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2019 Nobel Prizes: What you can learn from this year's winners
From literature to physics, the annual Nobel Prizes aim to highlight the most groundbreaking achievements in every field.

- Each year, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards six Nobel Prizes.
- The categories are: literature, physics, chemistry, peace, economics, and physiology & medicine.
- The Nobel prizes will be announced each business-day until October 14.
Nobel Peace Prize
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali won the Nobel Peace on Friday for helping to resolve the border conflict with neighboring Eritrea.
Eritrea and Ethiopia, two of the world's poorest nations, fought a war against each other from 1998 to 2000. A peace treaty in 2000 stopped the large-scale fighting, but a stalemate ensued, and both sides have in recent years accused the other of sparking smaller border clashes.
I am humbled by the decision of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. My deepest gratitude to all committed and working fo… https://t.co/xdCOgyp49Q— Abiy Ahmed Ali (@Abiy Ahmed Ali)1570801685.0
But after taking office in 2018, Abiy pursued peace talks with Eritrea.
"In close cooperation with Isaias Afwerki, the President of Eritrea, Abiy Ahmed quickly worked out the principles of a peace agreement to end the long "no peace, no war" stalemate between the two countries," the academy wrote.
"He spent his first 100 days as Prime Minister lifting the country's state of emergency, granting amnesty to thousands of political prisoners, discontinuing media censorship, legalising outlawed opposition groups, dismissing military and civilian leaders who were suspected of corruption, and significantly increasing the influence of women in Ethiopian political and community life. He has also pledged to strengthen democracy by holding free and fair elections."
Still, ethnic conflicts within Ethiopia have displaced more than 3 million people in recent years, and critics of Abiy – who's already survived one assassination attempt – argue that his policies will make matters worse.
"No doubt some people will think this year's prize is being awarded too early," the academy wrote. "The Norwegian Nobel Committee believes it is now that Abiy Ahmed's efforts deserve recognition and need encouragement."
Last year's Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Dr. Denis Mukwege, a Congolese gynecologist, and Nadia Murad, a Yazidi woman and former captive of ISIS, for helping to combat wartime sexual assault.
Nobel Prize: Literature
The Swedish Academy awarded two writers the Nobel Prize in Literature: The Polish author and poet Olga Tokarczuk received the 2018 award, and the 2019 prize went to Austrian author and playwright Peter Handke.
Last year's Nobel Prize in Literature was postponed due to a sexual assault scandal involving the husband of an academy member. After the scandal, several board members departed and the academy changed the way it chooses winners.
Peter Handke
Handke is a 76-year-old Austrian playwright, novelist, essayist, and poet who gained acclaim early in his career for his avant-garde play "Offending the Audience." He's also written many scripts for films, including Die linkshändige Frau (The Left–Handed Woman), which in 1978 was nominated for the Golden Palm Award at the Cannes Film Festival.
But Handke's win is proving controversial. The writer is a well-known apologist for former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, who was accused by a United Nations tribunal of war crimes related to wars in Kosovo, Croatia, and Bosnia. In his writings, Handke controversially portrayed Serbia as a victim of the Yugoslav Wars. Although Handke declined Milosevic's request to appear as a witness at his U.N. trial., the writer did eulogize Milosevic after he died in prison awaiting trial.
"I think he was a rather tragic man," Handke said in a 2006 interview. "Not a hero, but a tragic human being. I am a writer and not a judge."
Surprisingly, in 2014 Handke said the Nobel Prize for literature "should be abolished" because it "promotes the false canonization of literature."
A handful of writers and literary organizations have already denounced the academy's decision to award the prize to Handke.
"We are dumbfounded by the selection of a writer who has used his public voice to undercut historical truth and offer public succor to perpetrators of genocide, like former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic," the novelist Jennifer Egan, who is president of PEN America, said in a statement on behalf of the organization. "At a moment of rising nationalism, autocratic leadership, and widespread disinformation around the world, the literary community deserves better than this. We deeply regret the Nobel Committee on Literature's choice."
"Have we become so numb to racism, so emotionally desensitized to violence, so comfortable with appeasement that we can overlook one's subscription and service to the twisted agenda of a genocidal maniac?" tweeted Vlora Citaku, Kosovo's ambassador to the United States.
Olga Tokarczuk
Tokarczuk, who also won last year's Man Booker International Prize for her novel "Flights," is the 15th woman to win the Nobel Prize for literature. The judges described her as "a writer preoccupied by local life ... but looking at earth from above ... her work is full of wit and cunning," and said she possesses "a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life."
