Microglia
Research has discovered dystrophic (defective development) human microglia. "These cells are characterized by abnormalities in their cytoplasmic structure, such as deramified, atrophic, fragmented or unusually tortuous processes, frequently bearing spheroidal or bulbous swellings." The incidence of dystrophic microglia increases with aging. Microglial degeneration and death have been reported in research on Prion disease, Schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease, indicating that microglial deterioration might be involved in neurodegenerative diseases. A complication of this theory is the fact that it is difficult to distinguish between "activated" and "dystrophic" microglia in the human brain.
Andrew McKellar
In 1940, McKellar made the first detection of molecular matter in the interstellar medium, identifying the spectrum of the organic compounds cyanogen ("CN") and methyne. ("CH"). The following year, his analysis of the spectra of the cyanogen molecules showed that the surrounding space was very cold with a temperature of approximately -271 °C. At the time, the significance of this was not appreciated; the distinguished Canadian chemist and future Nobel Laureate Gerhard Herzberg said that the temperature measurement "...has of course a very restricted meaning". Almost 25 years later Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson detected microwave radiation coming from all regions of the sky corresponding to the same temperature of -271 °C found by McKellar, thus revealing its ubiquity and relation to the radiation left over from the Big Bang. McKellar's early death, after a prolonged illness, in 1960 precluded him from consideration for the Nobel Prize awarded to Penzias and Wilson in 1978.