RIP Nicholas Hughes

Evolutionary biologist Nicholas Hughes committed suicide last Monday in Alaska.  Hughes, the son of poet Ted Hughes and author Sylvia Plath, was 47.

Forty-six years ago, the scientist’s mother famously committed suicide by sticking her head in an oven, and a few short years later his stepmother did the same.  But The Guardian has a good take on why Hughes’ death shouldn’t be romanticized, and how looking at this as a family curse is offensive to the depressed and to Plath fans.

Hughes taught at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks in the School of Fisheries and Ocean Science.  He resigned from teaching several years ago but stayed on as a researcher, studying salmon in Alaska and New Zealand.