Andrew Huxley, died last week at the age of 94. Huxley, with his research advisor Alan Hodgkin, proved that the mechanism for action potential propagation in nerve cells were due to the passage of ions through voltage gated ion channels in the cell membrane. In the course of their work, they developed the Hodgkin-Huxley model of the neuron and launched the field of computational neuroscience. While their work was a monumental achievement and deserved a Nobel prize, it still built upon the work of many others. I recommend reading the Nobel address of both Huxley (see here) and Hodgkin (see here) for the story of their discovery.
