♠ It's Nobel Time! "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2011 has been awarded to Bruce A. Beutler and Jules A. Hoffmann for their discoveries concerning the activation of innate immunity, and.... to Ralph M. Steinman for his discovery of the dendritic cell and its role in adaptive immunity."

♠ I must be excited about the Warehouse 13 finale ( Read more... )

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2010 goes to Peter A. Diamond, Dale T. Mortensen, and Christopher A. Pissarides "for their analysis of markets with search frictions."
On many markets, buyers and sellers do not always make contact with one another immediately. This concerns, for example, employers who are ( Read more... )

... was awarded to Liu Xiaobo "for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China". For over two decades, Liu Xiaobo has been a strong spokesman for the application of fundamental human rights also in China. He took part in the Tiananmen protests in 1989; he was a leading author behind Charter 08, the manifesto of such ( Read more... )

... was awarded to Mario Vargas Llosa "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat".The Literature Prize always eludes me as they are inevitably authors I've never heard of, and it's not like I have the time to pick up a selection to read. On my way in to work this morning ( Read more... )

is for palladium-catalyzed cross coupling. This year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded to Richard F. Heck, Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki for the development of palladium-catalyzed cross coupling. This chemical tool has vastly improved the possibilities for chemists to create sophisticated chemicals, for example carbon-based molecules as ( Read more... )

goes to 2-D material!

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2010 was awarded jointly to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov "for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene"

Graphene is a form of carbon. As a material it is completely new - not only the thinnest ever but also the strongest. As a conductor of electricity it ( Read more... )

Goes to the father of the test tube baby! Robert G. Edwards is awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize for the development of human in vitro fertilization (IVF) therapy. His achievements have made it possible to treat infertility, a medical condition afflicting a large proportion of humanity including more than 10% of all couples worldwide ( Read more... )

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2009

• Elinor Ostrom Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA
  "for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons"
  
  
• Oliver E. Williamson University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
  "for his analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm"

( Read more... )

The winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace goes to:

• Barack Obama, President of the United States of America

"for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples"

Press ReleaseI remember, rather vividly, how the right wing had kiniptchens when Al Gore received the Peace Prize. Interestingly, it was more ( Read more... )

This morning, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to:

• Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, United Kingdom, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, United Kingdom
  
• Thomas A. Steitz, USA, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute
  
• Ada E. Yonath, Israel, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

"for studies of the ( Read more... )