Sargent and Sims win Nobel economics prize

The Nobel Prize for Economics was awarded  to Thomas J Sargent and Christopher Sims, both of the United States "for their empirical research on cause and effect in the macroeconomy".

The prize committee said the winners have developed methods for answering questions such as how economic growth and inflation are affected by a temporary increase in the interest rate or a tax cut. Sargent and Sims both 68 carried out their research independently in the 1970s and ‘80s. 

Mr. Sargent is a professor at New York University, and Mr. Sims is a professor at Princeton University.

The economics prize capped this year’s Nobel announcements. The awards will be handed out on Dec. 10 the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel’s death. The economics prize is not among the original awards established in Nobel’s 1895 will, but was created in 1968 by the Swedish central bank in his memory.

Struggle for women’s rights wins Peace Nobel

The 2011 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded  to Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman of Yemen for their work on women’s rights.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee honored the three women “for their non—violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace—building work.”

“We cannot achieve democracy and lasting peace in the world unless women obtain the same opportunities as men to influence developments at all levels of society,” the prize committee said.

Ms. Karman is a 32—year—old mother of three who heads the human rights group Women Journalists without Chains. She has been a leading figure in organizing protests against President Ali Abdullah Saleh that kicked off in late January as part of a wave of anti—authoritarian revolts that have convulsed the Arab world.

“I am very very happy about this prize,” Ms. Karman told The Associated Press. “I give the prize to the youth of revolution in Yemen and the Yemeni people.”

By citing Ms. Karman, the committee appeared to be acknowleding the effects of the Arab Spring, which has challenged authoritarian regimes across the region. But citing the Arab Spring alone could have been problematic for the committee. The unrest toppled authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. But Libya descended into civil war that led to NATO military intervention. Egypt and Tunisia are still in turmoil. Hardliners are holding onto power in Yemen and Syria and a Saudi—led force crushed the uprising in Bahrain, leaving an uncertain record for the Arab protest movement

Prize committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland noted that Ms. Kamran’s work started before the Arab uprisings.

“Many years before the revolutions started she stood up against one of the most authoritarian and autocratic regimes in the world,” he told reporters.

Johnson Sirleaf, 72, is a Harvard—trained economist who became Africa’s first democratically elected female president in 2005.

Liberia was ravaged by civil wars for years until 2003 and is still struggling to maintain a fragile peace with the help of U.N. peacekeepers.

Ms. Sirleaf was seen as a reformer and peacemaker in Liberia when she took office. She is running for re-election this month and opponents in the presidential campaign have accused her of buying votes and using government funds to campaign. Her camp denies the charges.

The committee cited Johnson Sirleaf’s efforts to secure peace in her country, promote economic and social development and strengthen the position of women.

Ms. Gbowee, who organized a group of Christian and Muslim women to challenge Liberia’s warlords, was honored for mobilising women “across ethnic and religious dividing lines to bring an end to the long war in Liberia, and to ensure women’s participation in elections.”

In 2009 she won a Profile in Courage Award, an honor named for a 1957 Pulitzer Prize—winning book written by John F. Kennedy, for her work in emboldening women in Liberia.

Yemen is an extremely conservative society but a feature of the Arab Spring uprising there has been a prominent role for women who turned out for protests in large numbers.

A resident of Taiz, a city in southern Yemen that is a hotbed of resistance against Saleh’s regime, Ms. Karman is a journalist and member of Islah, an Islamic party. Her father is a former legal affairs minister under Saleh.

She was briefly detained in January, for a few hours, for leading anti—Saleh protests and was released after protesters rallied to pressure authorities for her release.

During a February rally in Sanaa, she told the AP- “We will retain the dignity of the people and their rights by bringing down the regime.”

The complete text of the citation awarding the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize to Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman of Yemen “for their nonviolent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.”

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2011 is to be divided in three equal parts between Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman for their nonviolent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work. We cannot achieve democracy and lasting peace in the world unless women obtain the same opportunities as men to influence developments at all levels of society.

