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Showing posts with label Nobel Prize. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nobel Prize. Show all posts
Friday, October 11, 2013
Nobel Peace Prize for 2013
Nobel Peace Prize for 2013
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided
that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2013 is to be awarded to the Organization for
the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) for its extensive efforts to
eliminate chemical weapons.
During World War One, chemical weapons were
used to a considerable degree. The Geneva Convention of 1925 prohibited the
use, but not the production or storage, of
chemical weapons. During World War Two, chemical means were employed in
Hitler’s mass exterminations. Chemical weapons have subsequently been put to
use on numerous occasions by both states and terrorists. In 1992-93 a
convention was drawn up prohibiting also the production and storage of such weapons.
It came into force in 1997. Since then the OPCW has, through inspections,
destruction and by other means, sought the implementation of the convention.
189 states have acceded to the convention to date.
The conventions and the work of the OPCW have
defined the use of chemical weapons as a taboo under international law. Recent
events in Syria, where chemical weapons have again been put to use, have
underlined the need to enhance the efforts to do away with such weapons. Some
states are still not members of the OPCW. Certain states have not observed the
deadline, which was April 2012, for destroying their chemical weapons. This
applies especially to the USA and Russia.
Disarmament figures prominently in Alfred
Nobel’s will. The Norwegian Nobel Committee has through numerous prizes
underlined the need to do away with nuclear weapons. By means of the present
award to the OPCW, the Committee is seeking to contribute to the elimination of
chemical weapons.
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
The Royal Swedish
Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2013
to
Martin Karplus
Université de Strasbourg, France and Harvard University, Cambridge,
MA, USA
Michael Levitt
Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
and
Arieh Warshel
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
“for the development of multiscale models for complex chemical
systems”
The computer — your Virgil
in the world of atoms
Chemists used to create models of molecules
using plastic balls and sticks. Today, the modelling is carried out in
computers. In the 1970s, Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel laid
the foundation for the powerful programs that are used to understand and
predict chemical processes. Computer models mirroring real life have become
crucial for most advances made in chemistry today.
Chemical reactions occur at lightning
speed. In a fraction of a millisecond, electrons jump from one atomic nucleus
to the other. Classical chemistry has a hard time keeping up; it is virtually
impossible to experimentally map every little step in a chemical process. Aided
by the methods now awarded with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, scientists let
computers unveil chemical processes, such as a catalyst’s purification of
exhaust fumes or the photosynthesis in green leaves.
The work of Karplus, Levitt and Warshel is
ground-breaking in that they managed to make Newton’s classical physics work
side-by-side with the fundamentally different quantum physics. Previously,
chemists had to choose to use either or. The strength of classical physics was
that calculations were simple and could be used to model really large
molecules. Its weakness, it offered no way to simulate chemical reactions. For
that purpose, chemists instead had to use quantum physics. But such
calculations required enormous computing power and could therefore only be
carried out for small molecules.
This year’s Nobel Laureates in chemistry
took the best from both worlds and devised methods that use both classical and
quantum physics. For instance, in simulations of how a drug couples to its
target protein in the body, the computer performs quantum theoretical
calculations on those atoms in the target protein that interact with the drug.
The rest of the large protein is simulated using less demanding classical
physics.
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Nobel Prize in Physics 2013 Winners
Nobel Prize in Physics 2013 Winners
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the
Nobel Prize in Physics for 2013 to
François Englert
Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
and
Peter W. Higgs
University of Edinburgh, UK
“for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes
to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which
recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental
particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider”
Here, at last!
François Englert and Peter W. Higgs are
jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 2013 for the theory of how particles
acquire mass. In 1964, they proposed the theory independently of each other
(Englert together with his now deceased colleague Robert Brout). In 2012, their
ideas were confirmed by the discovery of a so called Higgs particle at the CERN
laboratory outside Geneva in Switzerland..
The awarded theory is a central part of the
Standard Model of particle physics that describes how the world is constructed.
According to the Standard Model, everything, from flowers and people to stars
and planets, consists of just a few building blocks: matter particles. These
particles are governed by forces mediated by force particles that make sure
everything works as it should.
The entire Standard Model also rests on the
existence of a special kind of particle: the Higgs particle. This particle
originates from an invisible field that fills up all space. Even when the
universe seems empty this field is there. Without it, we would not exist,
because it is from contact with the field that particles acquire mass. The
theory proposed by Englert and Higgs describes this process.
On 4 July 2012, at the CERN laboratory for
particle physics, the theory was confirmed by the discovery of a Higgs
particle. CERN’s particle collider, LHC (Large Hadron Collider), is probably
the largest and the most complex machine ever constructed by humans. Two
research groups of some 3,000 scientists each, ATLAS and CMS, managed to
extract the Higgs particle from billions of particle collisions in the LHC.
Monday, October 7, 2013
2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Winners
2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Winners
The 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
jointly to
James E. Rothman, Randy W.
Schekman
and Thomas C. Südhof
for their discoveries of machinery regulating vesicle traffic,
a major transport system in our cells.
--> The discovery of a complex transport
system within the human body that makes cells deliver life-saving proteins and
molecules at the right place and in the right time - vital for our survival,
has been awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology.
--> Americans James Rothman (Yale), and
Randy Schekman ( University of California) and German-born Thomas Sudhof (
Stanford University) have been awarded the world's top medicine prize for
discovering the molecular principles that govern how this cargo is delivered.
Summary
The 2013 Nobel Prize honours three
scientists who have solved the mystery of how the cell organizes its transport
system. Each cell is a factory that produces and exports molecules. For
instance, insulin is manufactured and released into the blood and chemical
signals called neurotransmitters are sent from one nerve cell to another. These
molecules are transported around the cell in small packages called vesicles.
The three Nobel Laureates have discovered the molecular principles that govern
how this cargo is delivered to the right place at the right time in the cell.
Randy Schekman discovered a set of genes
that were required for vesicle traffic. James Rothman unravelled protein machinery that allows
vesicles to fuse with their targets to permit transfer of cargo. Thomas Südhof
revealed how signals instruct vesicles to release their cargo with precision.