Tokarczuk is a controversial figure in Poland, a nation dominated by right-wing populist politics, which she frequently criticizes. After she criticized Poland's history of colonialism in a 2014 interview, some right-wing nationalists called her a "targowiczanin," an archaic term for traitor.
Some of Tokarczuk's works to check out include: "The Journey of the Book-People," "Primeval and Other Times," and the screenplay for the crime film "Spoor", which was nominated for best foreign language film at the 2018 Oscars.
Nobel Prize: Physics
How did the Big Bang produce the swirling galaxies that populate our universe, and how can scientists detect and study planets that orbit stars light-years away from Earth? The 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics goes to three scientists who helped shed light on these complex questions.
James Peebles, the Albert Einstein professor of science at Princeton, received half of the award, which includes half of the $918,000 prize money. Michel Mayor, an astrophysicist and professor emeritus of astronomy at the University of Geneva, and Didier Queloz, a professor of physics at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University and at the University of Geneva, together share the other half of the prize.
"While James Peebles' theoretical discoveries contributed to our understanding of how the universe evolved after the Big Bang, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz explored our cosmic neighborhoods on the hunt for unknown planets. Their discoveries have forever changed our conceptions of the world," the secretary-general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Goran Hansson, said.
BREAKING NEWS: The 2019 #NobelPrize in Physics has been awarded with one half to James Peebles “for theoretical dis… https://t.co/mDyUeJMuf7— The Nobel Prize (@The Nobel Prize)1570528353.0
How Dr. Peebles enriched cosmology
Since the 1960s, Dr. Peebles' work has helped to solidify and enrich cosmology, chiefly by finding ways to learn about the universe from the ancient radiation leftover from the Big Bang.
Some 400,000 years after the Big Bang, the universe cooled enough for light rays to travel through space. Today, billions of years later, this ancient radiation is still around us, though its temperature is near absolute zero. But Dr. Peebles discovered that the temperature of this background radiation provides clues about how much matter was created by the Big Bang.
The calculations made possible by this discovery also shed light on the matter and processes in the universe that we can't see: dark energy and dark matter.
"The results showed us a universe in which just five per cent of its content is known, the matter which constitutes stars, planets, trees – and us," the academy wrote. "The rest, 95 per cent, is unknown dark matter and dark energy. This is a mystery and a challenge to modern physics."
2019 #NobelPrize laureate James Peebles took on the cosmos, with its billions of galaxies and galaxy clusters. His… https://t.co/Fko2AUZt68— The Nobel Prize (@The Nobel Prize)1570528441.0
Mayor and Queloz: Finding exoplanets
Astronomers detect exoplanets by measuring extremely subtle changes in a star's activity. These changes occur as exoplanets orbit their host star, and the predictability of the changes allows scientists to learn quite a lot about the properties of exoplanets. In 1995, Mayor and Queloz used this approach to discover the first planet outside of our solar system. It might sound surprising to us today, but before their discovery astronomers considered that maybe it was extremely rare for stars to have planets orbiting them, meaning life outside of Earth would be even more unlikely, if not impossible.
"This discovery started a revolution in astronomy and over 4,000 exoplanets have since been found in the Milky Way," the academy wrote. "Strange new worlds are still being discovered, with an incredible wealth of sizes, forms and orbits. They challenge our preconceived ideas about planetary systems and are forcing scientists to revise their theories of the physical processes behind the origins of planets. With numerous projects planned to start searching for exoplanets, we may eventually find an answer to the eternal question of whether other life is out there."Nobel Prize: Medicine
Photo by Xinhua/Zheng Huansong via Getty Images
The 2019 Nobel Prize in medicine was awarded to three scientists from the U.S. and U.K. working independently on the same problem: how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability. Gregg Semenza of Johns Hopkins University, Sir Peter Ratcliffe of Oxford University, and William Kaelin, Jr., of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard University received the 5 a.m. call from Stockholm. The three maintained an ongoing and informal conversation, sharing work and consequentially rocketing the entire field of study forward.
Their research unveiled a genuine textbook discovery. "They've unveiled the series of molecular events that allow cells to assess and respond to changing levels of available oxygen, with implications in the treatment of cancer, heart attacks, strokes, anemia, and other diseases," according to previous Big Think reporting. Read the full article dedicated to the findings here.
‘Designer baby’ book trilogy explores the moral dilemmas humans may soon create
How would the ability to genetically customize children change society? Sci-fi author Eugene Clark explores the future on our horizon in Volume I of the "Genetic Pressure" series.
- A new sci-fi book series called "Genetic Pressure" explores the scientific and moral implications of a world with a burgeoning designer baby industry.
