His father, Emperor Hirohito, is Japan's most famous Sunday marine microbiologist; his brother, Prince Yoshi, is a cytologist; and his son, Prince Hiro, is a confirmed admirer of the elephants at the zoo. With science all around, Crown Prince Akihito himself is no slouch when it comes to ichthyology. He has just finished a treatise on the shoulder blades of the goby fish, and used his 30th birthday press conference to announce a tonic devised to restore the appetite of his wife, Princess Michiko, still ailing after a March abortion. The "particularly effective delicacy," said the prince, consists of strips of grilled eel laid over a bowl of rice with hot green tea poured all over it.

In a somber ceremony witnessed by Brother Ted, 31, and Sister Jean, 35, New York International Airport (Idlewild) was officially rededicated as John F. Kennedy International Airport. There were a few brief speeches and a patter of applause as the 3-ft.-high J.F.K. initials were unveiled prior to being installed atop the International Arrivals Building. It was a "fitting memorial," allowed former President Harry Truman, 79, two days later. But even so, continued H.S.T., Americans in their grief are in too much of a hurry to rename everything, "including the pups and cats. After things settle down, we'll get the right one in the right place, and that will be in Washington."

An alert Gunsmoke director spotted his name and sent for his photograph. As easy as that, William Hickman Hill Jr., 19, grandson of the late Tom Mix, was off to Hollywood. He has now finished playing a drifter in a forthcoming TV episode in hopes that his grandpap's talents were hereditary. At least some of them seem to be, because "Hick" is already a pretty fair rider and roper, used to do it for a living as foreman on his father's Laredo ranch. "Back home in Texas, I made $5 a day," he says. "But here I make $250." So he figures he'll try acting for a while. "If I don't make it," he shrugs, "I can always find something to do--even if I'm flat busted."

"I feel wonderful," beamed Jack Ruby, 52, after he appeared before Dallas Judge Joe B. Brown for a bail-bond hearing in the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald. And that was the tone of the whole affair. Judge Brown had outraged Ruby's defense attorney, Melvin Belli, by ruling that TV cameras would be out of court when Ruby comes to trial in February. But then the judge went ahead and hired his own public relations firm. "Decorum will be maintained," trumpeted the first release.

Though it does not pass to the next generation, Britain's title of life peer gives the holder all the other noble rights, including a seat in the House of Lords. And that sits fine with Dora Gaitskell, widow of Labor Leader Hugh Gaitskell. The new Baroness Gaitskell sees the distinction "as a tribute to my late husband." But, she adds, thinking of her interest in education and prison reform, "it is also a way for me to get back into active politics."

When the Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, Hewlett Johnson, 89, finally retired last May, Anglican churchmen breathed a long sigh of relief. But "the Red Dean" shows no sign of letup in his Communist Partygoing. Now he is off to Havana to help celebrate the fifth anniversary of Fidel Castro's regime. "He was absolutely determined to go," said his wife. "I must say he has been very well lately, but it is a long journey for a man of his age."

It came as quite a surprise to devoted Late Show fans when that old song-and-dance man George Murphy, 61, announced he was running for nomination as U.S. Senator. But not to Cali fornia Republicans. For all his amiable hoofing and woofing, Murphy has been active and effective in Republican politics for 25 years, and party polls of the voters are encouraging.

Fie on nudity, fie, says Dana Andrews, 52, new president of the Screen Actors Guild. All this film nakedness is just a producer's gimmick to hypo the box office "by having performers do something they can't do on TV." Furthermore, he harrumphed, those high-priced nudenik stars (he means Carroll Baker) are putting all kinds of pressure on newcomers to follow suitless.

"Came to N.H. when I was three, learned to ski," wrote the 1960 Winter Olympics top-ranking U.S. woman skier on one of those biographical questionnaires. And she still thinks that a tender age is the right time to learn. So at Gilford, N.H., where she now runs a ski school, it was Penny Pitou and her son, too, out in the snow for his first lesson. And with proud Mom, 25, grinning from muffed ear to muffed ear, Christian, 2, struck a pose that proved he was to the manner born.

For 33 years, Don Juan de Borbon, Pretender to the Spanish throne, has been living in exile. Spain's Dictator Francisco Franco stonily forbade him to return to Madrid--until last week.

What finally melted Franco's heart was little eight-day-old Elena Maria Isabel Dominica de Silos, daughter of Don Juan's son, Juan Carlos, and Greek Princess Sophie, and, most important, Don Juan's first grandchild. With that in mind, Franco allowed the would-be king to return for 36 hours for the christening, then dropped in on the affair and had a rare 20-minute chat with the exile. What did they talk about? Well, Franco has five grandchildren himself.

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