BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (Reuters) - The path to the first Nobel prize in economics shared by a woman wound through forests in Madagascar, rangelands in East Africa, irrigation systems in Nepal and the jails of the United States.
Elinor Ostrom, 76, a multidisciplinary academic at Indiana University, told reporters on Monday that her research found the best solutions to global problems like deforestation and depleted fisheries often lie with local people.
"One of the absolutely key, most important variables as to whether or not a forest survives and continues is whether local people monitor each other and its use. Not officials, locals," Ostrom, who is considered an expert on collective action, said.
"What we have ignored is what citizens can do," she said. "There's lots of indigenous knowledge that we need to respect. Simply allowing people to communicate and discuss about what they can do ... makes a huge difference."
Ostrom shared the $1.4 million prize with University of California, Berkeley, professor Oliver Williamson, an expert on conflict resolution.
She said she had found through her field work that local communities do better than governments or corporations at managing watersheds, fisheries and forests.
Her work has taken her and her "family" of graduate students -- many of whose children call the bespectacled Ostrom "grandma" -- to Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Bolivia, Mexico, Nepal, and her own backyard in nearby Indianapolis.
"Deforestation and global change, loss of fisheries, all of these things are because of short-term rather than long-term thinking," she said.
A student of law enforcement and game theory -- which studies how people make choices in strategic situations -- Ostrom said small police forces perform better than large ones.
"I've probably been in more jails than any other Indiana University faculty member," she joked.
CALIFORNIA'S WATER
Her first project as a student, still going with one of her graduate students, has been to study water usage in Los Angeles. Her work helped authorities counter the risks of ocean water seeping in and ruining the dropping fresh water table.
Ostrom, who was born and raised in Los Angeles, said she was honored to be the first woman awarded the economics prize.
"The advice to me when I entered graduate school was 'well, you've got a professional job,' which I had. I was working in business. 'Why would you try for a PhD? You can't possibly get a job that is anything but teaching at a city college somewhere and you've got a better job now?'
"So I entered it for love, I didn't enter it to get a job, because I was warned I wouldn't get one," she said.
Her next book, entitled "Working Together," is likely to provide a theme for her address in Stockholm in December.
Ostrom said she had nothing personal to spend the prize money on, and planned to use it to build up the endowment for the workshop in political theory and public policy she founded at Indiana University in 1973 with her husband, Vincent Ostrom.
Her first response to receiving the surprising early-morning call informing that she had won was to yell to her 90-year-old husband, to 'wake up.' "He's deaf," she noted.
(Writing by Andrew Stern; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
Monday, October 12, 2009
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Romanian-Born Herta Mueller Wins Nobel Literature Prize
Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Herta Mueller, a Romanian-born writer who escaped Nicolae Ceausescu’s police state two years before the Berlin Wall fell and has become one of reunified Germany’s best known novelists, won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature.
“With the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose,” 56-year-old Mueller “depicts the landscape of the dispossessed,” the Swedish Academy said today on its Web site.
Born into a German-speaking community in Romania, Mueller began opposing Ceausescu’s regime while studying German and Romanian literature at the University of Timisoara in the 1970s. She was fired from her post as a translator of machine manuals for declining to work as a spy for the Securitate secret police.
Her first work, “Lowlands” (Niederungen), which was published in censored form in Romania in 1982, details the brutally conformist life of rural Swabian Germans in Romania’s Banat region, where Mueller grew up. Complete versions had to be smuggled out of the country.
“Herta Mueller is a writer who helps us understand what it is to be human in the 20th and 21st centuries,” Pete Ayrton, publisher at Serpent’s Tail, said by e-mail. The U.K. company was the first to publish her books in English.
“Once again, the Nobel Prize committee has done its job -- to bring to the attention of a wider public an essential writer whose lyrical prose captures the oppression of totalitarian regimes, the reality of life for too many people today,” Ayrton said.
Ceausescu’s Ban
During the Cold War, Mueller’s work was lauded in the west, while in Romania she was pilloried by the national press. The Ceausescu government banned her from publishing.
She left Romania for West Germany in 1987 with her husband, Richard Wagner, two years before Ceausescu’s regime was overthrown. In the last two decades Mueller has had lectureships at German universities and has continued writing.
This year she published “Atemschaukel,” which has the English working title “Everything I Own I Carry With Me,” a novel about a German-speaking Romanian youth at a deportation center at the end of World War II. The book, one of six short- listed for the German Book Prize to be awarded Oct. 12, exposes Stalin’s persecution of German-speaking Romanians.
Mueller’s mother was deported to the Soviet Union after the war and spent five years in a Ukrainian work camp. Her father had served during the war with the Nazis’ Waffen SS.
Sympathy for Victims
“Atemschaukel” is “a testament to literary empathy unparalleled in German literary history,” critic Michael Naumann wrote in a review for the weekly newspaper Die Zeit last month. “Behind Herta Mueller’s anger toward the consequences of political violence -- behind powerful prose that eschews all charm -- lies hidden an incredible ability to articulate her sympathy with the victims of tyranny in microscopic detail, with a kind of poetry of minutiae.”
Mueller has sought access to her own secret Securitate files in Romania, and has been turned down each time, according to an article she wrote in Die Zeit this year in July.
“Instead, each time, there were signs that I was once again -- that is to say still -- under observation,” she wrote. “Ceausescu’s secret police, the Securitate, has not disbanded, it has just been given another name.”
Other works of Mueller’s that explore life in dying dictatorships include “Land of the Green Plums” (Herztier) from 1994 and “The Appointment” (Heute waer ich mir lieber nicht begegnet) from 2001.
Mueller, who lives in Berlin, didn’t expect the award.
“I am surprised and still can’t believe it -- I can’t say any more at the moment,” her publisher, Carl Hanser Verlag quoted her as saying in a statement on its Web site.
‘Engaged’ Literature
As a writer, Mueller is “determined to keep alive memories of the inhumane aspects of state communism, even 20 years after the East-West conflict,” Michael Krueger at Carl Hanser Verlag said on the Web site. “Her highly literary, elegiac work is an impressive example of engaged European literature that makes our history topical with sharp analysis and poetical exactness.”
Mueller was a top-placed 3-to-1 favorite to win the Nobel in literature, tied with Israeli novelist Amos Oz, according to Harrow, England-based bookmaker Ladbroke’s Plc. American writers Joyce Carol Oates and Philip Roth were tied for second place, as 5-to-1 favorites.
A controversy erupted last year when the Academy’s then permanent secretary, Horace Engdahl, said that authors from the U.S. were impeded because their country is “too isolated” and weighed down by a restraining “ignorance.”
The new permanent secretary, Peter Englund, said on Oct. 6 that he disagreed with Engdahl’s comments. He said the judges must be wary of becoming “too Eurocentric,” according to the Associated Press.
Boell, Hesse
Mueller is the first German to win the prize since 1999, when it was awarded to Guenter Grass, and the ninth ever. Other Germans to have received the Nobel were Heinrich Boell in 1972, Hermann Hesse in 1946 and Thomas Mann in 1929.
She is also the 12th woman to have won the prize, joining the likes of Doris Lessing, who won two years ago, Elfriede Jelinek in 2004 and Toni Morrison, the last American to have won the Nobel in 1993.
Last year’s literature prize went to French novelist Jean Marie Gustave Le Clezio, who wrote about exotic and endangered cultures in some of the world’s most outlying regions. Winners in the last decade have included British writer Harold Pinter in 2005 and J.M. Coetzee of South Africa in 2003.
The 10 million-krona ($1.44 million) Nobel literature prize was created in the will of Alfred Nobel and first awarded in 1901. Nobel, a Swede who invented dynamite, also set up awards for achievements in medicine, physics, chemistry and peace.
To contact the reporter on this story: Patrick Donahue in Berlin at at pdonahue1@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: October 8, 2009 10:04 EDT
By Patrick Donahue, Bloomberg News
“With the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose,” 56-year-old Mueller “depicts the landscape of the dispossessed,” the Swedish Academy said today on its Web site.
Born into a German-speaking community in Romania, Mueller began opposing Ceausescu’s regime while studying German and Romanian literature at the University of Timisoara in the 1970s. She was fired from her post as a translator of machine manuals for declining to work as a spy for the Securitate secret police.