In October 2000, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1325. The resolution for the first time made violence against women in armed conflict an international security issue. It underlined the need for women to become participants on an equal footing with men in peace processes and in peace work in general.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is Africa’s first democratically elected female president. Since her inauguration in 2006, she has contributed to securing peace in Liberia, to promoting economic and social development, and to strengthening the position of women. Leymah Gbowee mobilized and organized women across ethnic and religious dividing lines to bring an end to the long war in Liberia, and to ensure women’s participation in elections. She has since worked to enhance the influence of women in West Africa during and after war. In the most trying circumstances, both before and during the “Arab spring,” Tawakkul Karman has played a leading part in the struggle for women’s rights and for democracy and peace in Yemen.

It is the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s hope that the prize to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman will help to bring an end to the suppression of women that still occurs in many countries, and to realise the great potential for democracy and peace that women can represent.

Tomas Transtromer wins Nobel literature prize

The 2011 Nobel Prize in literature was awarded on Thursday to Tomas Transtromer, a Swedish poet whose surrealistic works about the mysteries of the human mind won him acclaim as one of the most important Scandinavian writers since World War II.

The academy said it awarded the 80-year-old poet “because, through his condensed, translucent images, he gives us fresh access to reality.”

Mr. Transtromer has been a perennial favorite for the 10 million kronor ($1.5 million) award, and in recent years Swedish journalists have waited outside his apartment in Stockholm on the day the literature prize was announced.

Mr. Transtromer’s most famous works include the 1966 “Windows and Stones,” in which he depicts themes from his many travels and “Baltics” from 1974.

His works have been translated into more than 50 languages and influenced poets around the globe, particularly in North America.

Daniel Shechtman wins Chemistry Nobel

Israeli scientist Daniel Shechtman won the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday for his discovery of quasicrystals, a mosaic-like chemical structure that researchers previously thought was impossible.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Prof. Shechtman’s discovery in 1982 fundamentally changed the way chemists look at solid matter. It initially faced strong objections from the scientific community, and even got him kicked out of his research group.

Contrary to the previous belief that atoms were packed inside crystals in symmetrical patterns, Prof. Shechtman showed that the atoms in a crystal could be packed in a pattern that could not be repeated, the academy said.

He was studying a mix of aluminium and manganese in his microscope when he found a pattern similar to Islamic mosaics that never repeated itself and appeared contrary to the laws of nature.

Since then, quasicrystals have been produced in laboratories and a Swedish company found them in one of the most durable kinds of steel, which is now used in products such as razor blades and thin needles made specifically for eye surgery, the citation said. Scientists are also experimenting with using quasicrystals in coatings for frying pans, heat insulation in engines, and in light-emitting devices called LEDs.

They were discovered in nature for the first time in 2009, according to the citation.

Crystallographers always believed that all crystals have rotational symmetry, so that when they are rotated, they look the same. In 1982, in Washington, D.C., Prof. Shechtman first observed crystals with 10 points pentagonal symmetry, which most scientists said was impossible.

“I told everyone who was ready to listen that I had material with pentagonal symmetry. People just laughed at me,” Prof. Shechtman said in a description of his work released by his university.

For months he tried to persuade his colleagues of his find, but they refused to accept it. Finally he was asked to leave his research group.

Prof. Shechtman returned to Israel, where he found one colleague prepared to work with him on an article describing the phenomenon. The article was at first rejected, but finally published in November 1984 to uproar in the scientific world. Double Nobel winner Linus Pauling was among those who never accepted the findings.

“He would stand on those platforms and declare, ‘Danny Shechtman is talking nonsense. There is no such thing as quasicrystals, only quasi-scientists,” Prof. Shechtman said.

In 1987, friends of Prof. Shechtman in France and Japan succeeded in growing crystals large enough for x-rays to repeat and verify what he had discovered with the electron microscope.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry announcement capped this year’s science awards.

Nobel Prize winners for Physics

 

Prof. Schmidt, a U.S.-Australian citizen, shares the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2011 with American scientists Saul Perlmutter and Adam G. Riess for their simultaneous discovery in 1998 that the universe is expanding at an ever-accelerating rate.

