Jensen's 1969 article, "How Much Can We Boost IQ and Academic Achievement?"

Paternal Age Effect on DNA

Crow also did research and writing in how DNA in sperm degrades as men age, though repeated copying, and can then be passed along to children in permanently degraded form, which they likely then pass on as well. As a result, he said that the "greatest mutational health hazard to the human genome is fertile older males". He described mutations that have a direct visible effect on the child's health and also mutations that can be latent or have minor visible effects on the child's health; many such mutations allow the child to reproduce, but cause more serious problems for grandchildren, greatgrandchildren and later generations[12]

Research Description

Much of Crow’s research has been in the area of theoretical population genetics, but he has often ventured into the laboratory. Over a career that spanned more than 50 years, Crow and his collaborators studied a variety of traits in Drosophila, dissected the genetics of DDT resistance, measured the effects of minor mutations on the overall fitness of populations, described the behavior of mutations that do not play the selection game by Darwin’s rules, and investigated many other subjects. His theoretical work has touched virtually every important subject in population genetics. Crow developed the concept of genetic load, has contributed to the theory of random drift in small populations, has studied of the effects of non-random mating and age-structured populations, and has considered the question, “What good is sex?” He also developed ways to estimate inbreeding in human populations by making use of the way in which surnames are “inherited,” and was a world expert on the genetic effects of low level ionizing radiation In addition to his many research publications, Crow published many reviews and appreciations of the work of his colleagues. His book on population genetics, written with Motoo Kimura, is a combination of textbook and monograph a major contribution to the literature of population genetics research and still the classic in its field.

Public Service

Crow chaired the Department of Medical Genetics for five years and the Laboratory of Genetics (Genetics plus Medical Genetics) for a total of eight years. He also served as Acting Dean of the UW Medical School for 2 years. He was President of the Genetics Society of America and the American Society of Human Genetics. He was the co-editor-in-chief of the journal GENETICS and edited its perspectives section from 1987 until 2008. Crow served at the national level as a member of the General Advisory Committee to the Director of NIH and of the executive council of the National Committee on Radiation Protection, chaired the NIH Genetics Study Section and the NIH Mammalian Genetics Study Section, and chaired several committees for the National Academy of Sciences including a committee to study forensic uses of DNA fingerprinting.
In addition, Crow for many years played viola for the Madison Symphony Orchestra and served as President of the Madison Civic Music Society and of the Madison Symphony Orchestra. He led a fund-raising drive to establish an endowment for the Pro Arte String Quartet.
Crow was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, The American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the World Academy of Art and Science. He was an honorary Fellow of the Japan Academy and a Fellow of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. He died of congestive heart failure in 2012.[13]

Selected publications




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Harold Zirin, American astronomer, died he was 82.

Harold "Hal" Zirin  was an American solar astronomer also known as Captain Corona to a generation of Caltech Astronomy students died he was 82..

(October 7, 1929 – January 3, 2012)

Life

Most content from 1998 interview with Zirin[1]
Born in 1929 to immigrants from Russia and Austro-Hungary in Boston, Zirin grew up in Bridgeport, Connecticut. While attending Bassick High School, Zirin's home-built telescope won him a Westinghouse Prize, a Pepsi-Cola Scholarship, and scholarships to Harvard University as class of 1946 Valedictorian.[citation needed] Zirin earned his Bachelor of Science from Harvard in Applied Physics (1950) and completed his Astronomy Ph.D. in 1953. During his college years, Zirin played for the Harvard football team, participated in the hammer throw, and spent his summers working on the family’s chicken farm in Vineland, New Jersey.
After a brief stint at Rand Corporation in Santa Monica, where he could not obtain clearance due to his father's association and membership in the Communist Party, Zirin returned to Harvard as a teaching fellow.
Harold Zirin moved to Colorado to work at the High Altitude Observatory, which specialized in solar research, in 1954, where he met his wife, Mary Fleming, and married in 1957. Harold and Mary adopted a son in 1963 and a daughter in 1964 shortly before moving to Altadena, California, to start his professorship with Caltech.
Zirin's zeal and infectious enthusiasm in the study of the sun led his Caltech astronomy students in the 1970s (led by David Brin and Dick Trtek) to produce comic books and graffiti on construction fences of Zirin as a mild-mannered professor who transformed into the super-hero Captain Corona whenever he stepped into a solar observatory. Captain Corona (Zirin in a super-hero body-suit with cape and beret), seated with a small telescope in the flatbed of the observatory truck, took part one year in the Old Miners Day Parade at Big Bear.
Zirin was also fluent in several languages including German and Russian.
After retiring from Caltech in 1998, Harold and Mary Zirin provided funding to National Jewish Health in 2005 for an Endowed Chair in Pulmonary Biology. Harold died on January 3, 2012, after a prolonged battle with COPD.

