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Notes by vineetpunnoose on www.kiwipaper.com
Content
Three find their way to Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine 1
Chhattisgarh activist, Ramesh Agrawal, bags Goldman prize 1
Turning an optical microscope into a nanoscope 2
Not so Nobel record 2
Inventors of blue LEDs win Nobel Prize in physics 3
Three share Nobel for medicine 4
Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano, Shuji Nakamura win physics Nobel 4
Eric Betzig, William Moerner, Stefan Hell win 2014 Nobel Prize in che 5
Brightness at night 5
How we get a sense of place and navigate 6
2 Americans, 1 German win Chemistry Nobel 6
A prize for illuminating lives with blue light 7
Childhood, peace and development 8
India's Nobel quest completes a cycle of sorts 8
Taming monopolies 9
Kailash Satyarthi: The activist who made child rights fashionable 9
Nobel winner Kailash Satyarthi, a crusader against child labour 10
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Three find their way to Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine
Tue, Oct 7, 2014
nobel prize, Down to Earth, science & tech, health,
John O'Keefe from the US, May-Britt Moser and Edvard I Moser from Norway share
this year's Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine for deciphering how our brain works
to help us find our way around.
We do this with the help of cells in our brains. These help us figure out where we are
and how we go from one place to another. The cells also save this information. John
O'Keefe was the first to identify these cells in 1971. He found that a type of nerve cell
in an area of the brain called the hippocampus, was always activated when a rat was at
a certain place in a room.
Both these findings explain how the brain creates a map of the space surrounding us
and how we navigate our way through a complex environment. The research has opened
new avenues for understanding other cognitive processes, such as memory, thinking
and planning. In patients with Alzheimer's disease, cells in the hippocampus and
entorhinal cortex are affected in the early stages of the disease and are not allowed to
find their way. Knowledge about the GPS in our brain may help us understand how the
disease affects memory in patients and eventually help find treatments.
Chhattisgarh activist, Ramesh Agrawal, bags Goldman prize
Tue, Apr 29, 2014
environment, Goldman prize, Down to Earth, green nobel,
Indian activist Ramesh Agrawal, who has been fighting the powerful coal-mining and
power generation lobby in Chhattisgarh for the past few years, has won the prestigious
award for grassroots activism in the field of environment--the Goldman Environmental
Prize, often called the "Green Nobel".
He used Right To Information to organise people and fight a legal battle against coal
and power major, Jindal Steel & Power Ltd (JSPL), to prevent it from opening a second
coal mine near the village of Gare in Chhattisgarh and setting up a power plant in
Raigarh district.
A year later, in 2012, two youngsters walked into Agrawal's Internet cafe and shot him
in the leg, shattering his bone. This attack followed an order of the National Green
Tribunal (NGT) on Agawal's complaint that accused JSPL of violating the terms of
conditions for its mines in Raigarh. In April 2012, NGT revoked the permits required
for the mine to break ground.
Agrawal underwent multiple operations in Mumbai, and was soon back on his feet to
continue his work. He still faces difficulty in walking with six metal rods inserted
through his thigh.
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security personnel engaged by JSPL were involved in the attack. The two guards were
arrested.
JSPL has, meanwhile, approached Supreme Court against the NGT order. Agrawal
says that he is prepared to fight the company till the end. JSPL, while speaking to a
foreign publications, maintains that Agrawal's claims are false.
"Our struggle against JSPL and other companies are still going on. There is a big
question environmental degradation that we have raised in this case. We will ensure
that the court rules in peoples' favour," said Agrawal.
The Jan Chetna movement started by Agrawal has spread to several parts of Chattisgarh.
Agrawal has been aiding several government officials and local police to resolve disputes
between families on issues related to land by providing legal help and educating people,
including adivasi communities, about their rights.
Turning an optical microscope into a nanoscope
Wed, Oct 8, 2014
The Hindu, science & tech, Nobel Prize,
Nobel Prize for Chemistry has been equally divided among the Laureates Eric Betzig,
Stefan W. Hell and William E. Moerner for having bypassed a presumed scientific
limitation stipulating that an optical microscope can never yield a resolution better than
0.2 micrometres (half the wavelength of light).
