CITATIONS RAINING CAT AND DOG

“ARE YOU THE ‘SIMANAITIS, D’ referenced in a recent article?” the email asks. Well, what with a few math papers, scads of R&T articles, and now thousands of SimanaitisSays items, it’s likely I am the one. To verify, though, the email requires me to join something or other and, like Groucho Marx, “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.” 

These thoughts arose upon learning about two citations, apparently even more rare than mine. Here are tidbits on each.

Physicist F.D.C. Willard Cited. As described in @TheBradbury, Los Alamos National Laboratory, April 3, 2023; Interesting Facts; Atlas Obscura, August 30, 2016; Science, August 31, 2016, and, specifically Wikipedia, “F. D. C. Willard (1968–1982) was the pen name of a Siamese cat named Chester, who internationally published under this name on physics in scientific journals. He is most famous for his work on low temperature physics as a co-author in 1975. At one later occasion, he published as the sole author.”

Chester, aka F.D.C. Willard, feline pal of American physicist and mathematician Jack H. Hetherton. Image by Robert Couse-Baker/Flickr from Science. 

As cited in @TheBradbury, “In 1975, F.D.C. Willard co-authored a paper about atomic behavior, ‘Two-, Three-, and Four-Atom Exchange Effects in bcc3 He.’ ” 

Pre-Laptop Composition. @TheBradbury continues, “Some secrecy surrounded the collaboration between the two researchers. F.D.C. Willard was actually a nom de plume. His true name was simply Chester. The more formal attribution stood for ‘Felis Domesticus Chester,’ and Willard was the name of the cat’s father. Hetherington later claimed that he had been the sole author of the paper, and that he attributed credit to his cat, Chester, as a way to minimize edits to the original manuscript. According to Hetherington, he had mistakenly used the plural ‘we’ instead of the singular ‘I’ throughout the document, which he had laboriously typed on a typewriter. Not wanting to retype the paper, he took a shortcut by adding F.D.C. Willard as co-author.”

Image in More Random Walks in Science/Google Books, from Atlas Obscura.

Other Works by Researcher Willard. “However,” @TheBradbury adds, “some doubt exists about the supposed lack of F.D.C. Willard’s contribution to the publication, as he was later the sole author of a paper about solid helium 3 in the French journal Recherche. While he was clearly fluent in French, perhaps the four-legged physicist’s demonstrated reluctance to speak to the press on his own behalf accounts for the widespread support of Hetherington’s narrative.”

Lifelong Companions. “While speculation remains,” concludes @TheBradbury, “it is worth noting that no animosity existed between the two researchers, and they remained lifelong companions, with Hetherington frequently referencing F.D.C. Willard in footnotes of subsequent publications. F.D.C. Willard (Chester) passed away in 1982, a notable contributor to the field of atomic research. He was a good boy.”

Galadriel Mirkwood, T-cell Researcher. Some might recognize a J.R.R. Tolkien link to researcher Mirkwood’s moniker, but Wikipedia spills the beans er dog kibbles. Galadriel Mirkwood was an Afghan Hound, pal of immunologist Polly Matzinger. 

Matzinger is a French-born American whose prior jobs, Wikipedia notes, “included bass jazz musician, carpenter, dog trainer, waitress, and Playboy Bunny.” Her undergraduate degree in biology is from our neighborhood UC Irvine; a Ph.D. in biology is from UC San Diego. Matzinger did a post-doc at the University of Cambridge and worked at the Basel Institute for Immunology prior to coming to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. 

Co-authors Matzinger and Mirkwood. Image by Polly Matzinger.

Their 1978 paper “In a fully H-2 incompatible chimera, T cells of donor origin can respond to minor histocompatibility antigens in association with either donor or host H-2 type” appeared in Journal of Experimental Medicine, 148 (1). Wikipedia notes, “Upon identifying the misconduct, she was banned from publishing in the journal.” 

Well, I’ll be dog-goned. 

Wikipedia cites awards for Matzinger’s work in immunology: for Special Excellence in Educational Films, a lifetime member of the Scandinavian Society of Immunology, named one of the fifty most important women in Science, an honorary doctorate from Hasselt University, and a Highly Cited researcher on Web of Science. Also, “Since 2009,” Wikipedia notes, “the biotechnology company EpiVax has funded the Polly Matzinger Fearless Scientist Scholarship for women scientists at the University of Rhode Island‘s Institute for Immunology & Informatics that overcome challenges.”

I’d bet Galadriel Mirkwood was talented as well. ds 

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2023