Her first work, “Lowlands” (Niederungen), which was published in censored form in Romania in 1982, details the brutally conformist life of rural Swabian Germans in Romania’s Banat region, where Mueller grew up. Complete versions had to be smuggled out of the country.
“Herta Mueller is a writer who helps us understand what it is to be human in the 20th and 21st centuries,” Pete Ayrton, publisher at Serpent’s Tail, said by e-mail. The U.K. company was the first to publish her books in English.
“Once again, the Nobel Prize committee has done its job -- to bring to the attention of a wider public an essential writer whose lyrical prose captures the oppression of totalitarian regimes, the reality of life for too many people today,” Ayrton said.
Ceausescu’s Ban
During the Cold War, Mueller’s work was lauded in the west, while in Romania she was pilloried by the national press. The Ceausescu government banned her from publishing.
She left Romania for West Germany in 1987 with her husband, Richard Wagner, two years before Ceausescu’s regime was overthrown. In the last two decades Mueller has had lectureships at German universities and has continued writing.
This year she published “Atemschaukel,” which has the English working title “Everything I Own I Carry With Me,” a novel about a German-speaking Romanian youth at a deportation center at the end of World War II. The book, one of six short- listed for the German Book Prize to be awarded Oct. 12, exposes Stalin’s persecution of German-speaking Romanians.
Mueller’s mother was deported to the Soviet Union after the war and spent five years in a Ukrainian work camp. Her father had served during the war with the Nazis’ Waffen SS.
Sympathy for Victims
“Atemschaukel” is “a testament to literary empathy unparalleled in German literary history,” critic Michael Naumann wrote in a review for the weekly newspaper Die Zeit last month. “Behind Herta Mueller’s anger toward the consequences of political violence -- behind powerful prose that eschews all charm -- lies hidden an incredible ability to articulate her sympathy with the victims of tyranny in microscopic detail, with a kind of poetry of minutiae.”
Mueller has sought access to her own secret Securitate files in Romania, and has been turned down each time, according to an article she wrote in Die Zeit this year in July.
“Instead, each time, there were signs that I was once again -- that is to say still -- under observation,” she wrote. “Ceausescu’s secret police, the Securitate, has not disbanded, it has just been given another name.”
Other works of Mueller’s that explore life in dying dictatorships include “Land of the Green Plums” (Herztier) from 1994 and “The Appointment” (Heute waer ich mir lieber nicht begegnet) from 2001.
Mueller, who lives in Berlin, didn’t expect the award.
“I am surprised and still can’t believe it -- I can’t say any more at the moment,” her publisher, Carl Hanser Verlag quoted her as saying in a statement on its Web site.
‘Engaged’ Literature
As a writer, Mueller is “determined to keep alive memories of the inhumane aspects of state communism, even 20 years after the East-West conflict,” Michael Krueger at Carl Hanser Verlag said on the Web site. “Her highly literary, elegiac work is an impressive example of engaged European literature that makes our history topical with sharp analysis and poetical exactness.”
Mueller was a top-placed 3-to-1 favorite to win the Nobel in literature, tied with Israeli novelist Amos Oz, according to Harrow, England-based bookmaker Ladbroke’s Plc. American writers Joyce Carol Oates and Philip Roth were tied for second place, as 5-to-1 favorites.
A controversy erupted last year when the Academy’s then permanent secretary, Horace Engdahl, said that authors from the U.S. were impeded because their country is “too isolated” and weighed down by a restraining “ignorance.”
The new permanent secretary, Peter Englund, said on Oct. 6 that he disagreed with Engdahl’s comments. He said the judges must be wary of becoming “too Eurocentric,” according to the Associated Press.
Boell, Hesse
Mueller is the first German to win the prize since 1999, when it was awarded to Guenter Grass, and the ninth ever. Other Germans to have received the Nobel were Heinrich Boell in 1972, Hermann Hesse in 1946 and Thomas Mann in 1929.
She is also the 12th woman to have won the prize, joining the likes of Doris Lessing, who won two years ago, Elfriede Jelinek in 2004 and Toni Morrison, the last American to have won the Nobel in 1993.
Last year’s literature prize went to French novelist Jean Marie Gustave Le Clezio, who wrote about exotic and endangered cultures in some of the world’s most outlying regions. Winners in the last decade have included British writer Harold Pinter in 2005 and J.M. Coetzee of South Africa in 2003.
The 10 million-krona ($1.44 million) Nobel literature prize was created in the will of Alfred Nobel and first awarded in 1901. Nobel, a Swede who invented dynamite, also set up awards for achievements in medicine, physics, chemistry and peace.
To contact the reporter on this story: Patrick Donahue in Berlin at at pdonahue1@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: October 8, 2009 10:04 EDT
By Patrick Donahue, Bloomberg News
2012 isn't the end of the world, Mayans insist
MEXICO CITY – Apolinario Chile Pixtun is tired of being bombarded with frantic questions about the Mayan calendar supposedly "running out" on Dec. 21, 2012. After all, it's not the end of the world.
Or is it?
Definitely not, the Mayan Indian elder insists. "I came back from England last year and, man, they had me fed up with this stuff."
It can only get worse for him. Next month Hollywood's "2012" opens in cinemas, featuring earthquakes, meteor showers and a tsunami dumping an aircraft carrier on the White House.
At Cornell University, Ann Martin, who runs the "Curious? Ask an Astronomer" Web site, says people are scared.
"It's too bad that we're getting e-mails from fourth-graders who are saying that they're too young to die," Martin said. "We had a mother of two young children who was afraid she wouldn't live to see them grow up."
Chile Pixtun, a Guatemalan, says the doomsday theories spring from Western, not Mayan ideas.
A significant time period for the Mayas does end on the date, and enthusiasts have found a series of astronomical alignments they say coincide in 2012, including one that happens roughly only once every 25,800 years.
But most archaeologists, astronomers and Maya say the only thing likely to hit Earth is a meteor shower of New Age philosophy, pop astronomy, Internet doomsday rumors and TV specials such as one on the History Channel which mixes "predictions" from Nostradamus and the Mayas and asks: "Is 2012 the year the cosmic clock finally winds down to zero days, zero hope?"
It may sound all too much like other doomsday scenarios of recent decades — the 1987 Harmonic Convergence, the Jupiter Effect or "Planet X." But this one has some grains of archaeological basis.
One of them is Monument Six.
Found at an obscure ruin in southern Mexico during highway construction in the 1960s, the stone tablet almost didn't survive; the site was largely paved over and parts of the tablet were looted.
It's unique in that the remaining parts contain the equivalent of the date 2012. The inscription describes something that is supposed to occur in 2012 involving Bolon Yokte, a mysterious Mayan god associated with both war and creation.
However — shades of Indiana Jones — erosion and a crack in the stone make the end of the passage almost illegible.
Archaeologist Guillermo Bernal of Mexico's National Autonomous University interprets the last eroded glyphs as maybe saying, "He will descend from the sky."
Spooky, perhaps, but Bernal notes there are other inscriptions at Mayan sites for dates far beyond 2012 — including one that roughly translates into the year 4772.
And anyway, Mayas in the drought-stricken Yucatan peninsula have bigger worries than 2012.
"If I went to some Mayan-speaking communities and asked people what is going to happen in 2012, they wouldn't have any idea," said Jose Huchim, a Yucatan Mayan archaeologist. "That the world is going to end? They wouldn't believe you. We have real concerns these days, like rain."
The Mayan civilization, which reached its height from 300 A.D. to 900 A.D., had a talent for astronomy
Its Long Count calendar begins in 3,114 B.C., marking time in roughly 394-year periods known as Baktuns. Thirteen was a significant, sacred number for the Mayas, and the 13th Baktun ends around Dec. 21, 2012.
"It's a special anniversary of creation," said David Stuart, a specialist in Mayan epigraphy at the University of Texas at Austin. "The Maya never said the world is going to end, they never said anything bad would happen necessarily, they're just recording this future anniversary on Monument Six."
Bernal suggests that apocalypse is "a very Western, Christian" concept projected onto the Maya, perhaps because Western myths are "exhausted."
If it were all mythology, perhaps it could be written off.