“I feel weak at the knees,” Prof. Schmidt told journalists who had gathered at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for the Nobel news conference. Speaking from his home in Canberra, Australia, Prof. Schmidt said that he did not expect the Prize but he was happy to receive it.

“It is something that people occasionally mention, but one thinks that it is probably not going to happen,” Prof. Schmidt said. Asked what he planned to do now, he joked that he was going to wander around a bit and then try to sleep. (It was 9 p.m. in Australia when the news broke.)

The 44-year-old American who grew up in Alaska and now lives in Canberra said that he would celebrate on Wednesday when he is due to teach a class in cosmology at the Australian National University.

The Nobel citation said that the trio were being awarded “for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe through observations of distant supernovae”, or exploding stars.

One half of the total Prize amount of 10 million Swedish krona (Over 7.1 crore Rupees) would go to Perlmutter from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and University of California in the U.S., and the other half jointly to Prof. Schmidt and Prof. Riess, who is with the Johns Hopkins University and Space Telescope Science Institute in the U.S..

For almost a century, the universe has been known to be expanding as a consequence of the Big Bang about 14 billion years ago. However, the discovery that this expansion is accelerating has helped to unveil a universe that to a large extent is unknown to science.

If the expansion will continue to speed up, driven by an enigmatic “dark energy”, the universe will probably end in ice, the Nobel committee for Physics at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in a statement.

While Prof. Perlmutter began his research in 1988, a rival team headed by Prof. Schmidt, and comprising Prof. Riess, came together at the end of 1994. 

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences made the announcement in Stockholm on October 04.

Immune system discoveries earn Nobel in Medicine

Three scientists won the Nobel Prize in Medicine on October 03,  for discoveries about the immune system that opened new avenues for the treatment and prevention of infectious illnesses and cancer.

American Bruce Beutler and French scientist Jules Hoffmann shared the 10 million-kronor ($1.5 million) award with Canadian-born Ralph Steinman, the Nobel committee at Stockholm Karolinska Institute said.

Mr. Beutler and Mr. Hoffmann were cited for their discoveries in the 1990s of receptor proteins that can recognise bacteria and other microorganisms as they enter the body, and activate the first line of defence in the immune system, known as innate immunity.

Mr. Steinman, 70, was honoured for the discovery two decades earlier of dendritic cells, which help regulate adaptive immunity, the next stage of the immune system’s response, when the invading microorganisms are purged from the body.

“Their work has opened up new avenues for the development of prevention and therapy against infections, cancer and inflammatory disease,” the citation said.

Mr. Beutler is professor of genetics and immunology at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. Mr. Hoffmann headed a research laboratory in Strasbourg, France, between 1974 and 2009 and served as president of the French National Academy of Sciences between 2007-2008.

Mr. Steinman has been affiliated with Rockefeller University in New York since 1970, and heads its Center for Immunology and Immune Diseases.

Mr. Hoffmann’s discovery came in 1996 during research on how fruit flies fight infections. Two years later, Mr. Beutler’s research on mice showed that fruit flies and mammals activate innate immunity in similar ways when attacked by pathogenic microorganisms.

Mr. Steinman’s discovery dates back to 1973, when he found a new cell type, the dendritic cell, which has a unique capacity to activate so-called T-cells. Those cells have a key role in adaptive immunity, producing antibodies that destroy infections. Once the infection has been stopped, the immune system maintains a memory that helps it mobilise its defences next time it comes under a similar attack.

The trio’s discoveries have enabled the development of new methods for treating and preventing diseases, including improved vaccines and in attempts to help the immune system to attack tumors, the committee said.

The medicine award kicked off a week of Nobel Prize announcements, and will be followed by the Physics prize on Tuesday, Chemistry on Wednesday, Literature on Thursday and the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. The winners of the Economics award will be announced on October 10.

The coveted prizes were established by wealthy Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, except for the Economics award, which was created by Sweden’s Central Bank in 1968 in Nobel’s memory. The prizes are always handed out on December 10, on the anniversary of Nobel’s death in 1896.

Last year’s Medicine award went to British professor Robert Edwards for fertility research that led to the first test tube baby.