2012 Nobel and Ig-Nobel Prizes

[VIETgrlTerifa]

^ It's like video game mentality and fanboyism, isn't it?

[beepbeep]

Wow, i can't believe this statement...

You realize that this was tongue and cheek

Or are you a mathmatician?

[GarrAarghHrumph]

Here's a fun article about what some of the past Nobel winners have done with the cash part of the prize: http://news.yahoo.com/nobel-prize-wi...141217506.html

[Spinner]

GREAT decision re Literature. Mo Yan is an outstanding writer.

Which of his books do you like best? Where's the best place to start?

[Domshabfan]

You realize that this was tongue and cheek

Or are you a mathmatician?

Astrophysicist

[AragornElessar]

W/the majority of my FSU time the last week being in the Baseball thread, and knowing the announcements were being made, I figured the best place to catch up would be in here.

The prize for medicine was announced today. It was given for reprogramming adult cells - the discovery that adult cells can be transformed back into stem cells that act like those in embryos.

John Gurdon, 79, of the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge, UK, and Shinya Yamanaka, 50, of Kyoto University in Japan, discovered ways to create tissue out of adult cells that would act like embryonic cells, without the need to harvest embryos. This lead to cloning, and has gone on to lead to the potential to treat diseases using stem cells that are harvested from an adult.

This allows, for example, tissue from an adult to be harvested from, say, the skin, grown into brain cells in a lab, and have treatments tested on it in ways that don't jeopardize the health of the patient. They hope it will help with treatments for diseases such as Parkinsons. They also hope it will eventually lead to replacement organs that can be transplanted into the person the cells were taken from, without the risk of rejection that an organ from a separate donor carries.

As a Kidney Transplant Recipient, this is awesome news!! Anything that brings us closer to the day where the Antirejection regime doesn't have be taken ever again by any Transplant Recipient is a good thing IMO.

As an amusing aside, in an interview, Gurdon mentioned that he still keeps a report from his school on his wall. It says, of his younger self, "I believe he has ideas about becoming a scientist... This is quite ridiculous. It would be a sheer waste of time, both on his part and of those who have to teach him. He will not listen, but will insist on doing his work in his own way."

Yeah, I guess that worked out for him.

Yamanaka's research wasn't published that long ago - 2006. As I recall, it's not overly common for research that recent to win the Nobel, but his has been big-time influential. Basically, he re-wrote the book.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...363646792.html

Yup, that Teacher sure was right...

You're not alone, I know many other cell biologists who think that the iPS Nobel is premature given how medical application of stem cells is still in its infancy and nowhere near being a standard clinical procedure. However, I think it really shifted the paradigm of the field because of its potential use and the practical advantage of using adult cells rather than plucking an embryonic cell and then keeping it preserved until needed.

But that being said, it's nice they coupled it with a classic Xenopus experiment with the theme of cellular reprogramming rather than just iPS.

The way I look at it though, is that whenever anyone who doesn't know the difference hears "Stem Cell Research" they instantly think of Embryonic Stem Cells and that in turn usually leads down the road to a rather nasty discussion of where those Stem Cells have come from. For the Nobel Committee to award the Nobel in Medicine for this, gives this research a badly needed publicity shot in the arm, also hopefully allowing more Stem Cell Research to get the funding it badly needs, so we can get more breakthroughs such as this.

[equatorial]

Which of his books do you like best? Where's the best place to start?

Red Sorghum would be the best place to start, it's the most "conventional" of his novels I can't vouch for the quality of the translation though as I read it in Chinese.

[Ziggy]

Really surprised not to see the Higgs Bosom team get the Nobel.

I don't know what to think of the European Union getting the Peace prize. It has definitely enabled the kind of stability and cooperation that would otherwise be unthinkable but meh...

GREAT decision re Literature. Mo Yan is an outstanding writer.

Gotta get one of his novels, they sound amazing.

[Domshabfan]

I don't know what to say about European union wining the peace prize, it is the biggest self congratulation ever.

[Zemgirl]

I don't know what to say about European union wining the peace prize, it is the biggest self congratulation ever.

I like the idea behind the peace prize, but there have been way too many times where the selection has been .

Who gets the prize money, BTW?

[Finnice]

I don't know what to say about European union wining the peace prize, it is the biggest self congratulation ever.

But Norway does not belong to European Union. Other Nobel prizes are given by Sweden, the peace prize by Norway.

[allezfred]

Say what you want about the EU, but it's no coincidence that Europe has had the most peaceful period in its entire history since its inception.

Plus, we can do with the prize money. Every little bit helps.

[Domshabfan]

Say what you want about the EU, but it's no coincidence that Europe has had the most peaceful period in its entire history since its inception.

Plus, we can do with the prize money. Every little bit helps.

I read this on the telegraph

Interestingly, Thorbjørn Jagland, head of the Nobel Peace Prize committee, is also Secretary General of the Council of Europe, an organisation promoting European co-operation. Stated aims? "To achieve greater unity between its members for the purpose of safeguarding and realising the ideals and principles which are their common heritage and facilitating their economic and social progress."

[allezfred]

Full text of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee's statement

"The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2012 is to be awarded to the European Union (EU). The union and its forerunners have for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe."

[Spinner]

Red Sorghum would be the best place to start, it's the most "conventional" of his novels I can't vouch for the quality of the translation though as I read it in Chinese.

Thanks. Most bookish people I follow online say to start with The Garlic Ballads. Someone said one of his English translations was terrible, but not sure which one. And Penguin is now hurrying to re-issue Red Sorghum. I'll have to check them both out.