But some say the Maya knew another secret: the Earth's axis wobbles, slightly changing the alignment of the stars every year. Once every 25,800 years, the sun lines up with the center of our Milky Way galaxy on a winter solstice, the sun's lowest point in the horizon.
That will happen on Dec. 21, 2012, when the sun appears to rise in the same spot where the bright center of galaxy sets.
Another spooky coincidence?
"The question I would ask these guys is, so what?" says Phil Plait, an astronomer who runs the "Bad Astronomy" blog. He says the alignment doesn't fall precisely in 2012, and distant stars exert no force that could harm Earth.
"They're really super-duper trying to find anything astronomical they can to fit that date of 2012," Plait said.
But author John Major Jenkins says his two-decade study of Mayan ruins indicate the Maya were aware of the alignment and attached great importance to it.
"If we want to honor and respect how the Maya think about this, then we would say that the Maya viewed 2012, as all cycle endings, as a time of transformation and renewal," said Jenkins.
As the Internet gained popularity in the 1990s, so did word of the "fateful" date, and some began worrying about 2012 disasters the Mayas never dreamed of.
Author Lawrence Joseph says a peak in explosive storms on the surface of the sun could knock out North America's power grid for years, triggering food shortages, water scarcity — a collapse of civilization. Solar peaks occur about every 11 years, but Joseph says there's evidence the 2012 peak could be "a lulu."
While pressing governments to install protection for power grids, Joseph counsels readers not to "use 2012 as an excuse to not live in a healthy, responsible fashion. I mean, don't let the credit cards go up."
Another History Channel program titled "Decoding the Past: Doomsday 2012: End of Days" says a galactic alignment or magnetic disturbances could somehow trigger a "pole shift."
"The entire mantle of the earth would shift in a matter of days, perhaps hours, changing the position of the north and south poles, causing worldwide disaster," a narrator proclaims. "Earthquakes would rock every continent, massive tsunamis would inundate coastal cities. It would be the ultimate planetary catastrophe."
The idea apparently originates with a 19th century Frenchman, Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg, a priest-turned-archaeologist who got it from his study of ancient Mayan and Aztec texts.
Scientists say that, at best, the poles might change location by one degree over a million years, with no sign that it would start in 2012.
While long discredited, Brasseur de Bourbourg proves one thing: Westerners have been trying for more than a century to pin doomsday scenarios on the Maya. And while fascinated by ancient lore, advocates seldom examine more recent experiences with apocalypse predictions.
"No one who's writing in now seems to remember that the last time we thought the world was going to end, it didn't," says Martin, the astronomy webmaster. "There doesn't seem to be a lot of memory that things were fine the last time around."
By MARK STEVENSON
Or is it?
Definitely not, the Mayan Indian elder insists. "I came back from England last year and, man, they had me fed up with this stuff."
It can only get worse for him. Next month Hollywood's "2012" opens in cinemas, featuring earthquakes, meteor showers and a tsunami dumping an aircraft carrier on the White House.
At Cornell University, Ann Martin, who runs the "Curious? Ask an Astronomer" Web site, says people are scared.
"It's too bad that we're getting e-mails from fourth-graders who are saying that they're too young to die," Martin said. "We had a mother of two young children who was afraid she wouldn't live to see them grow up."
Chile Pixtun, a Guatemalan, says the doomsday theories spring from Western, not Mayan ideas.
A significant time period for the Mayas does end on the date, and enthusiasts have found a series of astronomical alignments they say coincide in 2012, including one that happens roughly only once every 25,800 years.
But most archaeologists, astronomers and Maya say the only thing likely to hit Earth is a meteor shower of New Age philosophy, pop astronomy, Internet doomsday rumors and TV specials such as one on the History Channel which mixes "predictions" from Nostradamus and the Mayas and asks: "Is 2012 the year the cosmic clock finally winds down to zero days, zero hope?"
It may sound all too much like other doomsday scenarios of recent decades — the 1987 Harmonic Convergence, the Jupiter Effect or "Planet X." But this one has some grains of archaeological basis.
One of them is Monument Six.
Found at an obscure ruin in southern Mexico during highway construction in the 1960s, the stone tablet almost didn't survive; the site was largely paved over and parts of the tablet were looted.
It's unique in that the remaining parts contain the equivalent of the date 2012. The inscription describes something that is supposed to occur in 2012 involving Bolon Yokte, a mysterious Mayan god associated with both war and creation.
However — shades of Indiana Jones — erosion and a crack in the stone make the end of the passage almost illegible.
Archaeologist Guillermo Bernal of Mexico's National Autonomous University interprets the last eroded glyphs as maybe saying, "He will descend from the sky."
Spooky, perhaps, but Bernal notes there are other inscriptions at Mayan sites for dates far beyond 2012 — including one that roughly translates into the year 4772.
And anyway, Mayas in the drought-stricken Yucatan peninsula have bigger worries than 2012.
"If I went to some Mayan-speaking communities and asked people what is going to happen in 2012, they wouldn't have any idea," said Jose Huchim, a Yucatan Mayan archaeologist. "That the world is going to end? They wouldn't believe you. We have real concerns these days, like rain."
The Mayan civilization, which reached its height from 300 A.D. to 900 A.D., had a talent for astronomy
Its Long Count calendar begins in 3,114 B.C., marking time in roughly 394-year periods known as Baktuns. Thirteen was a significant, sacred number for the Mayas, and the 13th Baktun ends around Dec. 21, 2012.
"It's a special anniversary of creation," said David Stuart, a specialist in Mayan epigraphy at the University of Texas at Austin. "The Maya never said the world is going to end, they never said anything bad would happen necessarily, they're just recording this future anniversary on Monument Six."
Bernal suggests that apocalypse is "a very Western, Christian" concept projected onto the Maya, perhaps because Western myths are "exhausted."
If it were all mythology, perhaps it could be written off.
But some say the Maya knew another secret: the Earth's axis wobbles, slightly changing the alignment of the stars every year. Once every 25,800 years, the sun lines up with the center of our Milky Way galaxy on a winter solstice, the sun's lowest point in the horizon.
That will happen on Dec. 21, 2012, when the sun appears to rise in the same spot where the bright center of galaxy sets.
Another spooky coincidence?
"The question I would ask these guys is, so what?" says Phil Plait, an astronomer who runs the "Bad Astronomy" blog. He says the alignment doesn't fall precisely in 2012, and distant stars exert no force that could harm Earth.
"They're really super-duper trying to find anything astronomical they can to fit that date of 2012," Plait said.
But author John Major Jenkins says his two-decade study of Mayan ruins indicate the Maya were aware of the alignment and attached great importance to it.
"If we want to honor and respect how the Maya think about this, then we would say that the Maya viewed 2012, as all cycle endings, as a time of transformation and renewal," said Jenkins.
As the Internet gained popularity in the 1990s, so did word of the "fateful" date, and some began worrying about 2012 disasters the Mayas never dreamed of.
Author Lawrence Joseph says a peak in explosive storms on the surface of the sun could knock out North America's power grid for years, triggering food shortages, water scarcity — a collapse of civilization. Solar peaks occur about every 11 years, but Joseph says there's evidence the 2012 peak could be "a lulu."
While pressing governments to install protection for power grids, Joseph counsels readers not to "use 2012 as an excuse to not live in a healthy, responsible fashion. I mean, don't let the credit cards go up."
Another History Channel program titled "Decoding the Past: Doomsday 2012: End of Days" says a galactic alignment or magnetic disturbances could somehow trigger a "pole shift."
"The entire mantle of the earth would shift in a matter of days, perhaps hours, changing the position of the north and south poles, causing worldwide disaster," a narrator proclaims. "Earthquakes would rock every continent, massive tsunamis would inundate coastal cities. It would be the ultimate planetary catastrophe."
The idea apparently originates with a 19th century Frenchman, Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg, a priest-turned-archaeologist who got it from his study of ancient Mayan and Aztec texts.
Scientists say that, at best, the poles might change location by one degree over a million years, with no sign that it would start in 2012.
While long discredited, Brasseur de Bourbourg proves one thing: Westerners have been trying for more than a century to pin doomsday scenarios on the Maya. And while fascinated by ancient lore, advocates seldom examine more recent experiences with apocalypse predictions.
