James Doohan, well-loved and best-known as Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in the original Star Trek series, died early this morning of pneumonia and Alzheimer's Disease, at age 85.
When I heard the news, I thought of the scene in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, when Scotty is playing "Amazing Grace" on the bagpipes after Spock's death. Today those pipes play for him.
Coincidentally, today is also the anniversary of the Apollo 11 first manned moon landing on July 20, 1969 (which the almost seven-year-old me watched, idolized and longed to be part of). In honor of the latter anniversary, Google has incorporated lunar imagery into its wonderful Google Maps technology, at Google Moon. Zoom in all the way to find out what the moon is made of after all--albeit yellow, not green, as it turns out. You can also see the front page of the New York Times from the following day.
