Nobel PrizeChemistry 2009

Nobel PrizeChemistry 2009

medicine and Physics the Noble prize for Chemistry was also declared on Wednesday in Stockholm. Two US citizens Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas A Steitz and an Israeli Ada E Yonath won the Noble Prize in Chemistry Royal Swedish Academy said that Nobel Prize was awarded to them” for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome”. One of the core processes in life. Ribosomes generated protein, which regulate chemistry in all living organisms. Modern researches for the development of antibiotic are based on their work. Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences conducted the Nobel Prize ceremony every year in different fields of chemistry. Nobel Prize is normally awarded for major contributions in the fields of chemistry, physics, literature, peace, and physiology or medicine. Jacobus Henricus van’t Hoff, of the Netherlands was the first to get Noble Prize in 1901 in the field of chemistry by his work. The 2009 Chemistry Nobel Prize went to Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (Cambridge U.K., born in India), Thomas A. Steitz (Yale), and Ada E. Yonath (Weizmann, Israel) for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome. That could look like a biological discovery but the methods were pretty "chemical".

Crystallographer Dr Yonath whose victory was correctly predicted by some media broke the 45+ years when women receeived no physics or chemistry Nobel prize. Whether or not she was chosen purely by meritocratic criteria, there's one aspect you could have expected. By pure statistics, it shouldn't be too shocking for you to learn that the first woman to succeed in this way is Jewish. ;-) An Ashkenazi Jew is 40 times more likely to receive the Fields medal than a random non-Jewish white: it may be similar for similar awards. Because there are about 10 million Ashkenazi Jews, you may see that their combined odds exceed those of the non-Jewish U.S. whites. ;-) Let's hope that Israel, an island of relative wisdom, peace, and advanced civilization, will survive in the sea of a relative lack of wisdom, peace, and advanced civilization. ;-) You know, in the Israeli-Iranian nuclear standoff, there's one consideration I view as important while most others don't. Who has the right to possess the nukes? Well, the Jewish scientists have contributed to the science that was needed for nuclear energy much more profoundly than the Persian scientists did. So I find it completely logical and deserved that they can possess the weapons while Iran cannot. They can also be expected to act more wisely with this technology - something we have already checked in the most recent decades.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which selects the winners of the physics award, made the announcement on Tuesday. The academy says Kao was honored for his breakthrough work in fiber optics. Boyle and Smith were honored for inventing an imaging semiconductor circuit. The academy also says this year's winners have created many practical innovations for everyday life and provided new tools for scientific exploration. All three scientists are U.S. citizens. Kao also holds British citizenship while Boyle is also Canadian. The winners will share a $1.4 million prize. Each of them will also receive a diploma and an invitation to the prize ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden on December 10. On Monday, American scientists Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider, and Jack Szostak were awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering a key mechanism in the genetic operations of cells. That discovery has inspired new lines of research into cancer. The prizes are named after Alfred Nobel, who invented dynamite. He established the prizes for medicine, physics, chemistry, literature, and peace in his will. The prize ceremonies are held on December 10, the anniversary of his death in 1896.