"No one who's writing in now seems to remember that the last time we thought the world was going to end, it didn't," says Martin, the astronomy webmaster. "There doesn't seem to be a lot of memory that things were fine the last time around."
By MARK STEVENSON
Friday, October 09, 2009
Nobel Peace Prize 2009
OSLO – President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," the Norwegian Nobel Committee said, citing his outreach to the Muslim world and attempts to curb nuclear proliferation.
The stunning choice made Obama the third sitting U.S. president to win the Nobel Peace Prize and shocked Nobel observers because Obama took office less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline. Obama's name had been mentioned in speculation before the award but many Nobel watchers believed it was too early to award the president.
Speculation had focused on Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, a Colombian senator and a Chinese dissident, along with an Afghan woman's rights activist.
The Nobel committee praised Obama's creation of "a new climate in international politics" and said he had returned multilateral diplomacy and institutions like the U.N. to the center of the world stage. The plaudit appeared to be a slap at President George W. Bush from a committee that harshly criticized Obama's predecessor for resorting to largely unilateral military action in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
Rather than recognizing concrete achievement, the 2009 prize appeared intended to support initiatives that have yet to bear fruit: reducing the world stock of nuclear arms, easing American conflicts with Muslim nations and strengthening the U.S. role in combating climate change.
"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," Thorbjoern Jagland, chairman of the Nobel Committee said. "In the past year Obama has been a key person for important initiatives in the U.N. for nuclear disarmament and to set a completely new agenda for the Muslim world and East-West relations."
He added that the committee endorsed "Obama's appeal that 'Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges.'"
President Theodore Roosevelt won the award in 1906 and President Woodrow Wilson won in 1919.
The committee chairman said after awarding the 2002 prize to former Democratic President Jimmy Carter, for his mediation in international conflicts, that it should be seen as a "kick in the leg" to the Bush administration's hard line in the buildup to the Iraq war.
Five years later, the committee honored Bush's adversary in the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore, for his campaign to raise awareness about global warming.
The Nobel committee received a record 205 nominations for this year's prize though it was not immediately apparent who nominated Obama.
"The exciting and important thing about this prize is that it's given too someone ... who has the power to contribute to peace," Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said.
Nominators include former laureates; current and former members of the committee and their staff; members of national governments and legislatures; university professors of law, theology, social sciences, history and philosophy; leaders of peace research and foreign affairs institutes; and members of international courts of law.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation welcomed the award on behalf of its founder Nelson Mandela, who shared the 1993 Peace Prize with then-South African President F.W. DeKlerk for their efforts at ending years of apartheid and laying the groundwork for a democratic country.
"We trust that this award will strengthen his commitment, as the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, to continue promoting peace and the eradication of poverty," the foundation said.
In his 1895 will, Alfred Nobel stipulated that the peace prize should go "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses."
Unlike the other Nobel Prizes, which are awarded by Swedish institutions, he said the peace prize should be given out by a five-member committee elected by the Norwegian Parliament. Sweden and Norway were united under the same crown at the time of Nobel's death.
The committee has taken a wide interpretation of Nobel's guidelines, expanding the prize beyond peace mediation to include efforts to combat poverty, disease and climate change.
___
Associated Press Writer Ian MacDougall contributed to this report.
By KARL RITTER and MATT MOORE
The stunning choice made Obama the third sitting U.S. president to win the Nobel Peace Prize and shocked Nobel observers because Obama took office less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline. Obama's name had been mentioned in speculation before the award but many Nobel watchers believed it was too early to award the president.
Speculation had focused on Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, a Colombian senator and a Chinese dissident, along with an Afghan woman's rights activist.
The Nobel committee praised Obama's creation of "a new climate in international politics" and said he had returned multilateral diplomacy and institutions like the U.N. to the center of the world stage. The plaudit appeared to be a slap at President George W. Bush from a committee that harshly criticized Obama's predecessor for resorting to largely unilateral military action in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
Rather than recognizing concrete achievement, the 2009 prize appeared intended to support initiatives that have yet to bear fruit: reducing the world stock of nuclear arms, easing American conflicts with Muslim nations and strengthening the U.S. role in combating climate change.
"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," Thorbjoern Jagland, chairman of the Nobel Committee said. "In the past year Obama has been a key person for important initiatives in the U.N. for nuclear disarmament and to set a completely new agenda for the Muslim world and East-West relations."
He added that the committee endorsed "Obama's appeal that 'Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges.'"
President Theodore Roosevelt won the award in 1906 and President Woodrow Wilson won in 1919.
The committee chairman said after awarding the 2002 prize to former Democratic President Jimmy Carter, for his mediation in international conflicts, that it should be seen as a "kick in the leg" to the Bush administration's hard line in the buildup to the Iraq war.
Five years later, the committee honored Bush's adversary in the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore, for his campaign to raise awareness about global warming.
The Nobel committee received a record 205 nominations for this year's prize though it was not immediately apparent who nominated Obama.
"The exciting and important thing about this prize is that it's given too someone ... who has the power to contribute to peace," Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said.
Nominators include former laureates; current and former members of the committee and their staff; members of national governments and legislatures; university professors of law, theology, social sciences, history and philosophy; leaders of peace research and foreign affairs institutes; and members of international courts of law.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation welcomed the award on behalf of its founder Nelson Mandela, who shared the 1993 Peace Prize with then-South African President F.W. DeKlerk for their efforts at ending years of apartheid and laying the groundwork for a democratic country.
"We trust that this award will strengthen his commitment, as the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, to continue promoting peace and the eradication of poverty," the foundation said.
In his 1895 will, Alfred Nobel stipulated that the peace prize should go "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses."
Unlike the other Nobel Prizes, which are awarded by Swedish institutions, he said the peace prize should be given out by a five-member committee elected by the Norwegian Parliament. Sweden and Norway were united under the same crown at the time of Nobel's death.
The committee has taken a wide interpretation of Nobel's guidelines, expanding the prize beyond peace mediation to include efforts to combat poverty, disease and climate change.
___
Associated Press Writer Ian MacDougall contributed to this report.
By KARL RITTER and MATT MOORE
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Hilary Mantel wins Booker prize for fiction
LONDON – A tale of political intrigue set during the reign of King Henry VIII won the prestigious Man Booker prize for fiction Tuesday.
Hilary Mantel's "Wolf Hall" scooped the 50,000-pound ($80,000) prize. Mantel's novel charts the upheaval caused by the king's desire to marry Anne Boleyn, as seen through the eyes of royal adviser Thomas Cromwell.
Mantel's novel beat stiff competition from a shortlist that included previous Booker winners A.S. Byatt and J.M. Coetzee.
Mantel told a London audience that if winning the Booker Prize was like being in a train crash, "at this moment I am happily flying through the air."
The chairman of the Booker prize judges, James Naughtie, said the decision to give "Wolf Hall" the award was "based on the sheer bigness of the book. The boldness of its narrative, its scene setting ... The extraordinary way that Hilary Mantel has created what one of the judges has said was a contemporary novel, a modern novel, which happens to be set in the 16th century."
"Wolf Hall" depicts the chaos that results from the king's longing for a male heir — a desire that led him to leave his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, for Anne Boleyn. The Vatican's refusal to annul the marriage led the king to reject the authority of the pope and install himself as head of the Church of England.
The book centers on the real-life figure of Cromwell, depicted as a ruthless but compelling polymath straining against the certainties of his age.
Mantel said Cromwell was the king's "chief fixer, spin doctor, propagandist for one of the most eventful decades of English history."
"He was a blacksmith's son who ended up Earl of Essex," Mantel told the BBC before winning the prize. "So how did he do it? That's the question driving the book."
The Guardian newspaper said Mantel "persuasively depicts this beefy pen-pusher and backstairs maneuverer as one of the most appealing — and, in his own way, enlightened — characters of the period." The Times of London called "Wolf Hall" a "wonderful and intelligently imagined retelling of a familiar tale from an unfamiliar angle — one that makes the drama unfolding nearly five centuries ago look new again, and shocking again, too."
Both reviewers said they were disappointed to put the book down.
Mantel said it's no surprise we remain fascinated by the time of Henry VIII, recently depicted in TV series "The Tudors" and films like "The Other Boleyn Girl." She said the period "has everything. It has sex and melodrama, betrayal, seduction and violent death. What more could you hope for?"
