The Nobel Peace Prize for 2006

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2006, divided into two equal parts, to Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank for their efforts to create economic and social development from below. Lasting peace can not be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty. Micro-credit is one such means. Development from below also serves to advance democracy and human rights.






Muhammad Yunus has shown himself to be a leader who has managed to translate visions into practical action for the benefit of millions of people, not only in Bangladesh, but also in many other countries. Loans to poor people without any financial security had appeared to be an impossible idea. From modest beginnings three decades ago, Yunus has, first and foremost through Grameen Bank, developed micro-credit into an ever more important instrument in the struggle against poverty. Grameen Bank has been a source of ideas and models for the many institutions in the field of micro-credit that have sprung up around the world.

Every single individual on earth has both the potential and the right to live a decent life. Across cultures and civilizations, Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that even the poorest of the poor can work to bring about their own development.

Micro-credit has proved to be an important liberating force in societies where women in particular have to struggle against repressive social and economic conditions. Economic growth and political democracy can not achieve their full potential unless the female half of humanity participates on an equal footing with the male.

Yunus's long-term vision is to eliminate poverty in the world. That vision can not be realised by means of micro-credit alone. But Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that, in the continuing efforts to achieve it, micro-credit must play a major part.

Oslo, 13 October 2006

Work on Telomeres Wins Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 3 U.S. Genetic Researchers [Update]

Blackburn, Greider and Szostak recognized for research into telomeres--a key chromosome component--and the enzyme telomerase

By Katherine Harmon


UNRAVELING TELOMERES: The 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine recognizes work going back nearly three decades on the role of genetic code that marks the end of chromosomes.
THE NOBEL COMMITTEE/ANNIKA ROHL

The 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine will go to three Americans who discovered telomeres, the genetic code that protects the ends of chromosomes, and telomerase, the enzyme that assists in this process, findings that are important in the study of cancer, aging and stem cells.

Announced this morning in Stockholm, the three geneticists—Elizabeth Blackburn, a professor of biology and physiology at the University of California, San Francisco, Carol Greider, a professor in the department of molecular biology and genetics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, and Jack Szostak, a professor of genetics at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who are all previous Scientific American authors—will split the award of 10 million Swedish kronor (about $1.4 million), along with the prestige and honor.

The work for which they received the award illuminated key aspects of the DNA replication process. As genetic material is copied from the chromosome during cell division, the whole DNA strand must be duplicated from end to end, otherwise, portions of genetic information will be lost. Until the 1980s, it was a mystery as to how the chromosomes could be reliably copied the whole way through without missing bits and pieces at the very end of each strand. Work completed by this year’s laureates demonstrated how, if parts of the end-cap telomeres were missing, DNA would eventually be shortened and cut off in the replication process.

Blackburn and Szostak, who had been studying the ends of chromosomes and minichromosomes respectively, met at a conference in 1980, after which they began collaborating. Two years later, they demonstrated in a paper published in Cell that the telomere sequence could be isolated, inserted into another organism and still serve the same function. Working with Blackburn, Greider helped in 1989 to identify the RNA-based telomerase—the enzyme that creates the crucial telomeres—in a paper published in Nature. (Scientific American is part of the Nature Publishing Group.)

The findings have since been applied in studies of aging, stem cells and cancer. Early research by Blackburn and Szostak showed that if telomeres were shortened it would lead to slower cell division and premature aging in yeast—and later in human cells. Since the early discoveries, defective telomeres have also been found to play a role in some forms of inherited anemia, as they affect the division of bone marrow stem cells. Cancer may also be in part a disease of telomere dysfunction. Given the rapid rate of division among cancer cells, they have been a more recent target of telomere research. Treatments taking advantage of this new knowledge are in clinical trails—the data from which are still outstanding—noted the Nobel committee.

Although findings related to this research have been generating much excitement in the field of cancer research—as well as that of aging—those issuing the award note that much study remains to be done. "Now it will be very important to figure out what is real, what is mechanism and what is statistical noise," said Goran Hansson, a professor of cardiology at the Karolinska Institute and member of the Prize committee, said during the announcement press briefing.

For the researchers, much of the early discoveries were driven by general curiosity about the workings of chromosomes and DNA replication. "We had no idea when we started this work that telomerase would be involved in cancer, but were simply curious about how chromosomes stayed intact," Greider said in a statement after winning the Lasker Award in 2006 for some of the same research. "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."

