Britton Chance & Shoko Nioka

Please join us, NeuroCooking friends, in offering (belated) good wishes of great happiness for Profs. Britton Chance & Shoko Nioka, married at National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan, on February 6th of this year.

[ Note (added late November, 2010): In memoriam, Britton Chance (1913 - 2010) ]

re: Britton Chance (1913-2010)

A full-page appreciation of Britton Chance, by Prof. P.L. Dutton, has appeared in the 17 December issue of Science. From the opening paragraph:

"Recognized for his pioneering research on how living organisms capture, manage, and produce cellular energy, he leaves a rich legacy of laboratory and clinical instrumentation and a wide range of discoveries and principles fundamental to biological catalysis and energetics, and biomedical application."

re: Britton Chance (1913-2010)

Readers interested in learning more about the life and contributions of Dr. Britton Chance may wish to visit the new memorial website, brittonchance.org .

re: Britton Chance (1913-2010)

An obituary of Britton Chance has appeared in the Los Angeles Times.

Britton Chance (1913-2010)

We note with sadness the passing yesterday, at age 97, of Britton Chance, Ph.D., Sc.D. (Cantab.), M.D. (Hon.), Member of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), Foreign Member of the Royal Society (London), Member of the American Philosophical Society, Fellow of the American Physical Society, American Olympian (Gold Medal, Sailing, 1952), recipient of the Presidential Medal of Science, engineer, scientist, and mentor to generations. He will be greatly missed and long remembered. Our sympathies go to his wife, children, friends, and colleagues.

In the early Spring of 1983, a bunch of us from the lab left Philadelphia for a long weekend to go to Mantaloking, New Jersey, in order to go sailing with Brit on his boat. Soon after we were out on the water, fishing tackle was distributed, so that we could fish for flounder. Now, from my childhood, I was familiar with flounder: It came in the form of a whiteish fillet, with some paprika powder, and a lemon wedge.

I was the first person to get a hit on my line! I was excited, but managed to reel it in gently but firmly, until the end of my line broke water, revealing a hideous flattened slimy greenish-grey creature, with both eyes on one side of its head. I said "Eeew! What's that?" And Brit replied, "It's a flounder, you idiot. Get it over the boat before it falls off your line." So I did.

re: Britton Chance (1913-2010)

An obituary of Britton Chance may be found in today's New York Times.

Prof. Mildred Cohn (1913 - 2009)

"our band could be your life / real names be proof "

-Minutemen, "History Lesson, part two"

Prof. Mildred Cohn (1913 - 2009) was my scientific grandmother, twice over.

We speak of the trainees of scientists as their scientific progeny. Mildred (please forgive the familiar tone) trained Prof. John. S. Leigh, Jr. (1939 - 2008), who was my graduate supervisor, and Dr. Alan C. McLaughlin, who was one of my post-graduate research supervisors. So, because I am the trainee of two of her trainees, Mildred was my grandparent, twice over.

"Non-invasive biochemistry" is a good description of what we can do today using magnetic resonance spectroscopy to study metabolism and metabolic control without cutting into people to take biopsy specimens. Much of what we take for granted in this field is based on Mildred's ground-breaking work. I, and many of my colleagues, were delighted to see that she merited an obituary in the New York Times.

Something that was not in that obituary is a story that I once heard Mildred tell about herself; her late husband, physicist Prof. Henry Primakoff (1914 - 1983); and our colleague and then Director of the Johnson Research Foundation, Prof. Britton Chance (I'm transcribing here from memory, so please take the quote marks loosely):

"There were three students who were close friends. One night they were talking, and they took up the question of what is the most important thing in life.

I said the most important thing in life was science: The opportunity to ask questions, and answer them, and discover new knowledge, and make possible improvements in people's lives.

Brit said that was very nice, and those were noble goals, but you couldn't actually achieve them unless you had money, and that was why the most important thing in life was money.

And the other friend? He laughed, and said that we were both wrong, and that the most important thing in life was sex.

So I married him."