Mantel, 57, is a former social worker and film critic who has written short stories, the memoir "Giving Up the Ghost" and novels including 2005's "Beyond Black," which was shortlisted for a Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the Orange Prize for Fiction.
She spent five years writing Wolf Hall and is currently working on a sequel.
A Booker win all but guarantees a a big surge in sales. Last year's winner, Aravind Adiga's "The White Tiger," has sold more than half a million copies and been translated into 30 languages. Janine Cook, fiction buyer for Waterstone's book store chain, said Mantel's work was already its best-selling work of all the books on the shortlist, calling it a "perfect winner."
The six shortlisted books included Coetzee's "Summertime," a fictionalized memoir in which a young English biographer works on a book about a dead writer named John Coetzee. The five other finalists were Byatt's "The Children's Book," Adam Foulds' "The Quickening Maze," Simon Mawer's "The Glass Room" and Sarah Waters' "The Little Stranger."
The prize is open to novels in English by writers from Britain, Ireland or the Commonwealth of former British colonies. Apart from South African Coetzee, all this year's finalists were British.
___
On the Net: http://www.themanbookerprize.com
By JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press Writer Jill Lawless, Associated Press Writer
Hilary Mantel's "Wolf Hall" scooped the 50,000-pound ($80,000) prize. Mantel's novel charts the upheaval caused by the king's desire to marry Anne Boleyn, as seen through the eyes of royal adviser Thomas Cromwell.
Mantel's novel beat stiff competition from a shortlist that included previous Booker winners A.S. Byatt and J.M. Coetzee.
Mantel told a London audience that if winning the Booker Prize was like being in a train crash, "at this moment I am happily flying through the air."
The chairman of the Booker prize judges, James Naughtie, said the decision to give "Wolf Hall" the award was "based on the sheer bigness of the book. The boldness of its narrative, its scene setting ... The extraordinary way that Hilary Mantel has created what one of the judges has said was a contemporary novel, a modern novel, which happens to be set in the 16th century."
"Wolf Hall" depicts the chaos that results from the king's longing for a male heir — a desire that led him to leave his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, for Anne Boleyn. The Vatican's refusal to annul the marriage led the king to reject the authority of the pope and install himself as head of the Church of England.
The book centers on the real-life figure of Cromwell, depicted as a ruthless but compelling polymath straining against the certainties of his age.
Mantel said Cromwell was the king's "chief fixer, spin doctor, propagandist for one of the most eventful decades of English history."
"He was a blacksmith's son who ended up Earl of Essex," Mantel told the BBC before winning the prize. "So how did he do it? That's the question driving the book."
The Guardian newspaper said Mantel "persuasively depicts this beefy pen-pusher and backstairs maneuverer as one of the most appealing — and, in his own way, enlightened — characters of the period." The Times of London called "Wolf Hall" a "wonderful and intelligently imagined retelling of a familiar tale from an unfamiliar angle — one that makes the drama unfolding nearly five centuries ago look new again, and shocking again, too."
Both reviewers said they were disappointed to put the book down.
Mantel said it's no surprise we remain fascinated by the time of Henry VIII, recently depicted in TV series "The Tudors" and films like "The Other Boleyn Girl." She said the period "has everything. It has sex and melodrama, betrayal, seduction and violent death. What more could you hope for?"
Mantel, 57, is a former social worker and film critic who has written short stories, the memoir "Giving Up the Ghost" and novels including 2005's "Beyond Black," which was shortlisted for a Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the Orange Prize for Fiction.
She spent five years writing Wolf Hall and is currently working on a sequel.
A Booker win all but guarantees a a big surge in sales. Last year's winner, Aravind Adiga's "The White Tiger," has sold more than half a million copies and been translated into 30 languages. Janine Cook, fiction buyer for Waterstone's book store chain, said Mantel's work was already its best-selling work of all the books on the shortlist, calling it a "perfect winner."
The six shortlisted books included Coetzee's "Summertime," a fictionalized memoir in which a young English biographer works on a book about a dead writer named John Coetzee. The five other finalists were Byatt's "The Children's Book," Adam Foulds' "The Quickening Maze," Simon Mawer's "The Glass Room" and Sarah Waters' "The Little Stranger."
The prize is open to novels in English by writers from Britain, Ireland or the Commonwealth of former British colonies. Apart from South African Coetzee, all this year's finalists were British.
___
On the Net: http://www.themanbookerprize.com
By JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press Writer Jill Lawless, Associated Press Writer
2009 Nobel Physics Prize
Three scientists who created the technology behind digital photography and helped link the world through fiber-optic networks shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday.
Charles K. Kao was cited for his breakthrough involving the transmission of light in fiber optics while Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith were honored for inventing an imaging semiconductor circuit known as the CCD sensor.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said all three have American citizenship. Kao also holds British citizenship while Boyle is also Canadian.
The award's 10 million kronor ($1.4 million) purse will be split between the three with Kao taking half and Boyle and Smith each getting a fourth. The three also receive a diploma and an invitation to the prize ceremonies in Stockholm on Dec. 10.
Kao, who was born in Shanghai and is a British citizen, was cited for his 1966 discovery that showed how to transmit light over long distances via fiber-optic cables, which became the backbone of modern communication networks that carry phone calls and high-speed Internet data around the world.
"With a fiber of purest glass it would be possible to transmit light signals over 100 kilometers (62.14 miles), compared to only 20 meters (65.62 feet) for the fibers available in the 1960s," the citation said.
Boyle and Smith worked together to invent the charged-coupled device, or CCD, the eye of the digital camera found in everything from the cheapest point-and-shoot to high-speed, delicate surgical instruments.
In its citation, the Academy said that Boyle and Smith "invented the first successful imaging technology using a digital sensor, a CCD."
It said that technology builds on Albert Einstein's discovery of the photoelectric effect, for which he was awarded the Nobel physics prize in 1921.
The two men, working at Bell Labs in New Jersey, designed an image sensor that could transform light into a large number of image points, or pixels, in a short time.
"It revolutionized photography, as light could now be captured electronically instead of on film," the Academy said.
"Without the CCD, the development of digital cameras would have taken a slower course. Without CCD we would not have seen the astonishing images of space taken by the Hubble space telescope, or the images of the red desert on our neighboring planet Mars," it said.
Boyle, in a phone call to the academy, said he is reminded of his work with Smith "when I go around these days and see everybody using our little digital cameras, everywhere. Although they don't use exactly our CCD, it started it all."
He added that the biggest achievement resulting from his work was when images of Mars were transmitted back to Earth using digital cameras.
"We saw for the first time the surface of Mars," Boyle said. "It wouldn't have been possible without our invention."
The academy said digital image sensors are usually involved when photo, video or television are used for medical applications, such as taking images inside the body.
"It can reveal fine details in very distant and in extremely small objects," the academy said.
The physics award is the second of the 2009 Nobel Prizes to be announced.
On Monday, three American scientists shared the Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering a key mechanism in the genetic operations of cells, an insight that has inspired new lines of research into cancer.
Elizabeth H. Blackburn, who also has Australian citizenship, Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak were cited for their work in solving the mystery of how chromosomes, the rod-like structures that carry DNA, protect themselves from degrading when cells divide.
———
http://www.nobelprize.org
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
By MATT MOORE and KARL RITTER Associated Press Writers
STOCKHOLM October 6, 2009 (AP)
3 men share 2009 Nobel physics prize for work in networking society, digital photography
Charles K. Kao was cited for his breakthrough involving the transmission of light in fiber optics while Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith were honored for inventing an imaging semiconductor circuit known as the CCD sensor.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said all three have American citizenship. Kao also holds British citizenship while Boyle is also Canadian.
The award's 10 million kronor ($1.4 million) purse will be split between the three with Kao taking half and Boyle and Smith each getting a fourth. The three also receive a diploma and an invitation to the prize ceremonies in Stockholm on Dec. 10.
Kao, who was born in Shanghai and is a British citizen, was cited for his 1966 discovery that showed how to transmit light over long distances via fiber-optic cables, which became the backbone of modern communication networks that carry phone calls and high-speed Internet data around the world.