Jeremy Berg, director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences was pleased to see an example of general research chosen for the prize. He calls it "A great example of a curiosity-driven process. " The selection of telomeres research was not a surprise to many in the field, he says, as the research has "been moving along steadily under its own power… [and] everybody had known how important it was. " Nevertheless, there are some large questions that remain to be answered about the workings of telomeres and the associated telomerase—in addition to results from the ongoing clinical trials. From an evolutionary standpoint, for example, the similarities between telomerase and the reverse transcriptase in retroviruses and living telomeres-less knockout mice beg for further study, Berg notes.

This is the first time in the prize's 108-year history that more than one woman has been awarded the prize in medicine in a single year. Only eight other women have won the medical Nobel. Last year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was shared by Harald zur Hausen—for his work discovering the link between the HPV (the human papilloma virus) and cervical cancer—and Francoise Barre Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier—for their joint discovery of HIV (the human immunodeficiency virus).

Ma i teremoti si parlano?? di Marco Cattaneo

Due eventi sismici violenti, violentissimi, in meno di ventiquattr’ore. Vicini, diremmo, anche se a dire la verità tra le Samoa e Sumatra ci sono quasi 10.000 chilometri di distanza. Ma la domanda è istintiva: possibile che due terremoti così violenti siano collegati?

Anni fa, su “Le Scienze”, fu pubblicato un articolo (era l’articolo di copertina, e fu un numero che riscosse grande successo, che potete scaricare qui: terremoti-stein) in cui si ipotizzava che in qualche modo i grandi sismi si parlino, anche a distanza, che le irrequietudini di una faglia si propaghino lungo quella interminabile catena di punti che mettono in contatto le placche tettoniche.

Nel caso di oggi, la risposta alla domanda che tutti ci poniamo è quasi sicuramente no. I due terremoti che si sono susseguiti potrebbero non avere nulla in comune. Per una seria ragione, oltre alla grandissima distanza che separa gli epicentri e alla profondità diversissima a cui sono avvenuti i terremoti. La si vede nella mappa che incollo qui sotto (cliccateci sopra per ingrandirla, i due grandi terremoti delle ultime 24 ore sono i cerchi rossi più grandi).



Le faglie coinvolte nei due eventi sismici sono diverse. Il terremoto di Samoa si situa al confine tra la placca pacifica e la placca indo-australiana. Il terremoto di Sumatra è avvenuto al margine tra quest’ultima e la placca asiatica. Sono due delle regioni più sismiche del mondo, come testimonia l’incredibile affollarsi di puntini viola (rappresentano i terremoti degli ultimi cinque anni) in quelle zone. E dunque non è poi così sorprendente che da quelle parti avvengano sismi violenti. Statisticamente, anche nello stesso giorno.

Epèpure proprio domani, su “Nature”, è in uscita un articolo (di cui trovate un riassunto qui) i cui autori descrivono i risultati dei loro studi a proposito della possibilità che i movimenti di una faglia inneschino tensioni che provocano terremoti anche in faglie molto distanti. Il loro lavoro si basa sulla faglia di San Andreas, in California, e naturalmente non è definitivo. Però l’ipotesi è suggestiva. Ma ci vorranno ancora molti anni e molto lavoro prima che possiamo dare una risposta definitiva alla domanda: i terremoti si parlano?

Pensiero in movimento

Nell'entusiasmo per la conoscenza sul cervello c'è un evidente paradosso: più cose sappiamo su un argomento, meno questo risveglia il nostro interesse. Per esempio, la percezione del movimento suscita raramente un seguito fra i profani, a differenza dei segreti del libero arbitrio o dei neuroni specchio. Eppure questa facoltà cognitiva ci ha svelato gli elementi fondamentali della mente come nessun'altra.
La nostra elevata sensibilità per il movimento rivela che il cervello non si limita ad analizzare gli stimoli sensoriali secondo uno schema diretto, ma crea la nostra visione del mondo con grande creatività e formula molte ipotesi elementari.
La parola chiave «vedere» evoca spontaneamente in noi forme o colori, non necessariamente il movimento. Possiamo considerarla una dimensione fondamentale degli stimoli sensoriali? Oppure si limita a osservare il cambiamento di posizione degli oggetti nel tempo?