-Caveat Lector-
From
http://www.rense.com/general21/anothertop12.htm
}}}>Begin
Another Top Microbiologist Dies -
12 In The Last Five Months
>From Ian Gurney
3-27-2
Hi Jeff, In the continuing saga of the unusual deaths of microbiologists, here's
another who was struck and killed by a car while jogging. That takes the count to
twelve since November last year.
Regards, Ian
The Times - London
Obituaries
March 27, 2002
David Wynn-Williams
Biologist who studied the life of the hardy polar microbe and from it evolved theories
of life on Mars.
A microbiologist who had for 25 years studied the survival of primitive organisms in
the Antarctic environment and the implications for the wider universe, David Wynn-
Williams, had been using his findings to assess the likelihood of the existence of
some form of life on Mars. These studies, which had led to an exchange of ideas
with Nasa in the US, explored the behaviour of life forms on the frontiers of
existence.
In the course of a series of ten visits to Antarctica from the mid-1970s onwards,
Wynn-Williams had assessed the capability of microbes to adapt to environmental
extremes, including the bombardment of ultraviolet rays and global warming
conditions which might parallel those of the early Primary Era of Earth s existence, or
of present day Mars. Besides his links with Nasa, he had also collaborated with the
Italian Antarctic programme at Terra Nova Bay, with the New Zealand programme at
Scott Base and with American research programmes in the Antarctic at McMurdo.
A man of boundless physical as well as intellectual energy, Wynn- Williams
generated a constant flow of ideas, which entranced both his contemporaries and the
young. He was killed in a road accident while out jogging near his Cambridge home.
David Wynn-Williams was born in Cheshire in 1946 and educated at Calday Grange
Grammar School and Birkenhead Technical College. From the latter he went, in
1965, to the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, where he read botany and
microbiology, graduating BSc in 1968. He stayed at Aberystwyth for a further three
years, being awarded his PhD for a thesis on environmental biology in 1971.
Wynn-Williams was a talented science teacher who loved imparting ideas to the
young. For the next two years he taught school biology, first in South London and
then at the Judd School, Tonbridge. When he subsequently moved to Cambridge
and into higher research and farflung fieldwork, he nevertheless continued to revel in
talking directly to classroom students about the excitement of developing scientific
ideas.
He had first become interested in the polar regions after leading the University
College of Wales expedition to Iceland in 1970. In 1974 he was invited to join the
British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge and spent the next two winters and three
summers at Signy Island in the South Orkneys, studying terrestrial microbiology.
This became the central study of his life and he was to return on four separate
occasions: 1980-81, 1984-85, 1987-88 and 1990-91, to continue research at
Antarctic lithosol sites those whose soil is composed of wholly or partly weathered
rock fragments. In the meantime he was, in 1982-83, guest scientist with the New
Zealand Antarctic Research Programme. Ten years later, he was appointed leader of
the British Antarctic Survey Expedition to the Mars Glacier lithosol sites, on
Alexander Island in West Antarctica.
After a year, 1993, as section head of terrestrial biology in BAS s Terrestrial and
Freshwater Life Sciences Division, Wynn-Williams went in 1995 as co-leader of an
international expedition which worked in the McMurdo Dry Valleys and Terra Nova
Bay. He was later involved in two separate expeditions to oversee the development
of an Antarctic desert research site at Mars Oasis.
In 2000 he was appointed leader of the Antarctic Astrobiology Project, which
explores the effects of environmental stress at the limits of life on Earth analogous
to
conditions which might subsist on Mars. This drew Wynn-Williams into collaboration
with the Nasa Ames Research Centre, the Johnson Space Centre and Lunar &
Planetary Institute, Houston, and Montana State University, to develop and evaluate
a miniature confocal microscope and Raman spectrometer (CMaRS) for use on a
Mars landing vehicle. CMaRS has been adopted as the prime instrument for the
proposed UK-led Vanguard Mars lander-rover mission, to be submitted to the
European Space Agency.
Wynn-Williams had also worked with the German Aerospace Institute at Cologne, on
the UVC (short-wave ultra-violet radiation in the 200- 280 nanometre waveband)
atmosphere of early Earth and Mars. Last year he returned to the Taylor Valley long-
term ecological research site in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, where he worked with
colleagues on the American Antarctic programme.
His publications were numerous and covered subjects as diverse as recent aqueous
environments in Martian impact craters, the need for collaboration in astrobiology,
and lichens at the limits of life. His pioneering work had been acknowledged with the
award of a Polar Medal as early as 1980.
In spite of the amount of time he spent in the Antarctic wastes, Wynn- Williams found
time to be active in schools in Cambridge at a number of levels. He loved nothing
better than to talk to the young about science whenever he could, and was chairman
of the Chesterton College Parent-Teacher Association.
Outside this he loved marathon running and choral singing, his Welsh ancestry
having endowed him with a fine voice. Among the choruses in which he sang was
the Cambridge Philharmonic Choir.
David Wynn-Williams is survived by his wife, Elizabeth, an artist, and by their two
daughters.
David Wynn-Williams, microbiologist, was born on July 16,1946. He died on March
24, 2002, aged 55.
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