"With a fiber of purest glass it would be possible to transmit light signals over 100 kilometers (62.14 miles), compared to only 20 meters (65.62 feet) for the fibers available in the 1960s," the citation said.
Boyle and Smith worked together to invent the charged-coupled device, or CCD, the eye of the digital camera found in everything from the cheapest point-and-shoot to high-speed, delicate surgical instruments.
In its citation, the Academy said that Boyle and Smith "invented the first successful imaging technology using a digital sensor, a CCD."
It said that technology builds on Albert Einstein's discovery of the photoelectric effect, for which he was awarded the Nobel physics prize in 1921.
The two men, working at Bell Labs in New Jersey, designed an image sensor that could transform light into a large number of image points, or pixels, in a short time.
"It revolutionized photography, as light could now be captured electronically instead of on film," the Academy said.
"Without the CCD, the development of digital cameras would have taken a slower course. Without CCD we would not have seen the astonishing images of space taken by the Hubble space telescope, or the images of the red desert on our neighboring planet Mars," it said.
Boyle, in a phone call to the academy, said he is reminded of his work with Smith "when I go around these days and see everybody using our little digital cameras, everywhere. Although they don't use exactly our CCD, it started it all."
He added that the biggest achievement resulting from his work was when images of Mars were transmitted back to Earth using digital cameras.
"We saw for the first time the surface of Mars," Boyle said. "It wouldn't have been possible without our invention."
The academy said digital image sensors are usually involved when photo, video or television are used for medical applications, such as taking images inside the body.
"It can reveal fine details in very distant and in extremely small objects," the academy said.
The physics award is the second of the 2009 Nobel Prizes to be announced.
On Monday, three American scientists shared the Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering a key mechanism in the genetic operations of cells, an insight that has inspired new lines of research into cancer.
Elizabeth H. Blackburn, who also has Australian citizenship, Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak were cited for their work in solving the mystery of how chromosomes, the rod-like structures that carry DNA, protect themselves from degrading when cells divide.
———
http://www.nobelprize.org
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
By MATT MOORE and KARL RITTER Associated Press Writers
STOCKHOLM October 6, 2009 (AP)
3 men share 2009 Nobel physics prize for work in networking society, digital photography
Monday, October 05, 2009
Nobel Prize 2009 For Research On Aging
Three American scientists who made key discoveries about how living cells age have received the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
The winners are Elizabeth Blackburn of the University of California, San Francisco; Carol Greider of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore; and Jack Szostak of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
The scientists all study telomeres — structures that act like caps on the ends of chromosomes and protect them when cells divide. Chromosomes are the long strands of DNA that contain a living creature's genetic code.
Their work, together and apart, figured out how telomeres delay the aging of cells, that they are caused by the enzyme telomerase, and that they exist in all species, including humans.
These discoveries are now being used to study how behavior, such as diet or smoking, can determine the levels of telomerase in an individual and therefore influence the aging of his cells. The subject is also being looked at in terms of cancer therapy, as restricting telomeres can hinder the cell division that occurs so rapidly in cancerous tumors.
Each winner will receive one-third of the prize of about $1.4 million.
Elizabeth Blackburn
Blackburn discovered the molecular nature of telomeres, and her research lab now focuses on many different aspects of how telomeres work, including the relationship between accelerated telomere shortening and stress.
Blackburn is the first Australian woman to win Nobel Prize and only the ninth woman to win the prize for physiology or medicine in the past century.
She has outlined a mind/body connection to disease through an enzyme that plays a key role in how cells function and age. Blackburn is studying how diet, exercise and decreasing stress may reduce the risk of disease and even reverse damage due to coronary artery disease.
In a 2006 study, her group found that low levels of telomerase, the enzyme that helps keeps telomeres intact, were associated with smoking, high blood pressure, high blood sugar and pre-diabetes. Her lab is now looking at whether interventions such as a very low-calorie diet or stopping smoking may help repair the damage caused by stress.
In 2004, Blackburn was the focus of controversy over her support of "therapeutic cloning," which uses embryos to develop new treatments from stem cells. Then-President George W. Bush declined to reappoint Blackburn to his bioethics council, a political move in the eyes of many scientists and ethicists.
Blackburn, who grew up in Tasmania, was named one of Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World" in 2007.
From her earliest years she was fascinated by small creatures, and that fascination led to her interest in molecular biology. She joined the UCSF faculty in 1990 and lives in San Francisco.
Carol Greider
Greider co-discovered telomerase in 1984 while working as a graduate student with Blackburn at the University of California, Berkeley.
"What intrigues basic scientists like me is that anytime we do a series of experiments, there are going to be three or four new questions that come up when you think you've answered one. Our approach shows that while you can do research that tries to answer specific questions about a disease, you can also just follow your nose," she said after receiving an award for her work in 2006.
Greider's father was a physicist at the University of California, Davis, and she credits him with influencing her to pursue a career in academic science.
While working at McMaster University in 1990, Greider realized that telomere length is related to cellular aging and found that telomerase is activated in cancer cells. That allows the cells to continue to grow and divide. Her work with mice and human cells has confirmed that inhibiting telomerase can limit cancer cells and tumor production.
Jack Szostak
Szostak is genetics professor at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.
He was born in England but grew up in Canada. Szostak was fascinated with learning more about how cells work, which led to discoveries that telomeres in human cells play crucial roles in both cancer and aging.
Szostak's early work with genetics led to key discoveries about telomeres. His interest in telomeres was piqued when he heard of Blackburn's work in 1980. The two then performed an experiment that proved that telomere DNA is present in most plants and animals as a fundamental mechanism.
Szostak is also credited with creating the first yeast artificial chromosome, which led scientists to map the location of genes in mammals and develop techniques for manipulating genes, according to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, where he also holds the title of HHMI investigator.
In recent years, Szostak's research has focused on understanding how complex chemicals come together to form simple organisms that can reproduce and evolve. According to Massachusetts General Hospital, the Szostak lab is using the principle of molecular evolution as a tool for drug discovery to treat different types of cancer.
by Jon Hamilton
The winners are Elizabeth Blackburn of the University of California, San Francisco; Carol Greider of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore; and Jack Szostak of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
The scientists all study telomeres — structures that act like caps on the ends of chromosomes and protect them when cells divide. Chromosomes are the long strands of DNA that contain a living creature's genetic code.
Their work, together and apart, figured out how telomeres delay the aging of cells, that they are caused by the enzyme telomerase, and that they exist in all species, including humans.
These discoveries are now being used to study how behavior, such as diet or smoking, can determine the levels of telomerase in an individual and therefore influence the aging of his cells. The subject is also being looked at in terms of cancer therapy, as restricting telomeres can hinder the cell division that occurs so rapidly in cancerous tumors.
Each winner will receive one-third of the prize of about $1.4 million.
Elizabeth Blackburn
Blackburn discovered the molecular nature of telomeres, and her research lab now focuses on many different aspects of how telomeres work, including the relationship between accelerated telomere shortening and stress.
Blackburn is the first Australian woman to win Nobel Prize and only the ninth woman to win the prize for physiology or medicine in the past century.
She has outlined a mind/body connection to disease through an enzyme that plays a key role in how cells function and age. Blackburn is studying how diet, exercise and decreasing stress may reduce the risk of disease and even reverse damage due to coronary artery disease.
In a 2006 study, her group found that low levels of telomerase, the enzyme that helps keeps telomeres intact, were associated with smoking, high blood pressure, high blood sugar and pre-diabetes. Her lab is now looking at whether interventions such as a very low-calorie diet or stopping smoking may help repair the damage caused by stress.
In 2004, Blackburn was the focus of controversy over her support of "therapeutic cloning," which uses embryos to develop new treatments from stem cells. Then-President George W. Bush declined to reappoint Blackburn to his bioethics council, a political move in the eyes of many scientists and ethicists.
Blackburn, who grew up in Tasmania, was named one of Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World" in 2007.
From her earliest years she was fascinated by small creatures, and that fascination led to her interest in molecular biology. She joined the UCSF faculty in 1990 and lives in San Francisco.
Carol Greider
Greider co-discovered telomerase in 1984 while working as a graduate student with Blackburn at the University of California, Berkeley.