Work

Most content from 1998 interview with Zirin[1]
In 1953, Zirin briefly worked for the RAND Corporation in southern California before returning to Harvard for a teaching fellowship.[1]
In 1954, Zirin moved to Boulder, Colorado, to work at the High Altitude Observatory located in Climax, Colorado, which specialized in observing the sun.
In 1960-1961, in perhaps the first exchange with the U.S. that the Soviet Union permitted outside major Soviet cities, Harold and his wife, Mary, traveled by car to the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory. Zirin's six months there gave him hands-on experience with a solar telescope that convinced him of the necessity of continuous, fine-scale observations to solve the great riddle of the sun: how a 6,000 degree Fahrenheit apparent surface temperature (the “photosphere” or apparent surface of roiling gases) could rise to over a million degrees in the corona (the apparent atmosphere above the surface).
In 1964, Zirin accepted his dream job of Astrophysics Professor at the California Institute of Technology. After a sustained search of varied sites all over Southern California, undertaken at the instigation and support of physicist Robert Leighton, he chose to build an observatory near the north shore of Big Bear Lake, where placing the telescope surrounded by water would minimize the heat distortions arising from the ground (a common drawback in other solar observatories). Entrepreneurial in spirit, with a small grant from Caltech and money from the Fleischmann Foundation, Zirin built supporting facilities on shore, a dome on an island in the lake (though a year or so later, a causeway was built, connecting the island to the shore, as it remains), and built the telescopes for observing. Despite Zirin’s driving nature, the Big Bear Solar Observatory had a congenial atmosphere, and there were always summer positions for students. Their usefulness led Zirin to propose to Caltech what became the extremely successful Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program. Zirin also had a series of multi-year post-doctoral fellows.
In 1967, Zirin wrote the college text The Solar Atmosphere.[2] In 1988, Zirin wrote the college text Astrophysics of the Sun.[3][4] In addition, Zirin published about 250 research papers during his tenure at Caltech. Zirin also played a major role in solar research at the Caltech-operated Owens Valley Radio Observatory in the 1970s and helped develop a solar interferometer. He was also active in planning for NASA's High Resolution Solar Observatory, which was never built.
On March 24, 1992, NOVA broadcast titled Eclipse of the Century aired featuring Harold Zirin and the 1991 solar eclipse from the observatory on top of Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Zirin was frequently interviewed by local and national media relating to solar activity or eclipses.
In 1997, control of BBSO was moved from Caltech to the New Jersey Institute of Technology just prior to Harold Zirin's retirement from Caltech in 1998.



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Eve Arnold, American photographer, died she was 99.

Eve Arnold, OBE, Hon. FRPS was an American photojournalist.[2][3] She joined Magnum Photos agency in 1951, and became a full member in 1957 died she was 99..

(née Cohen; April 21, 1912 – January 4, 2012) 

Early life and career

Eve Arnold was born Eve Cohen in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the middle of nine children born to immigrant Russian-Jewish parents, William Cohen (born Velvel Sklarski), a rabbi, and his wife, Bessie (Bosya Laschiner). Her interest in photography began in 1946 while working in a New York City photo-finishing plant. Over six weeks in 1948, she learned photographic skills from Harper's Bazaar art director Alexey Brodovitch at the New School for Social Research[4] in Manhattan.
Eve Arnold photographed many of the iconic figures who shaped the second half of the twentieth century, yet she was equally comfortable documenting the lives of the poor and dispossessed, “migrant workers, civil-rights protestors of apartheid in South Africa, disabled Vietnam war veterans and Mongolian herdsmen.” [5] For Arnold, there was no dichotomy: “"I don't see anybody as either ordinary or extraordinary," she said in a 1990 BBC interview, "I see them simply as people in front of my lens.” [6]
Arnold's images of Marilyn Monroe on the set of The Misfits (1961) were perhaps her most memorable, but she had taken many photos of Monroe from 1951 onwards. Her previously unseen photos of Monroe were shown at an Halcyon Gallery exhibition in London during May 2005. She also photographed Queen Elizabeth II, Malcolm X, and Joan Crawford, and traveled around the world, photographing in China, Russia, South Africa and Afghanistan.[7] Arnold left the United States and moved permanently to England in the early 1960s with her son, Frank Arnold. While working for the London Sunday Times, she began to make serious use of colour photography.[7]

