Recent past-president of academy dies

Ralph Cicerone, who led the National Academy of Sciences for 11 years, died on 5 November at the age of 73.

Cicerone studied electrical engineering but was an atmospheric scientist by the time he took the reigns at the NAS. His work on climate change was one of the defining themes of his presidency. 

As a researcher in the 1970s at the University of Michigan, Cicerone helped to identify the threat that chlorine posed to the ozone layer. In 2001, he led a panel for the national academy, which concluded that manmade greenhouse gases were driving climate change.