Milestones

By Daniel Eisenberg, Tam Gray, Anita Hamilton, Declan McCullagh, Jodie Morse, Michele Orecklin, Alain Sanders, Bruce van Voorst

DIED. ANNE SAYRE, 74, chronicler of sexism in the sciences; of scleroderma; in Bridgewater, N.J. Sayre's 1975 book, Rosalind Franklin and DNA, accorded overdue and posthumous credit to the female British crystallographer for her crucial role in the discovery of the structure of DNA and positioned Franklin alongside her Nobel-winning male contemporaries, James Watson and Francis Crick.

DIED. DEREK H.R. BARTON, 79, 1969 Nobel laureate in chemistry who added a new dimension (the third) to chemical analysis and sired the field known as conformational analysis; in College Station, Texas.

DIED. EDWIN J. SHOEMAKER, 90, homespun engineer who furnished living rooms--and couch potatoes the world over--with his invention of the La-Z-Boy recliner; while sitting in one of his signature seats in Sun City, Ariz. After a few drafting lessons from correspondence school, Shoemaker in 1928 joined a cousin to make a reclining porch chair using a piece of plywood and a yardstick. In later models, of which there were many, Shoemaker jazzed up the chair with plush upholstery, a retractable footrest, and during the '60s, a feature that allowed the sitter to recline and rock simultaneously.

DIED. JHERI REDDING, 91, shampoo guru who founded the eponymous beauty-products empire; in Santa Barbara, Calif. Unhappy with lackluster hair-care products, Redding experimented with ingredients from his own kitchen cabinet including vinegar and mayonnaise. His creative combos yielded such innovations as creme rinse, pH-balanced shampoo and the perm product Jheri Curl.

DIED. HIDEO SHIMA, 96, a whizbang designer of Japan's 1960s bullet train, which, while not faster than a speeding bullet, still transported passengers at breakneck speeds, allowing rural folk much desired access to cities; in Tokyo.