An American writer hasn't won the Nobel Prize for Literature since 1993 (Toni Morrison).
Slate's Alexander Nazaryan tells us why: "The rising generation of writers behind Oates, Roth and DeLillo are dominated by Great Male Narcissists — even the writers who aren’t male (or white)."
posted by bardic
on Oct 4, 2011 -
121 comments
"I remember back in the '90s, when I first heard about their discovery of cell receptors activated by pathogenic microorganisms. I was in this bar called Alumni Club on Clark Street in Chicago. It's gone now, which is fine because it was terrible. Doesn't matter, I guess, but me and my buddies had just polished off a mound of wings and, like, seven buckets of Corona when this dude comes in blabbing about the critical role dendritic cells play in adaptive immunity. I almost kicked the hell out of him on the spot, but I have to admit the slides he brought made me a believer."
Dennis O'Toole uses the Nobel Prize to satirize sports commentary in hilarious fashion. (SLNPR)
posted by jbickers
on Oct 4, 2011 -
9 comments
In 1973, while working as a young post-doc in Zanvil A. Cohn's laboratory in Rockefeller University,
Ralph Steinman described a completely new immune cell within the lymphoid organs of mice (original paper can be read
here). Based on it's distinctive shape, with it's many branched projections, he named the cell "
dendritic cell" (derived from the Greek word for "tree").
Such began a
prolific and
illustrious career, devoted to the further understanding of these cells, which transformed the way the world understood how the immune system worked. Yesterday,
Dr Steinman was awarded the The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2011 "
for his discovery of the dendritic cell and its role in adaptive immunity". Tragically,
he had died just three days earlier of pancreatic cancer, and never learned that he was to be awarded science’s top honour.
[more inside]
posted by kisch mokusch
on Oct 4, 2011 -
25 comments
Experts are little help in the constant struggle in this conversation to separate myth from reality, because they have the same difficulty, and routinely demonstrate it by talking past each other. Respected scientists warn of imminent energy shortages as geologic fuel supplies run out. Wall Street executives dismiss their predictions as myths and call for more drilling. Environmentalists describe the destruction to the earth from burning coal, oil, and natural gas. Economists ignore them and describe the danger to the earth of failing to burn coal, oil, and natural gas. Geology researchers report fresh findings about what the earth was like millions of years ago. Creationist researchers report fresh findings that the earth didn’t exist millions of years ago. The only way not to get lost in this awful swamp is to review the basics and decide for yourself what you believe and what you don’t.
[more inside]
posted by infinite intimation
on Jun 27, 2010 -
31 comments
It may increase schadenfreude.
It's an assistant to abortifacients and it's produced by stimulating the nipples. Got a clogged lizard? Your mom used it to turn off your brain for your own good. In women, it peaks at orgasm,
but in men, it might be elevated throughout sex without peaking.
And what do you mean "social" monogamy!? Is it the love 'em and leave 'em hormone??
Well, it's NOT Vasopressin For Her, contrary to what some people think.
Is it an impedance to feminism?
Could it be the key to treating Autism? Ism... ism... jism? YEP.
It's in the jism! Its synthesis was the end of
A Trail of Sulfa Research,
and its master was awarded the Nobel Prize. (Chemistry, not Peace.)
You can scent your loveletters with it,
but sorry, peaches... you can't huff a good cuddle, but you might like to huff while you cuddle. Previously.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur
on Mar 14, 2010 -
48 comments
Joseph Brodsky:
In Praise of Boredom -- from his
Dartmouth College commencement address in 1995. " Boredom is your window on the properties of time that one tends to ignore to
the likely peril of one's mental equilibrium. It is your window on time's
infinity. Once this window opens, don't try to shut it; on the contrary, throw
it wide open. For boredom speaks the language of time, and it teaches you the
most valuable lesson of your life: the lesson of your utter insignificance. It
is valuable to you, as well as to those you are to rub shoulders with. "You are
finite," time tells you in the voice of boredom, "and whatever you do is, from
my point of view, futile."
