Our Daily Dead

LA Times
Richard Smalley, the Nobel Prize-winning chemist who was the co-creator of the miniature spheres of carbon called buckyballs and who is widely considered the father of nanotechnology, died Friday at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

Smalley, 62, had battled leukemia for several years, said a spokesman for Rice University, where he spent virtually all of his working life.

The chemist used the fame generated by the creation of the 60-carbon spheres to campaign widely for the development of nanotechnology, which would allow scientists to produce molecule-sized working machines to accomplish a variety of previously unimaginable tasks.

“These little nanothings, and the technology that assembles and manipulates them — nanotechnology — will revolutionize our industries and our lives,” he told the U.S. House of Representatives in 1999 while arguing for the creation of the National Nanotechnology Initiative to support the research.

“Rick overwhelmingly carried the day,” said Caltech chemist James Heath, a former student of Smalley’s. “He sat there in front of Congress with no hair, as a result of the chemotherapy, and talked about the promise of nanotechnology for cancer and other diseases and how it would pay off for his children. It was absolutely riveting.”

Federal spending for the initiative amounted to more than $1 billion this fiscal year.

Added William Barnett, a former chairman of the Rice board of trustees: “I think of Rick as the father of nanotechnology in the sense that, better than anyone else, he articulated the vision of its future and how it would impact the world. And he did so in a kind of universal language which was understandable and inspiring to everyone.”

Smalley’s seminal work grew out of his studies in the 1970s using the then-new tunable dye lasers to analyze the structures of simple molecules. Because the analysis was very difficult with rapidly spinning molecules at room temperature, the researchers used a technique called supersonic jet expansion to cool them, slowing or stopping the rotation.

In the technique, which is a sophisticated version of the method used to cool Freon in air conditioners, a gas was allowed to expand at high speed into a near-vacuum, producing a cooling effect and slowing the molecular rotations to allow laser analysis.

Ultimately the team, which included Rice chemist Robert F. Curl Jr., discovered that it could use pulses from a second layer to vaporize solids at the intake of the expansion chamber, allowing, Smalley said, “for the first time the atoms of any element in the periodic table to be produced cold in a supersonic beam.”

When they tried the technique with carbon in 1985, the results were surprising: They observed a variety of clusters with even numbers of carbon atoms. Most abundant were those with 60 atoms.

After much time spent trying to decipher the structure of the clusters, Smalley was struck with inspiration one evening while huddled over his kitchen table. He concluded that the molecules must look like a soccer ball, with 12 pentagons and 20 hexagons formed into a sphere.

Because the structure reminded him of the geodesic domes designed by architect Buckminster Fuller, he christened the molecules buckminsterfullerene, which got shortened in everyday speech to buckyballs.

LA Times
Marshall Clagett, 89, a historian who studied medieval science and the work of mathematician Archimedes, died Oct. 21, according to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., where he worked for the last four decades. He lived in Princeton.

Clagett wrote extensively about Archimedes, publishing a five-volume work, “Archimedes in the Middle Ages,” over a period of 20 years. In his most recent work, about science in ancient Egypt, he used computers to interpret hieroglyphics. At the time of his death, he was completing the fourth and final volume of “Ancient Egyptian Science.”

Clagett became a faculty member at the institute in 1964, retiring in 1986.

A native of Washington, D.C., he studied at Caltech, George Washington University and Columbia University. He taught at Columbia and the University of Wisconsin before joining the institute, which is not affiliated with Princeton University.

Samhain was the original name for the celebration we now call Halloween. Thank the Celts for this one. The night before the Celtic New Year of November 1 was thought to be a bit fuzzy - the boundary betwixt the world of the dead and the living blurred. Samhain was the celebration of this blurred time; a time for sacred bonfires, costumes and fortune telling.

After the Romans conquered the Celts the Romans mussed up Samhain by working into the mix Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead and later a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. Apple bobbing anyone? (Turns out that Pomona got her just desserts by becoming the name of an LA suburb.)

Ok now quick, think! Let’s say there is this kicking new religion and you are in charge of increasing the size of the flock. Ah ha! Lookee here: there are a bunch of non-believers who have this to-die-for party around November 1 each year. What if you also started to claim the day as a big deal for your startup organization? But what name? The Big Guy at the time - the seventh century that is - Pope Boniface IV - decided to call November 1 All Saints’ Day. This meant that the night before - Samhain - would now be called All-hallows Eve. Ta Da! Now you can come to our church and still have your party!

