Kazuo Shibata arranged to have the Shimadzu Co. in Japan ship his newly designed but bulky Multipurpose Spectrophotometer to Brisbane, Australia. After loading it to our laboratories, it permitted novel studies with Per Halldal, Shirley Jeffrey and I (see Halldal 1968; Shibata 1969) such as spectral light absorption and photosynthesis by the submerged green layer of corals, selleck inhibitor the occurrence of a unique phycoerythrin in the bloom of the cyanobacterium Trichodesmium
and, in symbiotic dinoflagellates of corals, energy transfer from Aurora Kinase inhibitor peridinin to chlorophyll a in a protein complex (later named PCP). By contrast, Blinks obtained all the accurate data he needed with the simple Heathkit potentiometer/recorder he had assembled and brought along in a suitcase as he renewed his interest in bioelectric phenomena of giant single-celled algae, in this case Boergesenia, available to him for the first time in this tropical Pacific location. He located and collected his own supply of algae and buried himself for hours on end in an air-conditioned inner laboratory. C59 wnt This recollection demonstrates Blinks’s
fundamental challenge with the membrane phenomena, when he had an opportunity to look further at a variety of photosynthesis opportunities, but chose membranes. Isabella Abbott at the tribute to Blinks at Chico, California, recalled Blinks going back to the South Pacific to collect giant algal cells. One of
us (A.T.) went on a series of Valonia-collecting trips with him in the 1960s–1970s, primarily in the Florida Keys, one of his favorite haunts where he knew many secret Valonia places as did A.T., trading collecting and transporting Casein kinase 1 secrets. Subsequently, A.T. would bring him the treasured Valonia from around the Western Hemisphere (of several species) for his living collection at Pacific Grove, with which he regularly worked as she migrated back and forth from Florida and the Caribbean to Berkeley, California. He was almost into his 90s, still working in retirement alone in his labs with the giant algal cells, entertaining his scientific visitors and former students with a walk on the beach to see his cherished algae in their habitat. Francis Haxo (2006; unpublished) recalled back in California some years after 1966: “I was to have my last vision of Blinks in a corner of a very crowded Hopkins Marine Station seated at a small desk with comparable instrumentation, deeply engrossed in the electric responses of an impaled Halicystis.” Another outstanding characteristic was his bold approach to finding answers and methods to explore the essence of algal physiological problems.