Using the fluorescence of molecules, scientists can now monitor the interplay between
individual molecules inside cells; they can observe disease-related proteins aggregate
and they can track cell division at the nanolevel.
Despite the advantages, the optical microscope suffers from a major drawback -- a
physical restriction as to what size of structures is possible to resolve. Ernst Abbe in
1873 said that microscope resolution is limited by, among other things, the wavelength
of the light (0.2 micrometres).
The three have taken optical microscopy into a new dimension using fluorescent
molecules. Two different principles have been able to do this and they developed
independently of each other.
Not so Nobel record
Mon, Oct 13, 2014
science & tech, Nobel Prize, Businessline,
Why does India, with its army of engineers and doctors, bag so few science Nobels?
Unlike the Nobel awards for literature and peace, excellence in science (and economics,
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for that matter) is linked to a country's quality of education. We have killed the basic
sciences in our pursuit of applied science courses, only to be left with many mediocre
engineers who would prefer being marketing managers. The only hope for science
education lies in reversing this bias against basic science. The opening of five Institutes
of Science Education and Research (IISER) since 2006 is welcome, but more are needed.
Besides, the entrance exam for the IISERs is the same as that for the IITs (the IIT-JEE),
reinforcing the prevailing bias in favour of 'technology' courses. After the top few
make it to the IITs, the rest qualify for the IISERs. These institutes, however, confront
a major problem: the wall between science teaching and research, even as each needs
the other to survive.
Unwilling to take on cussed university bureaucracies, the government created separate
research institutes such as the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, National
Physical Laboratory and National Chemical Laboratory while leaving teaching to the
universities. Today, both university science departments and research establishments
are in bad shape. The same holds true for opening pure science colleges as part of
universities. Science teaching should be thrown open to foreign faculty. This will
challenge the lethargy and power of vested interests in academia, creating an enabling
atmosphere for researchers and teachers, who may otherwise explore options in the US
and Europe.
Institutions such as IISER should be located in a university ambience, which offers
courses in social sciences and the humanities. That our universities are unable to offer
a flexible combination of subjects, as in the US, suggests that they need to be exposed
to competition.
Inventors of blue LEDs win Nobel Prize in physics
Tue, Oct 7, 2014
LEDs, Down to Earth, science & tech, Nobel Prize,
This year's Nobel Prize in physics has been awarded to Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi
Amano from Japan and Shuji Nakamura from the USA for their invention of blue
light-emitting diodes (LEDs) which made it possible to make white LED lamps.
Though red and green diodes had been around for a long time, without blue light, white
lamps could not have been made. Despite considerable efforts both in the scientific
community and industry, the blue LED had remained a challenge for three decades.
The trio produced bright blue light beams from their semi-conductors in the early 1990s
and triggered a fundamental transformation in lighting technology. These emit a bright
white light, are long-lasting and energy-efficient.
They have high luminous flux (measured in lumen) per unit electrical input of power
(measured in watt). The value is as high as 300 lm/W compared to 16 lm/W for regular
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light bulbs and less than 70 for fluorescent lamps. LEDs last up to 100,000 hours,
compared to 1,000 for incandescent bulbs and 10,000 hours for fluorescent lights. As
LED lamps require less power, they can be powered by cheap local solar power and
can help people who have not yet been connected to the grid.
Billions of people around the world have no access to electricity yet and are forced to
mould their lives to natural light.
Three share Nobel for medicine
Mon, Oct 6, 2014
The Hindu, science & tech, Nobel Prize, health,
U.S.-British scientist John O'Keefe and Norwegian married couple May--Britt Moser
and Edvard Moser won the Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for discovering the
brain's positioning system.
This "inner GPS" helps explain how the brain creates "a map of the space surrounding
us and how we can navigate our way through a complex environment," the Nobel
Assembly said.
O'Keefe, of University College London, discovered the first component of this positioning
system in 1971 when he found that a certain type of nerve cell was always activated
when a rat was at a certain place in a room.
It said that knowledge about the brain's positioning system may "help us understand
the mechamism underpinning the devastating spatial memory loss" that affects people
with Alzheimer's disease.
Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano, Shuji Nakamura win physics Nobel
Tue, Oct 7, 2014
The Hindu, science & tech, Nobel Prize,
Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano of Japan and U.S. scientist Shuji Nakamura won
the Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for the invention of blue light-emitting diodes
a new energy efficient and environment-friendly light source.
The laureates triggered a transformation of lighting technology when they produced
bright blue light from semiconductors in the 1990s, something scientist had struggled
with for decades, the Nobel committee said.
Using the blue light, LED lamps emitting white light could be created in a new way.
"As about one fourth of world electricity consumption is used for lighting purposes,
the LEDs contribute to saving the Earth's resources," the committee said.
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Eric Betzig, William Moerner, Stefan Hell win 2014 Nobel Prize in che
Wed, Oct 8, 2014
fluorescence microscopy, Down to Earth, science & tech, Nobel Prize,
US scientists Eric Betzig and William Moerner and German scientist Stefan Hell won
the 2014 Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday for their contribution to nanoscopy
with their development of "super-resolved fluorescence microscopy".
optical microscopy was held back by a presumed limitation: that it would never obtain
a better resolution than half the wavelength of light.
In nanoscopy, scientists visualize the pathways of individual molecules inside living
cells. They can see how molecules create synapses between nerve cells in the brain;
can track proteins involved in Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and Huntington's diseases as
they aggregate; they follow individual proteins in fertilized eggs as these divide into
embryos. In 1873, microscopist Ernst Abbe had stipulated the physical limit for the
maximum resolution of traditional optical microscopy could never become better than
0.2 micrometres. But Betzig, Hell and Moerner have successfully bypassed this limit.
This has been achieved through two separate principles. One enables the method
stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy, developed by Stefan Hell in 2000.
Two laser beams are utilized; one stimulates fluorescent molecules to glow, another
cancels out all fluorescence except for that in a nanometre-sized volume. Scanning over
the sample, nanometre for nanometre, yields an image with a resolution better than
Abbe's stipulated limit. German scientist Hell is the director at the Max Planck Institute
for Biophysical Chemistry, Gottingen, and division head at the German Cancer Research
Center, Heidelberg, Germany.
Eric Betzig (54 years) and William Moerner (61 years), working separately, laid the
foundation for the second method, single-molecule microscopy. The method relies upon
the possibility to turn the fluorescence of individual molecules on and off. Scientists
image the same area multiple times, letting just a few interspersed molecules glow each
time. Superimposing these images yields a dense super-image resolved at the nanolevel
Brightness at night
Fri, Oct 10, 2014
LEDs, nobel prize, The Hindu, science & tech,
This year's Nobel Prize for physics awarded to Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano of
Nagoya University in Japan and Shuji Nakamura of the University of California at
Santa Barbara, goes beyond recognising their invention that is of "greatest benefit to
mankind". It befittingly rewards them for their perseverance and tenacity and for daring
to "challenge established truths". The first major practical difficulty to be overcome
was growing high-quality gallium nitride crystals using a suitable substrate. The duo
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finally tasted success in 1986 even as others moved on to different materials;
If the arrival of brighter fluorescent lamps in the 20th century reduced electricity
consumption compared with tungsten lamps, the advent of compact fluorescent lamps
led to a further substantial drop in electricity consumption. However, LED technology
has made all the other lamp technologies redundant with the superior brightness per
wattage that it offers; the white light produced by LED has become a game-changer in
lighting technology. Unlike the other lighting options, where a certain proportion of
the electricity is converted into heat and is wasted, LED technology allows for direct
conversion of all electricity into light, thereby increasing efficiency. With nearly 20 to
30 per cent of electricity worldwide being used for lighting, the widespread use of LEDs
will lead to significant gains. Besides being energy-efficient, LEDs are environment-friendly
as no mercury is used to make them. Currently, blue LED is used to produce red and
green light by exciting phosphor. But dynamic control of colour composition can be
achieved by using LEDs of all the three colours; this may happen in the future. In about
two decades after blue LED came into being, it has revolutionised white light production.
It remains to be seen if any another path-breaking technology can ever displace the
LED
How we get a sense of place and navigate
Wed, Oct 8, 2014
The Hindu, science & tech, Nobel Prize,
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2014 has been divided among three scientists
with one half being awarded to John O'Keefe of University College, London, and the
other half shared by May-Britt Moser of the Centre for Neural Computation, Trondheim,
Norway and Edvard I. Moser of Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience, Trondheim,
Norway "for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain."
