However, it needs the acquisition of new skills which I did not possess. I got the message. The recording of light scattering by intact leaves learnt at Stanford required complex interpretation. I concluded that light scattering revealed alterations of leaf energization (Heber 1969). This was not wrong but decades of further research by others were required to open the view on various complex mechanisms which protect leaves against photo-oxidative damage. The molecular

basis of these mechanisms is still under investigation. Fig. 1 Stacy French around 1970 at the Department of Plant Biology, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Stanford. Courtesy of Jeanette Brown After I had returned to my new position at Düsseldorf, the problem of establishing a balance between research and teaching was not easy to solve. Martha selleck Kirk, on sabbatical Ubiquitin inhibitor leave from Berkeley, came to my laboratory with her unique combination of human warmth and scientific competence. This was of great help. The teaching load of a professor had to be borne, but how to do this without reducing research? Student unrest also interfered. The slogan of the 1968 student generation was ‘Unter den Talaren, der Muff von tausend Jahren’ (Below their gowns, the dust of one thousand years! Did they mean me?). I had little objection against student boycott

of my lectures but warned, successfully, against interference

with my laboratory work. A few postdocs found Düsseldorf attractive. Lina Tyankova from Sofia worked successfully in the frost hardiness field until she decided she had sufficient data and should, before returning to Bulgaria, turn some attention to the Selleckchem MAPK inhibitor elegant shops of Königsallee. Tilberg and Egneus came from Sweden, Umeo Takahama from Kyushu, Japan. He was the first of several Japanese postdocs who were undaunted to do original work in difficult fields (Takahama et al. Depsipeptide nmr 1981). In 1970, I was offered a chair at the Hochschule für Bodenkultur, an Agricultural University in Vienna, Austria. Negotiations proved difficult. A counter-offer kept me in Düsseldorf, now as full professor or ‘Ordinarius’. It also made it possible for me to get, as compensation for too much teaching, half a year’s time for research with Keith Boardman at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, in short CSIRO, in Canberra, Australia. There I met Hal Hatch, famous for his work on C4 photosynthesis (Fig. 2). Keith knew all about cytochromes. I hoped for enlightenment and was not disappointed. But of main importance for me was the presence of Robin Hill (Fig. 3) who with his wife Priscilla was guest of Sir Rutherford (Bob) Robertson, President of the Australian Academy of Sciences.