John Sieburth, Studied Various Types Of Marine Life, 79
DGH
John Sieburth, 79, Who Studied Various Types of Marine Life, Dies
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
John McN. Sieburth, a fiercely independent scientist whose research on
turkeys led him to penguins, which in turn led him to help identify
infinitesimal oceanic organisms that appear to be the most abundant on
earth, died on December 7 [2006] in West Kingston, Rhode Island [and
Providence Plantations]. He was 79.
The cause was complications of dementia, his son Scott said.
Dr. Sieburth was a young researcher studying the use of antibiotics to
fight poultry diseases when he became captivated by old claims that
penguins had no bacteria in their intestines. So he went to Antarctica
on an Argentine icebreaker and confirmed the reports.
He then found that krill, a relative of shrimp and a major component
of the penguin diet, contained acrylic acid, which he identified as a
naturally occurring antibiotic found in the ocean. He published an
article in Science on his finding. He also patented acrylic acid for
use as an antibiotic, but it proved too unstable for regular use on
land animals.
His enthusiasm for "drugs from the sea" prompted him to seek and win a
position at the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of
Rhode Island, where he did research and taught for 31 years. Dr.
Sieburth was part of a generation of ocean scientists who used new
technology to vastly expand knowledge of ocean life.
He and P. W. Johnson confirmed the recent discovery of a species of
photosynthetic picoplankton, using electron microscopes to perceive
fluorescence produced by the chlorophyll of the organisms. They then
demonstrated that picoplankton are so widespread that they provide
half the food consumed in the sea.
Later, Dr. Sieburth helped find and name the microscopic algae that
wiped out large populations of shellfish and came to be called "brown
tide."
He wrote two books, including an important marine biology textbook,
"Sea Microbes" (1979), and 187 research articles.
John McNeill Sieburth was born in Calgary, Alberta, on Sept. 2, 1927,
and by his own account was a problem child, repeatedly expelled from
elementary schools in Vancouver, British Columbia, where he grew up.
He accidentally burned down his family's house.
His first experience with the sea was sailing with his father, and he
hopped freights as a hobo before and during his undergraduate studies
at the University of British Columbia. He wrote a thesis on the life
forms in a guinea pig's intestines, and played a practical joke on his
entomology professor by gluing together parts of different insects.
His son said Dr. Sieburth never mellowed, producing "brutal" reviews
of his colleagues' articles. When he attended academic seminars, he
sometimes wore an alarm device originally intended to jolt drowsy
drivers awake.
After college, he studied the effects of antibiotics and earned a
master's degree at Washington State University, where he met Janice
Fae Boston, a nutrition student. She said she married him because he
was the only young man who would talk seriously to her about science.
She survives him, along with their daughters Heather L. Crumbaker of
Vancouver, Wash., Peggy J. Sieburth of Winter Haven, Fla., and Leslie
E. Sieburth of Salt Lake City; his sons Scott, of Bryn Mawr, Pa., and
H. Clark, of Spring Grove, Va.; six grandchildren; and his sister,
Louise Anderson of Las Cruces, N.M.
Dr. Sieburth earned his doctorate from the University of Minnesota,
where he studied turkeys. He joined the veterinary department of
Virginia Polytechnic Institute, where poultry eventually led to
penguins.
As part of the International Geophysical Year of 1957-8, in which 36
countries united for scientific study, particularly of the south polar
region, he found a spot on an Argentine research vessel after the
Americans had no room. He dissected many penguins, and was careful in
his articles not to say he broke the birds' necks. His son said he
used the phrase "dislocating their backbones."
Throughout his career, he devised new experimental methods. For
example, he used the fluorescence of ground-up firefly tails, which
use sugar as an energy source, to gauge the sugar content of marine
samples, thus deriving an estimate of the concentration of organisms.
Dr. Sieburth's interests included boatbuilding, blacksmithing and
carving whales' teeth for the knives he made. He used his own boat to
continue research after his retirement in 1990.
The little pond in front of his last home particularly piqued his
curiosity: do bacteria at the water's surface explain why parts of the
pond are rough, and others calm? Experiments seemed to prove the
hypothesis.
"He just liked learning new things," his son Scott said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/09/obituaries/09sieburth.html?ref=obituaries