- It's currently illegal to implant genetically edited human embryos in most nations, but designer babies may someday become widespread.
- While gene-editing technology could help humans eliminate genetic diseases, some in the scientific community fear it may also usher in a new era of eugenics.
Tribalism and discrimination
<p>One question the "Genetic Pressure" series explores: What would tribalism and discrimination look like in a world with designer babies? As designer babies grow up, they could be noticeably different from other people, potentially being smarter, more attractive and healthier. This could breed resentment between the groups—as it does in the series.</p><p>"[Designer babies] slowly find that 'everyone else,' and even their own parents, becomes less and less tolerable," author Eugene Clark told Big Think. "Meanwhile, everyone else slowly feels threatened by the designer babies."</p><p>For example, one character in the series who was born a designer baby faces discrimination and harassment from "normal people"—they call her "soulless" and say she was "made in a factory," a "consumer product." </p><p>Would such divisions emerge in the real world? The answer may depend on who's able to afford designer baby services. If it's only the ultra-wealthy, then it's easy to imagine how being a designer baby could be seen by society as a kind of hyper-privilege, which designer babies would have to reckon with. </p><p>Even if people from all socioeconomic backgrounds can someday afford designer babies, people born designer babies may struggle with tough existential questions: Can they ever take full credit for things they achieve, or were they born with an unfair advantage? To what extent should they spend their lives helping the less fortunate? </p>Sexuality dilemmas
<p>Sexuality presents another set of thorny questions. If a designer baby industry someday allows people to optimize humans for attractiveness, designer babies could grow up to find themselves surrounded by ultra-attractive people. That may not sound like a big problem.</p><p>But consider that, if designer babies someday become the standard way to have children, there'd necessarily be a years-long gap in which only some people are having designer babies. Meanwhile, the rest of society would be having children the old-fashioned way. So, in terms of attractiveness, society could see increasingly apparent disparities in physical appearances between the two groups. "Normal people" could begin to seem increasingly ugly.</p><p>But ultra-attractive people who were born designer babies could face problems, too. One could be the loss of body image. </p><p>When designer babies grow up in the "Genetic Pressure" series, men look like all the other men, and women look like all the other women. This homogeneity of physical appearance occurs because parents of designer babies start following trends, all choosing similar traits for their children: tall, athletic build, olive skin, etc. </p><p>Sure, facial traits remain relatively unique, but everyone's more or less equally attractive. And this causes strange changes to sexual preferences.</p><p>"In a society of sexual equals, they start looking for other differentiators," he said, noting that violet-colored eyes become a rare trait that genetically engineered humans find especially attractive in the series.</p><p>But what about sexual relationships between genetically engineered humans and "normal" people? In the "Genetic Pressure" series, many "normal" people want to have kids with (or at least have sex with) genetically engineered humans. But a minority of engineered humans oppose breeding with "normal" people, and this leads to an ideology that considers engineered humans to be racially supreme. </p>Regulating designer babies
<p>On a policy level, there are many open questions about how governments might legislate a world with designer babies. But it's not totally new territory, considering the West's dark history of eugenics experiments.</p><p>In the 20th century, the U.S. conducted multiple eugenics programs, including immigration restrictions based on genetic inferiority and forced sterilizations. In 1927, for example, the Supreme Court ruled that forcibly sterilizing the mentally handicapped didn't violate the Constitution. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes wrote, "… three generations of imbeciles are enough." </p><p>After the Holocaust, eugenics programs became increasingly taboo and regulated in the U.S. (though some states continued forced sterilizations <a href="https://www.uvm.edu/~lkaelber/eugenics/" target="_blank">into the 1970s</a>). In recent years, some policymakers and scientists have expressed concerns about how gene-editing technologies could reanimate the eugenics nightmares of the 20th century. </p><p>Currently, the U.S. doesn't explicitly ban human germline genetic editing on the federal level, but a combination of laws effectively render it <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jlb/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jlb/lsaa006/5841599#204481018" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">illegal to implant a genetically modified embryo</a>. Part of the reason is that scientists still aren't sure of the unintended consequences of new gene-editing technologies. </p><p>But there are also concerns that these technologies could usher in a new era of eugenics. After all, the function of a designer baby industry, like the one in the "Genetic Pressure" series, wouldn't necessarily be limited to eliminating genetic diseases; it could also work to increase the occurrence of "desirable" traits. </p><p>If the industry did that, it'd effectively signal that the <em>opposites of those traits are undesirable. </em>As the International Bioethics Committee <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jlb/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jlb/lsaa006/5841599#204481018" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">wrote</a>, this would "jeopardize the inherent and therefore equal dignity of all human beings and renew eugenics, disguised as the fulfillment of the wish for a better, improved life."</p><p><em>"Genetic Pressure Volume I: Baby Steps"</em><em> by Eugene Clark is <a href="http://bigth.ink/38VhJn3" target="_blank">available now.</a></em></p>Massive 'Darth Vader' isopod found lurking in the Indian Ocean
The father of all giant sea bugs was recently discovered off the coast of Java.