Later life

In 1980, she had her first solo exhibition, which featured her photographic work done in China at the Brooklyn Museum in New York City. In the same year, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Magazine Photographers. In 1993, she was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society,[8] and elected Master Photographer by New York's International Center of Photography.
She did a series of portraits of American First Ladies.[9] In 1997, she was appointed a member of the Advisory Committee of the National Media Museum (formerly the Museum of Photography, Film & Television) in Bradford, West Yorkshire. She received an OBE in 2003.[10]
She lived in Mayfair for many years until her last illness, when she moved to a London nursing home. When Anjelica Huston asked if she was still doing photography, Arnold replied: "That's over. I can't hold a camera any more." She said she spent most of her time reading such writers as Dostoevsky, Thomas Mann and Tolstoy.[11]

Death

Arnold died in London on January 4, 2012, aged 99.[12]

Selected works

Photographs

  • Marilyn Monroe, 1960.
  • Jacqueline Kennedy arranging flowers with daughter Caroline, 1961.
  • Horse Training for the Militia in Inner Mongolia, 1979.

Books

  • The Unretouched Woman, 1976.
  • Flashback: The 50's, 1978.
  • In China, 1980.
  • In America, 1983.
  • Marilyn for Ever, 1987.
  • Marilyn Monroe: An Appreciation, 1987.
  • All in a Day's Work, 1989.
  • The Great British, 1991.
  • In Retrospect, 1995.
  • Film Journal, 2002.
  • Handbook, 2004
  • Marilyn Monroe 2005
  • Eve Arnold's People 2009
  • All About Eve 2012

Awards




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Bob Weston, British guitarist and songwriter (Fleetwood Mac), died from gastrointestinal hemorrhage he was 64. (body found on this date)

Robert Joseph "Bob" Weston was a British musician best known for his brief role as guitarist and songwriter with the rock band Fleetwood Mac died from gastrointestinal hemorrhage he was 64. (body found on this date).

Early life and career

Weston was born in Plymouth on 1 November 1947[1] and moved to London in the mid-1960s. He joined a band called The Kinetic, and supported Jimi Hendrix and Chuck Berry at concerts in France.[1]

Fleetwood Mac

Weston was recruited into the Fleetwood Mac line-up in late 1972 as replacement for the recently-sacked guitarist Danny Kirwan. Together with fellow new band member, vocalist Dave Walker, Fleetwood Mac recorded the Penguin album in January 1973. Weston's contribution to the album was mainly as a lead guitarist alongside Bob Welch, but he stood out thanks to his slide guitar, especially on "Remember Me", and his accomplished harmonica and banjo playing. He also sang with Christine McVie on the song "Did You Ever Love Me", and wrote the instrumental that closed the album, "Caught in the Rain".
Later in 1973 Dave Walker was asked to leave the band,[2] and the remaining members of Fleetwood Mac recorded their next album, Mystery to Me. Weston contributed more solid guitar work, for example his slide intro on "Why", a song for which he felt he did not receive the credit he deserved.[3] He also co-wrote one track, "Forever", with Welch and John McVie.
During a tour of the US in late 1973, when the band were beginning to gel particularly well onstage, it emerged that Weston had been having an affair with Mick Fleetwood's wife, Jenny Boyd.[2][1] Fleetwood tried to carry on regardless, but eventually after a gig in Nebraska, he had had enough. Weston was fired and the rest of the tour was cancelled, the band members each travelling to a different part of the world to gather their thoughts.[3] It was this situation which gave rise to the "Bogus Fleetwood Mac" affair in which manager Clifford Davis recruited a new group of musicians, passed them off as Fleetwood Mac, and sent them out to complete the tour.[2] Although the fake band were quickly rumbled by fans, the subsequent legal battle lasted years, preventing Fleetwood Mac from recording.
Arguably Bob Weston had a very big effect on the Fleetwood Mac story, perhaps greater than his musical legacy, since it was this turmoil which strongly contributed to Welch's disenchantment with life in Fleetwood Mac, and his departure in late 1974 paved the way for the arrival of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, who would help the band on to superstar status.[2]

Solo

Weston went on to record with Murray Head, then briefly join, along with bassist Nick South and drummer Ian Wallace, Steve Marriott's newly formed All-Stars Band. When Marriott opted to play lead guitar himself, Weston went on to do a few solo albums, all of which are now quite hard to find.[3] Perhaps proving that there were no hard feelings, Mick Fleetwood contributed drums to one track on Weston's second solo album, Studio Picks.
In January 2008, Weston announced he started working on new recordings, which would be released later in the year and would be recorded at Markant Studios in the Netherlands.[4]
While Frank Baijens, a Dutch singer-songwriter, was recording his own album Odd Man Out, he accidentally met Weston who was doing the same thing, recording his. Frank asked Weston if he would care to play on one of the tracks "Where the Heart Belongs", which he did with an extraordinary result.[5]

Death

Weston, who lived alone in a flat in Brent Cross, London, was found dead on 3 January 2012. He is survived by his younger brother Peter.[6] His post-mortem showed he died of a gastrointestinal hemorrhage.[7][1]

Discography

With Fleetwood Mac

Solo albums

  • Night Light (AZ International 1980)
  • Studio Picks (AZ International 1981)
  • There's a Heaven (Private pressing 1999)

Other releases featuring Bob Weston



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Wylie Vale, American endocrinologist, died he was 70.

