Paul Rankin obituary

Paul Rankin, my dad, who has died aged 72, was a research physicist and an adventurer. He worked for the electronics company Philips for 36 years, and filed more than 40 patents in that time. He was an innovator, with projects in the favelas in Brazil, the wastes of Mali, the temples of Thailand and the peaks of Peru.

He visited more than 70 countries in his lifetime. After retirement he became involved in research into pangolins in Namibia, helping to track and understand these creatures, sometimes known as scaly anteaters.