Dr. Tod H. Mikuriya died from complications of cancer Sunday, May 20, in his Berkeley, California, home. Mikuriya, a member of Mensa, was born in 1933 to a German immigrant and a Japanese samurai. He attended Quaker schools as a youth, and became an Army medic in the 1950s after receiving a bachelor's degree in psychology from Reed College in Portland, Oregon. In 1962, he received a medical degree from Temple University. Beginning in the 1960s, Mikuriya studied marijuana's therapeutic potential, and helped draft California Proposition 215, legalizing marijuana for the seriously ill. Since the proposition's passage in 1996, Mikuriya has written approvals for almost 9,000 patients. In 1999, he founded the Society of Cannabis Clinicians to educate fellow doctors about the plant's medical uses. Mikuriya believed 285 ailments, including insomnia and stuttering, could be eased through the use of medical marijuana. Mikuriya briefly directed marijuana research at the National Institute of Mental Health, but quit when he realized the U.S. government only "wanted bad things found out about marijuana." Mikuriya was 73.

Sources: latimes.com, mikuriya.com

Harold E. "Bud" Froehlich, suffering from cancer, died in a suburban Minneapolis hospital on Saturday, May 19. Froelich was born in Minneapolis in 1922 and was a Navy signalman during World War II. In 1962, he was named project manager for the construction of a small deep-sea diving submarine. The contract had been given to General Mills by the Navy and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The vessel, built in 1964 and named Alvin after Allyn Vine, an engineer and geophysicist at the Oceanographic Institution, could reach depths surpassing 14,000 feet, and in 1986 was used to explore the Titanic, resting 12,000 feet underwater in the North Atlantic. Since the 1960s, Alvin has made more than 4,200 dives and can reach nearly 63 percent of the global ocean floor. Froelich later joined 3M and helped develop high-altitude balloons and skin staplers. He retired from 3M in 1989. Harold E. Froehlich was 84.

Sources: Associated Press, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Driss Benzekri died Sunday, May 20, of complications from stomach cancer. Benzekri was a former Marxist who was one of hundreds, possibly thousands, of Moroccans illegally detained, tortured, or "disappeared" by state security forces from 1956 through 1999. He was arrested for political reasons in the mid-1970s, and spent 17 years of a 30-year sentence behind bars. The Equity and Reconciliation Commission was founded in 2004 by King Mohamed VI to look into Morocco's past human rights abuses, and Benzekri was made president of the organization. It's been praised as a model for other Arab countries confronting their dubious pasts in the area of human rights. In 2006, the commission released a report naming those who were perpetrators of abuse and outlined a reparations plan for victims. Joe Stork, deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa at Human Rights Watch, from an Associated Press interview: "Despite chronic back pain caused by torture and a debilitating illness, Driss continued to fight for human rights until the end of his life." Benzekri was 57.

Sources: Associated Press, Maghreb Arabe Presse

Tailor Orlando Consalvi died Tuesday, May 15, of colon cancer at his home in Lexington, Kentucky. Consalvi was born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, and began learning his craft at age 6 after his family moved to a small village in Italy. He returned to the U.S. with his brother in 1937 and worked in tailoring shops before joining the Army during World War II. Consalvi opened his own suit shop in the 1950s in Lexington. He made clothes for Lexington's wealthy, including the distinctive white suits worn by fried chicken entrepreneur Col. Harland Sanders (left). Consalvi also created a "suit club" that allowed the less-fortunate to purchase $150 suits at a rate of $3 a week. He also gave suits to residents of the old U.S. Narcotics Farm, the first drug treatment center for addicts established by Congress, when they were released. Consalvi retired in 2005 when he could no longer thread a needle. He was 87.

Sources: Associated Press, kentucky.com, leasingnews.org

Petro Balabuyev died on Thursday, May 17 in Kiev, Ukraine. Balabuyev was the lead designer on the An-225, the world's largest aircraft. The six-engine An-225 first flew in 1988 and can carry 275 tons of cargo for a distance of 2,790 miles. Balabuyev was employed by the Antonov aviation design bureau for almost twenty years, where he was also the top designer for the An-124-100, which can carry 165 tons. Both planes are noted for being able to land at poorly equipped airports. On December 30, 1999, he was honored with the Hero of Ukraine award for achievement in labor. Balabuyev was 75.