"What intrigues basic scientists like me is that anytime we do a series of experiments, there are going to be three or four new questions that come up when you think you've answered one. Our approach shows that while you can do research that tries to answer specific questions about a disease, you can also just follow your nose," she said after receiving an award for her work in 2006.
Greider's father was a physicist at the University of California, Davis, and she credits him with influencing her to pursue a career in academic science.
While working at McMaster University in 1990, Greider realized that telomere length is related to cellular aging and found that telomerase is activated in cancer cells. That allows the cells to continue to grow and divide. Her work with mice and human cells has confirmed that inhibiting telomerase can limit cancer cells and tumor production.
Jack Szostak
Szostak is genetics professor at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.
He was born in England but grew up in Canada. Szostak was fascinated with learning more about how cells work, which led to discoveries that telomeres in human cells play crucial roles in both cancer and aging.
Szostak's early work with genetics led to key discoveries about telomeres. His interest in telomeres was piqued when he heard of Blackburn's work in 1980. The two then performed an experiment that proved that telomere DNA is present in most plants and animals as a fundamental mechanism.
Szostak is also credited with creating the first yeast artificial chromosome, which led scientists to map the location of genes in mammals and develop techniques for manipulating genes, according to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, where he also holds the title of HHMI investigator.
In recent years, Szostak's research has focused on understanding how complex chemicals come together to form simple organisms that can reproduce and evolve. According to Massachusetts General Hospital, the Szostak lab is using the principle of molecular evolution as a tool for drug discovery to treat different types of cancer.
by Jon Hamilton
Ardi Fossil Discovery: New Human-Evolution Puzzle Piece
Figuring out the story of human origins is like assembling a huge, complicated jigsaw puzzle that has lost most of its pieces. Many will never be found, and those that do turn up are sometimes hard to place. Every so often, though, fossil hunters stumble upon a discovery that fills in a big chunk of the puzzle all at once - and simultaneously reshapes the very picture they thought they were building.
The path of just such a discovery began in November 1994 with the unearthing of two pieces of bone from the palm of a hominid hand in the dusty Middle Awash region of Ethiopia. Within weeks, more than 100 additional bone fragments were found during an intensive search-and-reconstruction effort that would go on for the next 15 years and culminate in a key piece of evolutionary evidence revealed this week: the 4.4 million–year–old skeleton of a likely human ancestor known as Ardipithecus ramidus (abbreviated Ar. ramidus). (See the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2008.)
In a series of studies published in the Oct. 2 special issue of Science - 11 papers by a total of 47 authors from 10 countries - researchers unveiled Ardi, a 125-piece hominid skeleton that is 1.2 million years older than the celebrated Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis) and by far the oldest one ever found. Tim White of the University of California, Berkeley, a co-leader of the Middle Awash research team that discovered and studied the new fossils, says, "To understand the biology, the parts you really want are the skull and teeth, the pelvis, the limbs and the hands and the feet. And we have all of them."
That is the beauty of Ardi - good bones. The completeness of Ardi's remains, as well as the more than 150,000 plant and animal fossils collected from surrounding sediments of the same time period, has generated an unprecedented amount of intelligence about one of our earliest potential forebears. The skeleton allows scientists to compare Ardipithecus directly with Lucy's genus, Australopithecus, its probable descendant. Perhaps most important, Ardi provides clues to what the last common ancestor shared by humans and chimps might have looked like before their lineages diverged about 7 million years ago. (See pictures of ancient skeletons.)
Ardi is the earliest and best-documented descendant of that common ancestor. But despite being "so close to the split," says White, the surprising thing is that she bears little resemblance to chimpanzees, our closest living primate relatives. The elusive common ancestor's bones have never been found, but scientists, working from the evidence available - especially analyses of Australopithecus and modern African apes - envisioned Great-Great-Grandpa to have looked most nearly like a knuckle-walking, tree-swinging ape. But "[Ardi is] not chimplike," according to White, which means that the last common ancestor probably wasn't either. "This skeleton flips our understanding of human evolution," says Kent State University anthropologist C. Owen Lovejoy, a member of the Middle Awash team. "It's clear that humans are not merely a slight modification of chimps, despite their genomic similarity." (See "Darwin and Lincoln: Birthdays and Evolution.")
So what does that mean? Based on Ardi's anatomy, it appears that chimpanzees may actually have evolved more than humans - in the scientific sense of having changed more over the past 7 million years or so. That's not to say Ardi was more human-like than chimplike. White describes her as an "interesting mosaic" with certain uniquely human characteristics: bipedalism, for one. Ardi stood 47 in. (120 cm) tall and weighed about 110 lb. (50 kg), making her roughly twice as heavy as Lucy. The structure of Ardi's upper pelvis, leg bones and feet indicates she walked upright on the ground, while still retaining the ability to climb. Her foot had an opposable big toe for grasping tree limbs but lacked the flexibility that apes use to grab and scale tree trunks and vines ("Gorilla and chimp feet are almost like hands," says Lovejoy), nor did it have the arch that allowed Australopithecus and Homo to walk without lurching side to side. Ardi had a dexterous hand, more maneuverable than a chimp's, that made her better at catching things on the ground and carrying things while walking on two legs. Her wrist, hand and shoulder bones show that she wasn't a knuckle walker and didn't spend much time hanging or swinging ape-style in trees. Rather, she moved along branches using a primitive method of palm-walking typical of extinct apes. "[Ardi is] a lovely Darwinian creature," says Penn State paleoanthropologist Alan Walker, who was not involved in the discovery. "It has features that are intermediate between the last common ancestor and australopithecines."
Scientists know this because they've studied not only Ardi's fossils but also 110 other remnants they uncovered, which belonged to at least 35 Ar. ramidus individuals. Combine those bones with the thousands of plant and animal fossils from the site and they get a remarkably clear picture of the habitat Ardi roamed some 200,000 generations ago. It was a grassy woodland with patches of denser forest and freshwater springs. Colobus monkeys chattered in the trees, while baboons, elephants, spiral-horned antelopes and hyenas roamed the terrain. Shrews, hares, porcupines and small carnivores scuttled in the underbrush. There were an assortment of bats and at least 29 species of birds, including peacocks, doves, lovebirds, swifts and owls. Buried in the Ethiopian sediments were hackberry seeds, fossilized palm wood and traces of pollen from fig trees, whose fruit the omnivorous Ar. ramidus undoubtedly ate.
This tableau demolishes one aspect of what had been conventional evolutionary wisdom. Paleoanthropologists once thought that what got our ancestors walking on two legs in the first place was a change in climate that transformed African forest into savanna. In such an environment, goes the reasoning, upright-standing primates would have had the advantage over knuckle walkers because they could see over tall grasses to find food and avoid predators. The fact that Lucy's species sometimes lived in a more wooded environment began to undermine that theory. The fact that Ardi walked upright in a similar environment many hundreds of thousands of years earlier makes it clear that there must have been another reason.
No one knows what that reason was, but a theory about Ardi's social behavior may hold a clue. Lovejoy thinks Ar. ramidus had a social system found in no other primates except humans. Among gorillas and chimps, males viciously fight other males for the attention of females. But among Ardipithecus, says Lovejoy, males may have abandoned such competition, opting instead to pair-bond with females and stay together in order to rear their offspring (though not necessarily monogamously or for life). The evidence of this harmonious existence comes from, of all things, Ardipithecus' teeth: its canine teeth are relatively stubby compared with the sharp, dagger-like upper fangs that male chimps and gorillas use to do battle. "The male canine tooth," says Lovejoy, "is no longer projecting or sharp. It's no longer weaponry."
That suggests that females mated preferentially with smaller-fanged males. In order for females to have had so much power, Lovejoy argues, Ar. ramidus must have developed a social system in which males were cooperative. Males probably helped females, and their own offspring, by foraging for and sharing food, for example - a change in behavior that could help explain why bipedality arose. Carrying food is difficult in the woods, after all, if you can't free up your forelimbs by walking erect. (Read "Ida: Humankind's Earliest Ancestor! [BRACKET {Not Really.)}]")
Deducing such details of social behavior is, admittedly, speculative - and several researchers are quick to note that some of the authors' other major conclusions need further discussion as well. One problem is that some portions of Ardi's skeleton were found crushed nearly to smithereens and needed extensive digital reconstruction. "Tim [White] showed me pictures of the pelvis in the ground, and it looked like an Irish stew," says Walker. Indeed, looking at the evidence, different paleoanthropologists may have different interpretations of how Ardi moved or what she reveals about the last common ancestor of humans and chimps.