Their discoveries tell us how we are able to get a sense of place in any given environment
and an ability to navigate. If the sense of place gives us a perception of the position
with respect to the environment, the ability to navigate is linked to the direction and
distance from the previous positions. In effect, the two together provide us with an
internal positioning or "inner GPS" with respect to the environment.
2 Americans, 1 German win Chemistry Nobel
Wed, Oct 8, 2014
nobel prize, science & tech, fluroescence microscopy, Businessline,
American scientists Eric Betzig and William Moerner and Germany's Stefan Hell won
the 2014 Nobel Prize for chemistry for the development of super-resolved fluorescence
microscopy, the award-giving body said on Wednesday.
the three scientists' research had made it possible to study molecular processes in real
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time.
"Due to their achievements the optical microscope can now peer into the nanoworld,"
A prize for illuminating lives with blue light
Wed, Oct 8, 2014
LEDs, nobel prize, The Hindu, science & tech,
A prize for illuminating lives with blue light
This year the Nobel prize in physics goes to Isamu Akasaki, Meijo University and
Nagoya University, Hiroshi Amano, Nagoya University, and Shuji Nakamura, University
of California, Santa Barbara, for inventing the blue light emitting diode (blue LED) 20
years ago.
After the announcement, when asked how he felt on being awarded the Nobel Prize,
Akasaki said "It's unbelievable."
"Their inventions were revolutionary. Incandescent bulbs lit the 20th century; the 21st
century will be lit by LED lamps," notes a statement by the Royal Swedish Academy
of Sciences, which awards the Nobel Prizes.
This is a prize that would be after Alfred Nobel's own heart, because he had intended
that the prizes should go to those who have "conferred the greatest benefit to mankind."
The blue LED forms the long-awaited third in the set (red, green were already produced)
of coloured LEDs that can together produce white light, in a way that is environment-friendly
and energy-efficient. The blue LED can also be made to excite a phosphor into emitting
red and green lights, with the mixture yielding white light.
LEDs basically consist of a junction of p-type (electron deficient or hole rich) and
n-type (electron rich) semiconductors. When a voltage is applied across this junction,
the holes and electrons flow across the junction and recombine, in the process, releasing
light.
They do not use mercury or any such gas as is used in the fluorescent light. This makes
them environment friendly. They do not require a filament to get heated and glow to
shed light unlike the case of the tungsten light bulb.
the LEDS directly convert electricity to light particles. As a result, there is greater
efficiency; in the other two cases, a great part of the electricity gets converted to heat.
Yet, the extraordinary difficulty in making LEDs that give off blue light of significant
strength delayed the fabrication of the blue LED to the early 1990s,
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Childhood, peace and development
Mon, Oct 13, 2014
nobel prize, The Hindu, social,
The first is a thoughtful and fearless teenager who, despite deadly opposition, lit a path
to learning and liberation for girls in Pakistan. The second is a 60-year old campaigner
from India who has worked to liberate children from the shackles of compulsory labour
and bondage the Committee's choice has been hailed as both bold and necessary. It
has sought to underscore a crucial but widely disregarded prerequisite for development
and peace in our times, namely, the responsibility of nations to provide the means of
formal education, leisure, safety, and care for all children. Malala grasped the link
between school education -- and particularly education for girls -- and larger social
change early in life. How an outspoken child fought a public campaign for the right to
education, surviving even an attempt on her life, is well known. She continues to lead
the battle for girls' education from her current location in Birmingham in the United
Kingdom.
Mr. Satyarthi a founder of Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save Childhood Campaign), has
led the rescue of over 78,500 children from bondage. He gave shape to the Global
March Against Child Labour, a coalition of national campaign groups. Modern states
regard education as a legal duty, not merely a right: parents are required to send their
children to school, children are required to attend school, and the state is obliged to
enforce compulsory education ... This is not the view held in India. Primary education
is not compulsory, nor is child labour illegal
India's Nobel quest completes a cycle of sorts
Mon, Oct 13, 2014
nobel prize, The Hindu, international,
While C.V. Raman won the Nobel for Physics in 1930, Har Gobind Khorana bagged
it under the category of Medicine in 1968. Khorana shared his prize with Robert W.