Wylie Walker Vale Jr. was an American endocrinologist who helped identify hormones controlling basic bodily functions  died he was 70..[4][5]


(July 3, 1941 – January 3, 2012) 

Early life and education

Vale was born in Houston, Texas, on July 3, 1941. He completed a B.A. degree in biology at Rice University and obtained a Ph.D. in physiology and biochemistry from Baylor College of Medicine. He commenced employment at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, California, in 1970.[6]

Career

In collaboration with his advisor and mentor Roger Guillemin, Vale contributed to the discovery, isolation and identification of thyrotropin releasing hormone and gonadotropin-releasing hormone in the 1970s;[citation needed] work that led to the Nobel Prize for Guillemin.[7]
At the Salk Institute, Vale led efforts in identifying the group of hormones involved in human growth, reproduction and temperature.[8] His group discovered, isolated and identified corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRF/CRH) in 1981 and growth hormone releasing factor (GHRF) in 1982.[7]
Vale also founded two biotechnology companies, Neurocrine Biosciences and Acceleron Pharma.[7]
Vale was head of both the Clayton Foundation Laboratories for Peptide Biology and the Helen McLoraine Chair in Molecular Neurobiology at the Salk Institute.[6] He died in 2012.[6]



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Jenny Tomasin, British actress (Upstairs, Downstairs), died from hypertensive heart disease she was 75.

Jenny Tomasin was an English actress best known for her roles in Upstairs, Downstairs and Emmerdale  died from hypertensive heart disease she was 75..[2]

(30 November 1938 – 3 January 2012) 

Career

Tomasin's first major role came in the 1970s when she joined the cast of the London Weekend Television period drama Upstairs, Downstairs as Ruby, the kitchen maid to the Bellamy family.[3] She appeared in the series from 1972, until it came to an end in 1975. She appeared in 41 episodes.[4] Plans were made for a spin off series featuring Ruby, and fellow Upstairs, Downstairs characters Hudson and Mrs Bridges, however, the series was never made, because of the death of Angela Baddeley, who portrayed Mrs Bridges.
Tomasin's subsequent television appearances consisted mostly of discussion about her time in Upstairs, Downstairs, and her difficulties staying in the acting profession.[5]
In 1985, Tomasin guest starred in the Doctor Who serial Revelation of the Daleks, the final episode before the series went on an 18-month hiatus, as the character Tasambeker.[6]
Tomasin held two roles in the soap opera Emmerdale. Between the years of 1981 and 1982 she played Naomi Tolly, daughter of Enoch Tolly, who was killed in a tractor accident. Her second role was as Noreen Bell, a cantankerous villager who was killed off in July 2006. This would be her final role.

Death

Tomasin died on 3 January 2012 of hypertensive heart disease.[2]


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Miguel Terekhov, Uruguayan-born American ballet dancer and teacher, died from complications of lung fibrosis he was 83.

Miguel Terekhov was a Uruguayan-born American ballet dancer and ballet instructor  died from complications of lung fibrosis he was 83.. Terekhov and his wife, Yvonne Chouteau, on of the Five Moons, a group of Native American ballet dancers, founded the School of Dance at the University of Oklahoma in 1961.[1]

(August 22, 1928 – January 3, 2012) 


Terekhov was born on August 22, 1928, in Montevideo, Uruguay.[1] His mother, Antonia Rodriguez, was a Charrúa Indian, a people indigenous to Uruguay and southern Brazil.[1] His father, Mikhail Terekhov, a former dancer, immigrated to Uruguay from Ukraine.[1] Terekhov met and married his wife, Yvonne Chouteau, while he was dancing for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.[1]
Terekhov died at his daughter's home in Richardson, Texas, of complications from lung fibrosis on January 3, 2012, at the age of 83.[1] He and his wife, who survived him, were residents of Oklahoma City.[1]


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Dickey Betts died he was 80

Early Career Forrest Richard Betts was also known as Dickey Betts Betts collaborated with  Duane Allman , introducing melodic twin guitar ha...