A close up of Bathynomus raksasa
- A new species of isopod with a resemblance to a certain Sith lord was just discovered.
- It is the first known giant isopod from the Indian Ocean.
- The finding extends the list of giant isopods even further.
The ocean depths are home to many creatures that some consider to be unnatural.
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzU2NzY4My9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNTUwMzg0NX0.BTK3zVeXxoduyvXfsvp4QH40_9POsrgca_W5CQpjVtw/img.png?width=980" id="b6fb0" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="2739ec50d9f9a3bd0058f937b6d447ac" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1512" data-height="2224" />Bathynomus raksasa specimen (left) next to a closely related supergiant isopod, B. giganteus (right)
<p>According to<a href="https://www.livescience.com/supergiant-isopod-newfound-species.html" target="_blank" rel="dofollow"> LiveScience</a>, the Bathynomus genus is sometimes referred to as "Darth Vader of the Seas" because the crustaceans are shaped like the character's menacing helmet. Deemed Bathynomus raksasa ("raksasa" meaning "giant" in Indonesian), this cockroach-like creature can grow to over 30 cm (12 inches). It is one of several known species of giant ocean-going isopod. Like the other members of its order, it has compound eyes, seven body segments, two pairs of antennae, and four sets of <a href="https://www.livescience.com/supergiant-isopod-newfound-species.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer dofollow">jaws</a>.</p><p>The incredible size of this species is likely a result of deep-sea gigantism. This is the tendency for creatures that inhabit deeper parts of the ocean to be much larger than closely related species that live in shallower waters. B. raksasa appears to make its home between 950 and 1,260 meters (3,117 and 4,134 ft) below sea <a href="https://news.nus.edu.sg/research/new-species-supergiant-isopod-uncovered" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer dofollow">level</a>. </p><p>Perhaps fittingly for a creature so creepy looking, that is the lower sections of what is commonly called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesopelagic_zone" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer dofollow">The Twilight Zone</a><em>, </em>named for the lack of light available at such depths. </p><p>It isn't the only giant isopod, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_isopod" target="_blank">far from it</a>. Other species of ocean-going isopod can get up to 50 cm long (20 inches) and also look like they came out of a nightmare. These are the unusual ones, though. Most of the time, isopods stay at much more reasonable <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-raksasa-cockroach-from-the-deep-the-stuff-nightmares-are-made-of-6513281/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer dofollow">sizes</a>. </p><p>The discovery of this new species was published in <a href="https://zookeys.pensoft.net/article/53906/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer dofollow">ZooKeys</a>. The remainder of the specimens from the trip are still being analyzed. The full report will be published <a href="https://www.futurity.org/deep-sea-giant-isopod-bathynomus-raksasa-2422042/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer dofollow">shortly</a>.<em> </em></p>What benefit does this find have for science? And is it as evil as it looks?
<div class="rm-shortcode" data-media_id="7XqcvwWp" data-player_id="FvQKszTI" data-rm-shortcode-id="8506fcd195866131efb93525ae42dec4"> <div id="botr_7XqcvwWp_FvQKszTI_div" class="jwplayer-media" data-jwplayer-video-src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/7XqcvwWp-FvQKszTI.js"> <img src="https://cdn.jwplayer.com/thumbs/7XqcvwWp-1920.jpg" class="jwplayer-media-preview" /> </div> <script src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/7XqcvwWp-FvQKszTI.js"></script> </div> <p>The discovery of a new species is always a cause for celebration in zoology. That this is the discovery of an animal that inhabits the deeps of the sea, one of the least explored areas humans can get to, is the icing on the cake.</p><p>Helen Wong of the National University of Singapore, who co-authored the species' description, explained the importance of the discovery:</p><p>"The identification of this new species is an indication of just how little we know about the oceans. There is certainly more for us to explore in terms of biodiversity in the deep sea of our region." </p><p>The animal's visual similarity to Darth Vader is a result of its compound eyes and the curious shape of its <a href="https://lkcnhm.nus.edu.sg/research/sjades2018/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer dofollow" style="">head</a>. However, given the location of its discovery, the bottom of the remote seas, it may be associated with all manner of horrifically evil Elder Things and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthulhu" target="_blank" rel="dofollow">Great Old Ones</a>. <em></em></p>These are the world’s greatest threats in 2021
We look back at a year ravaged by a global pandemic, economic downturn, political turmoil and the ever-worsening climate crisis.