Sources: Yahoo! News, Wikipedia

James E. Slosson of Sherman Oaks died of congestive heart failure at a hospital on Saturday, April 28. His wife died of the same cause one day earlier. Slosson was the California state geologist and chief of the Division of Mines and Geology from 1973 to 1975. He helped develop and pass a 1975 act [PDF] that created the California Seismic Safety Commission on which he served from 1975-78 and 1991-99. The commission advises the State Legislature and the governor on earthquakes with a focus on safety and damage reduction. Slosson was 84.

Sources: Associated Press, seismic.ca.gov

William Becker died of a heart attack in a Kingman, Arizona hospital on April 2. Becker and a fellow Santa Barbara contractor, Paul Greene, came up with a plan in the early Sixties to build motels that offered bargain rates for families and business travelers. The first Motel 6 opened in Santa Barbara in 1962, so-named for the $6 rate per night. The two contractors sold the motel chain in 1968, but continued working for the company until they retired in 1973. The Motel 6 chain currently has more than 880 locations in the U.S. and Canada. Becker was 85.

Sources: Yahoo! News, motel6.com

American physicist Theodore H. Maiman died Sunday, May 6, at a Vancouver hospital from a rare genetic disorder called systemic mastocytosis. Maiman earned a B.S. degree in engineering physics from the University of Colorado in 1949, and a master's degree in electrical engineering from Stanford. He earned a doctorate in physics in 1955. Maiman was working for Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu in 1960 when he made his laser discovery using a high-power flash lamp and a synthetic ruby crystal. Competition at the time was fierce. Arthur L. Schawlow and his brother-in-law Charles H. Townes were working on extending the principles of the maser to much shorter wavelengths, to make an optical maser or laser. Gordon Gould, who coined the word "laser," file a competing patent as an employee of a defense researcher. The National Inventors Hall of Fame, however, cites Maiman as the inventor of the laser. Dr. Maiman was twice nominated for a Nobel Prize and was the recipient of the 1983/84 Physics Prize. He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1984. He was 79.

Sources: Associated Press, britannica.com, Hughes Research Laboratories, ieee-virtual-museum.org, nobelprize.org

Alvin Batiste died Sunday, May 6, of an apparent heart attack, only hours before he was to perform at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival with Harry Connick Jr. and Branford Marsalis. Festival officials state Batiste was born in 1932. Batiste was a jazz clarinetist who toured with Ray Charles, Billy Cobham, and Cannonball Adderly. In 1956, he spent time in Los Angeles playing with Ornette Coleman. He taught for an extended period at Southern University in Baton Rouge, where he created the Batiste Jazz Institute, and was lead teacher in jazz instrumental music at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. His students included Marsalis, Henry Butler, Charlie Singleton (Cameo), Woodie Douglas (Spirit), Randy Jackson (of American Idol fame) and many more. Marsalis Music released Marsalis Music Honors Alvin Batiste on April 10, 2007.

Sources: Jazz News, Associated Press, Wikipedia, allaboutjazz.com

Walter M. Schirra Jr. died today of a heart attack at Scripps Green Hospital in La Jolla, California. Schirra was born in Hackensack, New Jersey on March 12, 1923. His father was a World War I pilot and later a barnstorming pilot at county fairs. Schirra's mother would sometimes stand on the airplane wings during the stunts. Schirra graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1945 and flew 90 combat missions in a F-86 Sabre as a member of the Seventh Fleet during the Korean War, for which he received the Navy Distinguished Service Medal, three Distinguished Flying Crosses, and three Air Medals. NASA named him one of the Mercury Seven astronauts in April 1959, and in 1962 on the fifth Mercury flight, Schirra became the third American to orbit the Earth. Schirra commanded Gemini 6A in 1965, guiding his two-man capsule toward the orbiting Gemini 7, the first rendezvous of two spacecraft in orbit. Schirra's final flight was in 1968 as commander of Apollo 7, the first mission of the Apollo program that would send men to the moon the following year. He retired in 1969 after logging 295 hours, 154 minutes in space. NASA Administrator Michael Griffin at nasa.gov: "With the passing of Wally Schirra, we at NASA note with sorrow the loss of yet another of the pioneers of human spaceflight. As a Mercury astronaut, Wally was of a member of the first group of astronauts to be selected, often referred to as the Original Seven." Schirra was 84.

Sources: Associated Press, nasa.gov