posted by vronsky
on Aug 20, 2009 -
38 comments
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has died. (
BBC ) The great author and opponent of totalitarianism lived to see the end of Communism in the Soviet Union and almost everywhere else. He survived WWII as a commander in the Soviet army before being put into gulags where he spent 20 years. He went on to write the
Gulag Archipelago and win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970.
posted by sien
on Aug 3, 2008 -
75 comments
"It so often happens that I receive mail - well-intended but totally useless - by amateur physicists who believe to have solved the world. They believe this, only because they understand totally nothing about the real way problems are solved in Modern Physics...It should be possible, these days, to collect all knowledge you need from the internet. Problem then is, there is so much junk on the internet... I know exactly what should be taught to the beginning student...I can tell you of my own experiences. It helped me all the way to earn a Nobel Prize. But I didn't have internet.
I am going to try to be your teacher. It is a formidable task."
posted by vacapinta
on Aug 29, 2007 -
47 comments
Fritz Haber's story is the story of the double edged sword of science. He
won the Nobel prize in 1918 for his groundbreaking work in
breaking the nitrogen cycle for Germany's WWI efforts, but it's been estimated that two out of every five people now living would not have been born if it
weren't for artificial fertilizers created using his process. He also spent much of the war developing poison gases; first chlorine (after watching its first use, Haber's wife committed suicide) and later Zyklon B (the cyanide insecticide later used against his fellow Jews in concentration camps). He died alone and in poverty in Switzerland. But the lessons of his life haven't
quite been forgotten.
posted by Plutor
on Nov 21, 2006 -
17 comments
It's Pinter. The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded to the English writer Harold Pinter, “who in his plays uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression’s closed rooms”.
posted by Termite
on Oct 13, 2005 -
34 comments
Americans, German win nobel prize for physics. They won for for their contributions to the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy, including the optical frequency comb technique, which among other thing allows them to measure the speed of light to such accuracy that it is now used as the definition for the
meter, see if the laws of physics were the same at the beginning of time, and make
gps satellites work much better.
posted by stilgar
on Oct 4, 2005 -
5 comments
J.M. Coetzee's Nobel Speech. It seemed to him, coming from his island, where until Friday arrived he lived a silent life, that there was too much speech in the world. Coetzee, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, delivers his lecture from the perspective of Robinson Crusoe.
posted by _sirmissalot_
on Dec 9, 2003 -
8 comments
Shirin Ebadi wins Nobel Peace Prize Iranian lawyer and human rights activist
Shirin Ebadi has won the Nobel Peace Prize for 2003.
Ebadi is Iran's first female judge and a leading figure in the struggle for women's and children's rights in Iran. She is known for representing the interests of persecuted individuals and has braved reprisals for her beliefs.
posted by dagny
on Oct 10, 2003 -
8 comments
The Nobel Prize for Literature will be announced on Thursday. Two candidates with buzz this year are Syrian poet
Ali Ahmad Said, better known as Adonis, and New Zealand novelist-memoirist
Janet Frame. Other candidates frequently mentioned include JM Coetzee, Philip Roth, Inger Christensen, Tomas Transtroemer, Margaret Atwood and Carlos Fuentes.
posted by Daze
on Sep 30, 2003 -
20 comments
"It's a beautiful day..."
So i hear U2's singer, the great and charismatic Bono, has just been
nominated for nobel peace prize.
Of course, we the french, find it very amusing to find Chirac nominated. (Oh, the hysteria if ever he won).
Also
in the race is ex Gov. George H Ryan, who amongst other achievements declared a moratorium in 2000, before leaving his job a few months ago... with class.
Or maybe they'll just choose Bono & Chirac for
knowing how to work together on the 'drop the debt' issue?
So,
what do you say?
(i'd have to go with Bono, i'm afraid. Rock n roll but effective and passionate...)
posted by Sijeka
on Feb 19, 2003 -
39 comments
