Charles Frederick Ehret was a WWII veteran (Battle of the Bulge/Ardennes

Battle of the Bulge

The Battle of the Bulge was a major German offensive , launched toward the end of World War II through the densely forested Ardennes mountain region of Wallonia in Belgium, hence its French name , and France and...

 along the Siegfried Line) as well as a world renowned molecular biologist who worked at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) in Lemont, Illinois, USA, for 40 years.

Dr. Ehret researched the effects of electromagnetic radiation

Electromagnetic radiation

Electromagnetic radiation is a form of energy that exhibits wave-like behavior as it travels through space...

 on bacillus megaterium

Bacillus megaterium

Bacillus megaterium is a rod-shaped, Gram-positive, endospore forming, species of bacteria used as a soil inoculant in agriculture and horticulture.Bacterium is arranged into the streptobacillus form....

 with Dr. Edward Lawrence (Larry) Powers, as well as the effects of time shifts on paramecia

Paramecia

Paramecia is a non-mineralized Ediacaran alga with a differentiated, compartmentalized thallus; it probably had multiple phases in its lifecycle. Possible reproductive structures have been identified....

, rats and humans. A graduate of City College of CCNY (College of the City of New York) and the University of Notre Dame, Ehret formulated the term "circadian dyschronism", popularized the term zeitgeber

Zeitgeber

Zeitgeber is any exogenous cue that synchronizes an organism's endogenous time-keeping system to the earth's 24-hour light/dark cycle. The strongest zeitgeber, for both plants and animals, is light...

("time giver") in the 1980s while appearing on morning TV news shows, and helped millions of travellers overcome Jet Lag with the Jet Lag Diet, and the recently updated (2009) international best-seller The Cure for Jet Lag book by Lynne W. Scanlon and Charles F. Ehret, Ph.D, both available online. Ehret once created the world's largest spectrograph, a rainbow 100 feet (30.5 m) long, that was large enough to bathe many petri dishes

Petri dish

A Petri dish is a shallow glass or plastic cylindrical lidded dish that biologists use to culture cells or small moss plants. It was named after German bacteriologist Julius Richard Petri, who invented it when working as an assistant to Robert Koch...

 of tetrahymena

Tetrahymena

Tetrahymena are free-living ciliate protozoa that can also switch from commensalistic to pathogenic modes of survival. They are common in fresh-water. Tetrahymena species used as model organisms in biomedical research are T. thermophila and T. pyriformis.- T...

 in each 100 pm of the color spectrum.

During World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, Ehret served with the Army's 87th Infantry Division. He was decorated with the Purple Heart

Purple Heart

The Purple Heart is a United States military decoration awarded in the name of the President to those who have been wounded or killed while serving on or after April 5, 1917 with the U.S. military. The National Purple Heart Hall of Honor is located in New Windsor, New York...

 and Bronze Star

Bronze Star Medal

The Bronze Star Medal is a United States Armed Forces individual military decoration that may be awarded for bravery, acts of merit, or meritorious service. As a medal it is awarded for merit, and with the "V" for valor device it is awarded for heroism. It is the fourth-highest combat award of the...

.

Ehret died at his home in Grayslake, Illinois

Grayslake, Illinois

Grayslake is a village in Lake County in the U.S. state of Illinois. It is located in the Chicago metropolitan area, about north of Chicago’s downtown, west of Lake Michigan, and south of the Wisconsin border....

on February 24, 2007.http://www.legacy.com/Obituaries.asp?Page=APStory&Id=12617