The same folks from Rome decided a few years later (circa 1000 A.D.) to call November 2 All Souls’ Day to honor the dead. Thus now a three day party was created - All Hallows-Eve, All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day. Tis a wonder any work got completed whatsoever! (Oh, and to simplify all the tongue twisting names the whole party was simply labeled Hallowmas.

Now why do certain segments of society feel that Halloween (from the Middle English Alholowmesse) is the work of the devil? (Especially after all that hard work on a dictionary). Certainly these late fall celebrations have a good deal of focus on the dead. In fact the Mexicans call the party El Dia de los Muertos. Mayhaps it is that some folks are all astir because of the seeming emphasis on witches and such oddities. All of these are things labeled as ‘bad’ by certain editiorials and other sacred books of stories.

Be that as it may, should you wish a wee bit of music to ponder all this by then we suggest picking up a CD or two from Loreena McKennitt. Loreena has an excellent voice and you should try “All Souls’ Night” from the album “The Visit” by way of example. Or toss on your headphones, up the volume and play most anything from Mahler.

Mind the candy now, say thanks for the things you have and take a moment to remember those beloved souls no longer with you.

LA Times
Tom Masland, a veteran foreign correspondent and Newsweek senior editor who reported from some of the world’s most dangerous places during the last three decades, died Thursday in New York City, three days after being hit by an SUV. He was 55.

Masland had moved to New York in September from South Africa, where he had worked as Newsweek’s South Africa bureau chief since 1999.

His recent assignments had included covering terrorism in the Middle East and the civil war in Liberia in 2003, when he was injured by shrapnel from a rebel’s rocket-propelled grenade.

He returned to New York last month to become a contributing senior editor handling international news for Newsweek’s website.

“As anyone who has worked with him knows, Tom was a very kind and honorable man in addition to a valued and courageous reporter,” Newsweek Editor Mark Whitaker said in a statement Thursday.

Masland, who joined Newsweek in 1990, covered Haiti and the political tumult in southern and central Africa in addition to terrorism in the Middle East, including a profile of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a terrorist leader linked to Osama bin Laden. In 1994, he shared the Free Press Assn.’s Mencken Award for best feature story for a May 5, 1993, cover report on the persistence of slavery around the world.

His closest brush with death came in 2003 when he was trapped in an alley between rebel and government forces fighting in Monrovia, the Liberian capital. He pulled a hunk of burning shrapnel out of his arm before being rushed to the U.S. Embassy, where Marines treated his wounds. Then he returned to the front lines to continue reporting on the crisis over President Charles Taylor’s leadership.

From 1986 to 1990 he was a foreign correspondent based in Africa for the Chicago Tribune, covering such stories as famine in Ethiopia, the 1988 Burundi massacre, AIDS in Africa and the Persian Gulf War.

Before joining the Tribune, he spent 11 years at the Philadelphia Inquirer, where his assignments included a tour as the paper’s Middle East correspondent. He shared in the Inquirer staff’s Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Three Mile Island disaster in 1979.

An avid saxophonist, Masland had just finished playing at a jazz club and was crossing West 95th Street on Monday night when the SUV hit him. He sustained massive head injuries and died at St. Luke’s Hospital. The driver of the SUV has not been charged.

According to Rod Nordland, Newsweek’s chief foreign correspondent based in London, who knew Masland for 30 years, Masland had planned to return to Cape Town next week to help his wife and sons move back to New York.

Like many of Masland’s friends, Nordland was struck by the irony of Masland dying in a traffic accident after surviving perilous situations abroad.

“Tom always said, ‘When we go, it will be from slipping in the bathtub or crossing the street,’ ” Nordland recalled. “And that’s what happened.”

Tom Masland reported news from around the world for some three decades. He was by trade a ‘foreign correspondent’. This means of course that he oft times found himself in some of the most troubled regions of the globe, including covering the civil war in Liberia in 2003, when he was injured by shrapnel from a rebel’s rocket-propelled grenade.

“Its a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your front door”. Indeed. In the course of his career Tom Masland found himself reporting from Haiti, southern and central Africa, and of course the Middle East. He had two bouts with maleria and picked up some shrapnel during that civil war in Liberia. All in all however he said “…but it’s hard to match the job of being a correspondent…. I’ve been a reporter since 1973 and I’ve never regretted being a reporter.”

