Professor emeritus Hugh Huxley, of Woods Hole, Mass., a biologist who conducted pioneering research on muscle structure and function, died July 25, 2013, following a heart attack at his home. He was 89. Educated at the University of Cambridge, Hugh came to Brandeis in 1987 as professor of biology and director of the Rosenstiel Basic Medical Sciences Research Center. He continued his research at Brandeis, providing molecular explanations of complex processes in the machinery of living cells. He retired from the faculty in 1997. He leaves his wife, Frances. Former Brandeis sociology professor Philip Slater, of Santa Cruz, Calif., a social critic and author who renounced academia, died on June 20, 2013, of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He was 86. His life changed in 1970 following the publication of his best-selling book, “The Pursuit of Loneliness,” which warned that a national cult of individualism and careerism threatened to turn America into a country of hypercompetitive loners ruled by tyrants. Having re-examined his life through the lens of his own book, he resigned in 1971 as the chair of the sociology department at Brandeis. He took up acting, wrote novels and founded Greenhouse, a personal growth center, with fellow Brandeis sociology professor Morrie Schwartz and Jacqueline Doyle, a writer. Philip learned to live on one-fourth of the income he was accustomed to and began pursuing a life he would describe in a 1980 book, “Wealth Addiction,” as “voluntary simplicity.” He leaves his wife, Susan; his daughters, Dashka, Wendy and Stephanie; his son, Scott; five grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.