But Science doesn't put out special issues very often, and the extraordinary number and variety of fossils described in these new papers mean that scientists are arguing over real evidence, not the usual single tooth here or bit of foot bone there. "When we started our work [in the Middle Awash]," says White, "the human fossil record went back to about 3.7 million years." Now scientists have a trove of information from an era some 700,000 years closer to the dawn of the human lineage. "This isn't just a skeleton," he says. "We've been able to put together a fantastic, high-resolution snapshot of a period that was a blank." The search for more pieces continues, but the outlines of the puzzle, at least, are coming into focus.
By MICHAEL D. LEMONICK AND ANDREA DORFMAN Michael D. Lemonick And Andrea Dorfman
The path of just such a discovery began in November 1994 with the unearthing of two pieces of bone from the palm of a hominid hand in the dusty Middle Awash region of Ethiopia. Within weeks, more than 100 additional bone fragments were found during an intensive search-and-reconstruction effort that would go on for the next 15 years and culminate in a key piece of evolutionary evidence revealed this week: the 4.4 million–year–old skeleton of a likely human ancestor known as Ardipithecus ramidus (abbreviated Ar. ramidus). (See the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2008.)
In a series of studies published in the Oct. 2 special issue of Science - 11 papers by a total of 47 authors from 10 countries - researchers unveiled Ardi, a 125-piece hominid skeleton that is 1.2 million years older than the celebrated Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis) and by far the oldest one ever found. Tim White of the University of California, Berkeley, a co-leader of the Middle Awash research team that discovered and studied the new fossils, says, "To understand the biology, the parts you really want are the skull and teeth, the pelvis, the limbs and the hands and the feet. And we have all of them."
That is the beauty of Ardi - good bones. The completeness of Ardi's remains, as well as the more than 150,000 plant and animal fossils collected from surrounding sediments of the same time period, has generated an unprecedented amount of intelligence about one of our earliest potential forebears. The skeleton allows scientists to compare Ardipithecus directly with Lucy's genus, Australopithecus, its probable descendant. Perhaps most important, Ardi provides clues to what the last common ancestor shared by humans and chimps might have looked like before their lineages diverged about 7 million years ago. (See pictures of ancient skeletons.)
Ardi is the earliest and best-documented descendant of that common ancestor. But despite being "so close to the split," says White, the surprising thing is that she bears little resemblance to chimpanzees, our closest living primate relatives. The elusive common ancestor's bones have never been found, but scientists, working from the evidence available - especially analyses of Australopithecus and modern African apes - envisioned Great-Great-Grandpa to have looked most nearly like a knuckle-walking, tree-swinging ape. But "[Ardi is] not chimplike," according to White, which means that the last common ancestor probably wasn't either. "This skeleton flips our understanding of human evolution," says Kent State University anthropologist C. Owen Lovejoy, a member of the Middle Awash team. "It's clear that humans are not merely a slight modification of chimps, despite their genomic similarity." (See "Darwin and Lincoln: Birthdays and Evolution.")
So what does that mean? Based on Ardi's anatomy, it appears that chimpanzees may actually have evolved more than humans - in the scientific sense of having changed more over the past 7 million years or so. That's not to say Ardi was more human-like than chimplike. White describes her as an "interesting mosaic" with certain uniquely human characteristics: bipedalism, for one. Ardi stood 47 in. (120 cm) tall and weighed about 110 lb. (50 kg), making her roughly twice as heavy as Lucy. The structure of Ardi's upper pelvis, leg bones and feet indicates she walked upright on the ground, while still retaining the ability to climb. Her foot had an opposable big toe for grasping tree limbs but lacked the flexibility that apes use to grab and scale tree trunks and vines ("Gorilla and chimp feet are almost like hands," says Lovejoy), nor did it have the arch that allowed Australopithecus and Homo to walk without lurching side to side. Ardi had a dexterous hand, more maneuverable than a chimp's, that made her better at catching things on the ground and carrying things while walking on two legs. Her wrist, hand and shoulder bones show that she wasn't a knuckle walker and didn't spend much time hanging or swinging ape-style in trees. Rather, she moved along branches using a primitive method of palm-walking typical of extinct apes. "[Ardi is] a lovely Darwinian creature," says Penn State paleoanthropologist Alan Walker, who was not involved in the discovery. "It has features that are intermediate between the last common ancestor and australopithecines."
Scientists know this because they've studied not only Ardi's fossils but also 110 other remnants they uncovered, which belonged to at least 35 Ar. ramidus individuals. Combine those bones with the thousands of plant and animal fossils from the site and they get a remarkably clear picture of the habitat Ardi roamed some 200,000 generations ago. It was a grassy woodland with patches of denser forest and freshwater springs. Colobus monkeys chattered in the trees, while baboons, elephants, spiral-horned antelopes and hyenas roamed the terrain. Shrews, hares, porcupines and small carnivores scuttled in the underbrush. There were an assortment of bats and at least 29 species of birds, including peacocks, doves, lovebirds, swifts and owls. Buried in the Ethiopian sediments were hackberry seeds, fossilized palm wood and traces of pollen from fig trees, whose fruit the omnivorous Ar. ramidus undoubtedly ate.
This tableau demolishes one aspect of what had been conventional evolutionary wisdom. Paleoanthropologists once thought that what got our ancestors walking on two legs in the first place was a change in climate that transformed African forest into savanna. In such an environment, goes the reasoning, upright-standing primates would have had the advantage over knuckle walkers because they could see over tall grasses to find food and avoid predators. The fact that Lucy's species sometimes lived in a more wooded environment began to undermine that theory. The fact that Ardi walked upright in a similar environment many hundreds of thousands of years earlier makes it clear that there must have been another reason.
No one knows what that reason was, but a theory about Ardi's social behavior may hold a clue. Lovejoy thinks Ar. ramidus had a social system found in no other primates except humans. Among gorillas and chimps, males viciously fight other males for the attention of females. But among Ardipithecus, says Lovejoy, males may have abandoned such competition, opting instead to pair-bond with females and stay together in order to rear their offspring (though not necessarily monogamously or for life). The evidence of this harmonious existence comes from, of all things, Ardipithecus' teeth: its canine teeth are relatively stubby compared with the sharp, dagger-like upper fangs that male chimps and gorillas use to do battle. "The male canine tooth," says Lovejoy, "is no longer projecting or sharp. It's no longer weaponry."
That suggests that females mated preferentially with smaller-fanged males. In order for females to have had so much power, Lovejoy argues, Ar. ramidus must have developed a social system in which males were cooperative. Males probably helped females, and their own offspring, by foraging for and sharing food, for example - a change in behavior that could help explain why bipedality arose. Carrying food is difficult in the woods, after all, if you can't free up your forelimbs by walking erect. (Read "Ida: Humankind's Earliest Ancestor! [BRACKET {Not Really.)}]")
Deducing such details of social behavior is, admittedly, speculative - and several researchers are quick to note that some of the authors' other major conclusions need further discussion as well. One problem is that some portions of Ardi's skeleton were found crushed nearly to smithereens and needed extensive digital reconstruction. "Tim [White] showed me pictures of the pelvis in the ground, and it looked like an Irish stew," says Walker. Indeed, looking at the evidence, different paleoanthropologists may have different interpretations of how Ardi moved or what she reveals about the last common ancestor of humans and chimps.
But Science doesn't put out special issues very often, and the extraordinary number and variety of fossils described in these new papers mean that scientists are arguing over real evidence, not the usual single tooth here or bit of foot bone there. "When we started our work [in the Middle Awash]," says White, "the human fossil record went back to about 3.7 million years." Now scientists have a trove of information from an era some 700,000 years closer to the dawn of the human lineage. "This isn't just a skeleton," he says. "We've been able to put together a fantastic, high-resolution snapshot of a period that was a blank." The search for more pieces continues, but the outlines of the puzzle, at least, are coming into focus.
By MICHAEL D. LEMONICK AND ANDREA DORFMAN Michael D. Lemonick And Andrea Dorfman
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)