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Very sad news for biology - Andrew Huxley died yesterday, aged 94. I guess he was the last direct link with the great man himself; I have personal reasons for being particularly saddened by his passing. Rob Kidd
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Honorary Research Associate, Institute for Human Evolution, University of Witwatersrand
Adjunct Associate Professor (Human and Comparative Anatomy), University of Western Sydney
Fellow of The Centre For Human Biology, The University of Western Australia
"Please God, deliver me whole from Creationists......."
Very sad news for biology - Andrew Huxley died yesterday, aged 94. I guess he was the last direct link with the great man himself; I have personal reasons for being particularly saddened by his passing. Rob Kidd
Thanks for that David - I know that you have at least a bit of a foot in my camp, so to speak. Andrew was important on two levels, never mind his mind blowing science. First, he was the Grandson of Tom Huxley (known as THH), Charles Darwins best mate, never mind his many famous relations, brothers et al.. Tom Huxley was the father of the school of anatomy from which I am derived, and unbelievably proud of. Second, Andrews working patrner, and co-awardent of the Nobel prize was Alan Hodgkin. Alan's brother was my headmaster when at boarding school in the 60's in The UK. He came to speak at Sunday Chapel once, perhaps about 1966 - totally wasted on me at the time. Very humbling now. Rob
__________________
Honorary Research Associate, Institute for Human Evolution, University of Witwatersrand
Adjunct Associate Professor (Human and Comparative Anatomy), University of Western Sydney
Fellow of The Centre For Human Biology, The University of Western Australia
"Please God, deliver me whole from Creationists......."
Very sad news for biology - Andrew Huxley died yesterday, aged 94. I guess he was the last direct link with the great man himself; I have personal reasons for being particularly saddened by his passing. Rob Kidd
It is sad, yet he looked to have a good innings at 94. Sorry for your personal loss Rob.
Sir/Prof./Dr. Huxley looked to have an interesting history i.e. amongst other things relating to family lineage, he married into the Wedgewood lineage – as I believe Darwin did.
Speaking of which, Sir Huxley was naturally a Darwinist... of which I found the following view of his interesting...
Quote:
At the same time he admitted that there were lacunae in Darwin’s theory, noting that the question of the origins of life on earth, barely touched upon by Darwin, lay in the realms of speculation and analogy. The biggest problem for biology, “too often swept under the carpet”, was the existence of consciousness.
Yes, not everything that envelopes our existence & function doesn't fall into the realm of our understanding of materialism (matter & energy) i.e. the mind/thought/consciousness & that stuff that is speculated to comprise about 96% of the universe - dark matter/energy.
He certainly played an important role in empirical science also with his collaborated (also sharing with an Aussie) Nobel Prize winning work in Physiology/Medicine for the analysis of the electrical & chemical processes involved in nerve impulses which control the action of muscles. The following is interesting...
Quote:
The chemical processes involved in nerve impulses had been postulated as early as 1902 and were believed to be associated with the permeability of the nerve membrane to potassium ions. According to this theory, the voltage produced by the impulse could not exceed the resting potential of the potassium ions inside the fibre.
To Huxley’s and Hodgkin’s astonishment, when they stimulated the fibre the range of voltage readings was far higher than they had been led to expect. They repeated the experiment several times and obtained the same results, but the nature of the mechanism responsible was still obscure when the Second World War broke out.
When hostilities finally came to an end, Huxley and Hodgkin returned to their research and finally solved the problem. Previously it had been supposed that while the resting membrane was permeable to potassium ions, it was not permeable to sodium ions.
Huxley and Hodgkin suggested that during the rising phase of a nerve impulse, the nerve membrane becomes permeable to sodium ions which diffuse into the fibre, bringing the potential very nearly to the higher resting potential of the sodium ions. During the falling phase of the impulse, potassium ions diffuse out.
Sad news for Biology
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