He also noted that “…the most dangerous thing … is riding around on questionable roads in funky taxis. Getting killed in a car accident is still probably the biggest risk, the same way it is in the United States…”.

Tom was also an avid saxophonist. This past Monday night Tom was playing his sax at a jazz club in New York. Finishing up his performance and heading off he was crossing 95th Street when an SUV ran him over. He died three days later from the injuries he received in that accident.

“Humor brings insight and tolerance. Irony brings a deeper and less friendly understanding.” ~ Agnes Repplier

NY Times
Elmer Dresslar Jr., who extolled vegetables to generations of television watchers as the booming voice of the Jolly Green Giant, died on Oct 16. He was 80.

The cause was cancer, said his daughter, Teri Bennett.

Mr. Dresslar, known as Len, was an entertainer and a singer for nearly six decades. His voice rang through millions of households when he called out the simple refrain “Ho, ho, ho” in an advertising jingle for Green Giant foods.

After touring with a production of “South Pacific,” Mr. Dresslar, a native of Kansas, moved to Chicago with his wife in the 1950’s to study voice. By the 1960’s, he had a career singing in clubs, on television and in jingles.

He recorded 15 albums with a jazz group, the Singers Unlimited, and appeared on the CBS television show “In Town Tonight” from 1955 to 1960.

Advertising jingles were the most consistent part of his career, and he had roles in commercials for Rice Krispies, Marlboro, Amoco and Dinty Moore.

NY Times
Robert H. Johnston, an archaeologist who helped develop a way to read ancient texts blackened or faded by time, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, died last Wednesday at his home in Brighton, N.Y. He was 77.

He spent more than a month in the hospital recently after several minor falls followed by infections and minor strokes, said his wife, Louise, but she could not point to a single cause of death.

Mr. Johnston, who for two decades was a professor and administrator at the Rochester Institute of Technology, worked in digital imaging to tease out ancient text, often minute fragments of individual characters, that had not been seen for as long as 2,000 years. This involved manipulating technology first used for medical diagnosis and enhancing pictures taken from military satellites.

Along with the Dead Sea Scrolls, texts from the time of Christ, Mr. Johnston decoded parts of a 10th-century parchment copy of a famous treatise by the Greek mathematician Archimedes that had been used as the fabric for a 13th-century prayer book, among other projects.

Mr. Johnston’s team included Roger L. Easton, another Rochester Institute of Technology professor; scientists at the Xerox Corporation and the Eastman Kodak Company; and institute graduate students.

Their process involves using a digital camera that is sensitive to light ranging far beyond that visible to the naked eye. Researchers photograph materials in several different wavelengths until they find ones that offer the most detail.

Ink may reflect light at one point in the spectrum while the blackened background reflects light with a wavelength only a millionth of a meter different. A computer, analyzing the differences, can identify the hidden characters.

Mr. Johnston’s team often extracted only tiny but critical bits. Examining a red-ink scroll of the Old Testament book of Samuel yielded only one previously unknown character. The team found only 18 new characters in their examination of color photographs of the Temple Scroll, which at 28 feet is the longest of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

A wee ODDarchive recap since we just lost the voice of the Jolly Green Giant…

* “Yabba Dabba Doo!” - On May 11, 2005 Fred Flinstone’s voice departed - Henry Corden
* “They’re GREAT!!! - On May 25, 2005 we lost Thurl Ravenscroft
* “That’s T I double G Rrrr - Tigger!” - On June 26, 2005 Paul Winchell left the stage

* “I’m just a very small animal” - On June 27, 2005 Piglet followed Tigger off the stage with the death of John Fiedler
* “Candy corn!” - On August 18, 2005 Joe Ranft the voice of Heimlich the Bavarian caterpillar in “A Bug’s Life” was killed in an auto accident
* And last November Dayton Allen - the voice of Deputy Dawg - checked out

And you wondered why things had gotten so quiet…

Also today - Miers withdraws from consideration and the Chicago White Sox are the 2005 World Series champions. Try as we might we have yet to come up with an ODDconnection for these two captivating events…wait…Harriet Miers is from Texas…the Houston Astros are a Texas team…you don’t suppose???

And should your ventures afield lead you to Rome please remember to leave your fish bowl at home.