Holley and Marshall W. Nirenberg.
The Albanian-born Mother Teresa who later worked out her spiritual destiny in Calcutta
was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, even as India was again crowned with the
Nobel Physics in 1983 in the hands of Subrahmanyam Chandrasekhar.
If in 1998 Amartya Sen won extraordinary laurels for India by winning the prize for
Economics "for his contributions to Welfare Economics," it was then followed by
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan chosen for the Nobel Chemistry in 2009.
Five years later, an Indian has again bagged the Nobel Peace, this time sharing it with
a courageous Pakistani girl, rounding off a rare sub-continental partnership to work
together for suffering humanity at large.
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Taming monopolies
Thu, Oct 16, 2014
The Hindu, Nobel prize, economics,
Nobel Prize in Economics The subject has immediate resonance in today's world where
government monopolies in areas such as electricity and transport are being dismantled
and privatised and new monopolies are establishing themselves in sectors such as
information technology and the Internet. Before Mr. Tirole came up with research using
game theory and contract theory that aid regulation in situations of asymmetric information
between regulators and the regulated, simple methods were used to regulate monopolies.
Capping prices and prohibiting cooperation between competitors in the same market
were two such methods used, but Mr. Tirole proved that they were not always effective
and in some instances caused more harm than good. Price caps, for instance, can force
dominant firms to cut costs, which is good but they could in the process lead to excessive
profits for the firm, which is not so good.
subject of "two-sided" markets that has direct relevance to today's buzzing world of
e-commerce. These markets bring together buyers and sellers on a platform they own,
enable interaction between the two and charge both sides. Amazon and Flipkart are
good examples. Mr. Tirole's work showed that the platforms often favour one side to
attract the other. For instance, deep discounts on e-commerce platforms are used to
drag in buyers and in the process bring in more vendors who pay the platform for its
services. Regulators often do not understand the practices due to asymmetry of
information.
Kailash Satyarthi: The activist who made child rights fashionable
Fri, Oct 10, 2014
nobel prize, The Hindu, social, child rights,
Possibly India's best known face against child labour, Kailash Satyarthi shares this
year's Nobel Peace Prize with Pakistani child rights activist Malala. He and his
organisation, Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) -- the Save Childhood Movement, have
single-handedly brought to centre-stage the debate on child rights in India.
Mr. Satyarthi and the BBA have so far freed 80,000 children from servitude, including
bonded labourers, and helped in their successful re-integration, rehabilitation and
education.
Officially there are only about five million child workers in India, but NGOs and others
say the actual figure is ten times as much.
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Nobel winner Kailash Satyarthi, a crusader against child labour
Fri, Oct 10, 2014
social, Nobel prize, child rights, Businessline,
The shared Nobel Peace Prize 2014 for an Indian, Kailash Satyarthi, a crusader against
child labour, is both a feather in India's cap, as well as a grim reminder of the scourge
that persists, largely due to poverty in vast tracts of the country's hinterland.
Bachpan Bachao Andolan, and is said to have freed, rehabilitated and educated about
80,000 children from the bondage of child labour in India. He also heads the Global
March Against Child Labor, a conglomeration of 2,000 social-purpose organisations
and trade unions in 140 countries.
In India, use of child labour is rampant even in hazardous factories making bricks,
carpets, glass bangles, fireworks, as well as in rice mills, cotton fields and mining in
the North East, among others. Satyarthi also founded Rugmark, a labelling organisation
that guarantees fair practices and no child labour. He was also active in the widespread
movement to make education a Constitutional right for all children, paving the way for
an enabling legislation in 2009.
Not just child labour, Satyarthi has also been involved in the crusade against child
trafficking and prostitution in India as well as in global forums. A Nobel prize, hopefully,
will help re-enforce the global fight against such exploitative practices against children.
In India, as per Census 2011, the number of working children in the age group of 5-14
years has reduced to 43.53 lakh from 1.26 crore in Census 2001, according to Labour
Ministry figures. A big chunk of these children are used as cheap labour and have been
found to suffer from malnutrition, impaired vision, deformities from sitting long hours
in cramped over-crowded work places.