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10 Dec 2011 09:53

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World: Three women — two Liberian, one Yemeni — accept Nobel Peace Prize

  • Three examples of strong female peace-fighters: On Saturday in Oslo, the three winners of this year’s Nobel Peace Price — from left, Yemeni Tawakkol Karman, Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee and Liberian president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf — accepted their honors. The three women were chosen together as a reflection of women’s rights at large. Karman’s case is particularly of note — at 32 she is not only the youngest winner of an award, but also the first Arab woman, one reflective of this year’s Arab Spring movement. Gbowee, meanwhile, led an anti-rape campaign in her country; and Johnson-Sirleaf went a long way in easing tensions by leading the country past a long civil war. Congrats to all three. (Photo via AP) source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

07 Oct 2011 12:46

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World: Is the Nobel Peace Prize’s approach to the Arab Spring the right one?

  • We have included the Arab Spring in this prize, but we have put it in a particular context. Namely, if one fails to include the women in the revolution and the new democracies, there will be no democracy.
  • Nobel Prize Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland • Explaining how the committee worked the Arab Spring into the Nobel Peace Prize while giving it a broader context — the repression of women. One of the three winners, Yemen’s Tawakkul Karman, has been a leader the anti-government protests in that country. The other two, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and fellow Liberian Leymah Gbowee represent different parts of the issue — Sirleaf is Africa’s first freely elected female leader, while Gbowee led a successful campaign against the usage of rape as a weapon during Liberia’s civil war. As the Arab Spring has plenty of moments which might be considered problematic for giving out a Nobel Peace Prize (such as war and violence), this is a compromise that de-emphasizes all that, while focusing on a quite-important issue. Think it’s the right approach? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

03 Oct 2011 09:26

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U.S.: This year’s Nobel Prize for Medicine co-winner died three days ago

  • Friday Ralph Steinman, a senior physician at Rockefeller University noted for his research into dendritic cells, dies after suffering from pancreatic cancer for the past four years. A big loss for the world of medicine.
  • Monday The Nobel Prize Committee awards the Nobel Price for Medicine. Steinman won for his research into the immune system. They don’t give out prizes posthumously. The Nobel folks didn’t know. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

29 Sep 2011 23:15

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Offbeat: Ig Nobel prize: From bladders to wasabi, dubious science celebrated

  • When people reach a point when they are in so much pain they just can’t stand it anymore, it was like being drunk. The ability to hold information was really impaired.
  • Ig Nobel Prize-winning scientist Peter Snyder • Describing his team’s findings — that really having to use the bathroom creates an effect on drivers similar to driving drunk or on limited sleep — at the 2011 Ig Nobel Prize awards ceremony Thursday. Snyder’s bladder-busting team (who won for medicine) was only one of many to get awarded for their weird or dubious honors, including that crazy Lithuanian mayor who used a tank to prove his point about illegal parking (he won the Ig Nobel Peace Prize), a Norwegian group that produced a useless study on sighing (psychology), and a group of Japanese researchers who created a fire alarm that uses the smell of wasabi as its key alarm agent (chemistry). All in all, a pretty Ig Nobel night. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

07 Dec 2010 10:18

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World: Le sigh: China gets allies to boycott Nobel Peace Prize ceremony

  • 19 countries will boycott Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Peace Prize ceremony source
  • » Who are these people? Besides China (duh), the countries are Afghanistan, Colombia, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Sudan, Tunisia, Venezuela, Vietnam and Ukraine. Most aren’t very surprising, but a couple (The Philippines, Russia) are. So why are they choosing to boycott Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Peace Prize ceremony? Simple. China probably threatened economic retribution against countries that supported the ceremony. And China is powerful.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

12 Oct 2010 01:19

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Politics, U.S.: Maybe if you win TWO Nobel Prizes, then you’ll be qualified

  • good Peter Diamond, nominated by Obama to serve in the Federal Reserve, just won the Nobel Prize in economics. Congratulations!
  • bad GOP Sen. Richard Shelby is blocking his nomination (thus preventing him from serving), because he’s “unqualified.” source
Posted by Seth Millstein • 5 Comments • Permalink

07 Oct 2010 10:21

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World: Show-off: Mario Vargas Llosa wins Nobel Prize for literature

This Peruvian dude is the first Latin American Nobel Prize winner in literature since 1990. What you’re witnessing now is this guy’s head getting big. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

05 Oct 2010 11:16

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Tech: Today’s Nobel Prize winners flex their graphene muscles

  • I hope that graphene and other two-dimensional crystals will change everyday life as plastics did for humanity.
  • University of Manchester, England professor Andre Geim • On winning the Nobel Prize for Physics along with his partner in really-thin-material crime, Konstantin Novoselov. The two of them have done a bunch of research into graphene, a carbon-based material that is really, really, thin. Among other benefits? It’s super-flexible and ultra-strong. Steve Jobs is going to figure out a way to make an iPad out of this. Just you wait. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

04 Oct 2010 10:17

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World: Test tube victory: In vitro fertilization pioneer nabs Nobel Prize

  • 32 years the amount of time it’s been since the first successful in vitro fertilization (Louise Brown) was born
  • 4 million the number of couples (and kids) that have benefited from the procedure since then source
  • » Why Robert Edwards won the prize: It wasn’t just for his pioneering spirit, though that helped. It was for the way that he followed his technique through and was able to allay moral concerns. “In retrospect, it is amazing that Edwards not only was able to respond to the continued criticism of in vitro fertilization, but that he also remained so persistent and unperturbed in fulfilling his scientific vision,” wrote Nobel Prize committee member Christer Höög.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

08 Oct 2009 08:32

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Culture: A “landscape of the dispossessed”: Herta Müller’s Nobel Prize win

The German novelist, essayist and poet, born in Romania, is the 12th female winner of the most literary Nobel Prize. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 2 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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