Munro would attack politicians regardless of their affiliation and wore their disapproval like a medal.Behind the conviviality was a shy and intensely private man. Married to a doctor, he had five children, and one of his daughters is a midwife. Though not a Quaker – and not a teetotaller either – Munro’s radical and humanitarian ideals fitted well with The Lancet’s Quaker traditions.His retirement in 1988 freed him to give his energies to causes dear to him: the Association for the Promotion of Health Care in the Former Soviet Union (Chairman 1988-93), Medical Action for Global Security (Vice- Chairman from 1988); and the UK branch of Physicians for Human Rights (President from 1991). He died of complications following an operation and he was, of course, an NHS patient.Caroline RichmondIan Arthur Hoyle Munro, medical journalist, born Bradford 5 November 1923; Deputy Editor, The Lancet 1965-76, Editor 1976-88; married 1948 Olive Jackson (three sons, two daughters); died Tunbridge Wells, Kent 22 January 1997.. There is a hint of a new season in the night sky this month, with the appearance of Leo, the most prominent constellation of spring, in the east. It will move to centre-stage high in the south during March and April

Another return graces the skies this February. Until May, we’ll be hearing in greater detail about Comet Hale-Bopp, an unexpected celestial apparition which may be the most spectacular comet for almost a century.
This ball of ice and rock is brightening as it closes in on the Sun, boiling off its ices ever more fiercely.

Look to the east in the pre- dawn skies for a first sighting, but don’t worry too much if you’re not an early riser – the best is yet to come. The comet will be brightest in late March and early April.This month, early-evening skies are dominated by the brilliant stars of winter. Look south for mighty Orion, with seven bright stars framing his shoulders and belt. To the upper right is his ancient adversary, Taurus the bull.The evening sky is also sporting two planets Saturn is glowing in the south west after sunset. It sets at 8.30pm; simultaneously, orange-red Mars is rising in the east.

Two American probes – Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Pathfinder – are on their way to the red planet for a rendezvous in the summer and early autumn. Designed long before last summer’s Martian life controversy, they will be seeking out water on the planet.Saturn, meantime, is the target of a much more drawn-out space mission. The US probe Cassini will be launched in October on a journey to the vast ring world which will take seven years. The main Cassini craft will release the European Space Agency’s Huygens craft, which will land on Titan, the planet’s biggest moon. This mysterious world is wreathed in a thick orange atmosphere, under which may lurk molecules that could form life in warmer conditions.February diary7 3.06pm new moon14 8.57am Moon at first quarter22 10.27am full moonHeather Couper and Nigel Henbest. Prestige Status National pride.

Those are the sort of words that a vote-eager defence secretary might use when announcing (to pluck an example from the air) a new royal yacht; but they’re also, you would hope, the sort of considerations that would go into deciding the fate of the nation’s publicly held scientific expertise. You can be sure, though, that the fate of the latter will not reap the same headlines when it is announced in Parliament in the next fortnight or so. Yet it will, arguably, affect more people – specifically, thousands of scientists and staff at Government-owned research laboratories up and down the country.
The expected announcement will be the next stage of the Government’s Prior Options policy, which aims to see whether there are better ways of managing various laboratories currently funded by the public sector. Those laboratories cover a huge range of expertise – the Royal Observatories, fisheries research, buildings research, a broad range of animal and veterinary research, the Public Health Laboratory Service, and others – employing more than 20,000 people.There’s a fair chance that the decision will be more popular than last week’s one about That Yacht – particularly if the decision is effectively no decision, in the form of a postponement. That would push any real action beyond the date of the general election.