UC Davis' extended family joined together on Monday to praise the courage, passion for science and ultimate sacrifice of five researchers who died March 27 in the Sea of Cortez. The celebration of the lives of Gary Polis, Michael Rose, Masahiko Higashi, Takuya Abe and Shigeru Nakano drew 500 friends and family from as far away as York, England, to the memorial service in Freeborn Hall. "Their passion burned bright, and warms us yet, as we recall their sense of adventure, their love of the unknown, their pursuit of a transcendent understanding of the natural world around them," said Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef in his introduction. "Theirs were the souls of scientists -- and artists. To be touched by them is a gift; to lose them so soon is a tragedy." Polis, chair of the Department of Environmental Science and Policy, was leading an ecological expedition in Baja California when his boat capsized in rough seas. He, his postgraduate researcher Rose, and three visiting Japanese professors from Kyoto University died. Four others on the boat survived -- graduate students Becca Lewison and Ralph Haygood, postgraduate researcher Gary Huxel, and undergraduate student Sarah Ratay. At the memorial, Vanderhoef read official statements expressing condolences from U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, U.S. Rep. Doug Ose and UC President Richard Atkinson. UC Board of Regents Chair John Davies and Consul General Nobuaki Tanaka from the San Francisco Japanese Consulate also offered their condolences. Vanderhoef reported that memorial trees will be planted on campus. The average professor is not driven to dangerous pursuits, said Neal Van Alfen, dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. He pointed out that many people outside the university community can't understand why people would want to count scorpions and monitor what the arachnids eat. "It was on a quest to understand life that... they lost their lives," he said. Alan Hastings, Polis' predecessor as chair of environmental science and policy, said Polis had had a tremendous impact at UC Davis while being here less than two years. Polis' passion for science, his students and colleagues, as well as for life and good food, will be long remembered, Hastings said. "For Gary, science and life was one big web, and conversations naturally drifted between the scientific and personal. He was simultaneously a wonderful naturalist, one of the world's leading ecologists, a great teacher, a superb colleague, and a wonderful leader on the campus and nationally," Hastings said. "But it was his human side that always came through -- whether it was his Hawaiian shirts, or the pony tail he used to wear, or simply an encouraging word for someone nearby." A common theme at the memorial was the courage shown by Polis, Rose and Nakano in trying to help the others survive. Nakano, for instance, strapped his life preserver on Abe so that the older Japanese man, who could not swim, would have two jackets to keep him buoyant. Kurt Fausch, a professor at Colorado State University, said this selfless act did not surprise him about Nakano, his best friend and closest colleague. Patty West, an expedition rescue team member and graduate student at the University of Arizona, spoke about the inspired lives of Rose and Polis, whom she had gotten to know over the past two years during trips to Baja. "Gary and Mike were two of the most passionately alive people that I have ever known. It seems that those that live the most in every moment are the people who are missed most when they are gone." She said she had learned some lessons from them: o Greet everyday with a goofy smile, no matter what your hair looks like; o Take everyone into your family; o Be ready to learn in every moment and from everyone... but if you don't know something, just make it up; o Live each precious brief moment as deeply as possible; and o Go to paradise whenever the opportunity arises. A video recording of the service, which has been "streamed" so viewers can download with a minor investment of time, is available with browser software on the Web.