Billions are at risk of missing out on the digital leap forward, as growing disparities challenge the social fabric.
Image: Global Risks Report 2021
<h3>Widespread effects</h3><p>"The immediate human and economic costs of COVID-19 are severe," the report says. "They threaten to scale back years of progress on reducing global poverty and inequality and further damage social cohesion and global cooperation."</p><p>For those reasons, the pandemic demonstrates why infectious diseases hits the top of the impact list. Not only has COVID-19 led to widespread loss of life, it is holding back economic development in some of the poorest parts of the world, while amplifying wealth inequalities across the globe.</p><p>At the same time, there are concerns the fight against the pandemic is taking resources away from other critical health challenges - including a <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/09/charts-covid19-malnutrition-educaion-mental-health-children-world/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">disruption to measles vaccination programmes</a>.</p>Columbia study finds new way to extract energy from black holes
A new study explains how a chaotic region just outside a black hole's event horizon might provide a virtually endless supply of energy.
- In 1969, the physicist Roger Penrose first proposed a way in which it might be possible to extract energy from a black hole.
- A new study builds upon similar ideas to describe how chaotic magnetic activity in the ergosphere of a black hole may produce vast amounts of energy, which could potentially be harvested.
- The findings suggest that, in the very distant future, it may be possible for a civilization to survive by harnessing the energy of a black hole rather than a star.
The ergosphere
<p>The ergosphere is a region just outside a black hole's event horizon, the boundary of a black hole beyond which nothing, not even light, can escape. But light and matter just outside the event horizon, in the ergosphere, would also be affected by the immense gravity of the black hole. Objects in this zone would spin in the same direction as the black hole at incredibly fast speeds, similar to objects floating around the center of a whirlpool.</p><p>The Penrose process states, in simple terms, that an object could enter the ergosphere and break into two pieces. One piece would head toward the event horizon, swallowed by the black hole. But if the other piece managed to escape the ergosphere, it could emerge with more energy than it entered with.</p><p>The movie "Interstellar" provides an example of the Penrose process. Facing a fuel shortage on a deep-space mission, the crew makes a last-ditch effort to return home by entering the ergosphere of a blackhole, ditching part of their spacecraft, and "slingshotting" away from the black hole with vast amounts of energy.</p><p>In a recent study published in the American Physical Society's <a href="https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.103.023014" target="_blank" style="">Physical Review D</a><em>, </em>physicists Luca Comisso and Felipe A. Asenjo used similar ideas to describe another way energy could be extracted from a black hole. The idea centers on the magnetic fields of black holes.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Black holes are commonly surrounded by a hot 'soup' of plasma particles that carry a magnetic field," Comisso, a research scientist at Columbia University and lead study author, told <a href="https://news.columbia.edu/energy-particles-magnetic-fields-black-holes" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Columbia News</a>.</p>Ergosphere representation
<p>In the ergosphere of a rotating black hole, magnetic field lines are constantly breaking and reconnecting at fast speeds. The researchers theorized that when these lines reconnect, plasma particles shoot out in two different directions. One flow of particles shoots off against the direction of the spinning black hole, eventually getting "swallowed" by the black hole. But the other flow shoots in the same direction as the spin, potentially gaining enough velocity to escape the black hole's gravitational pull.</p><p>The researchers proposed that this occurs because the breaking and reconnecting of magnetic field lines can generate negative-energy particles. If the negative-energy particles get "swallowed" by the black hole, the positive particles would theoretically be exponentially accelerated.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Our theory shows that when magnetic field lines disconnect and reconnect, in just the right way, they can accelerate plasma particles to negative energies and large amounts of black hole energy can be extracted," Comisso said. "It is like a person could lose weight by eating candy with negative calories."</p>Black hole
Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration
<p>While there might not be immediate applications for the theory, it could help scientists better understand and observe black holes. On an abstract level, the findings may expand the limits of what scientists imagine is possible in deep space.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Thousands or millions of years from now, humanity might be able to survive around a black hole without harnessing energy from stars," Comisso said. "It is essentially a technological problem. If we look at the physics, there is nothing that prevents it."</p>A psychiatric diagnosis can be more than an unkind ‘label’
A popular and longstanding wave of thought in psychology and psychotherapy is that diagnosis is not relevant for practitioners in those fields.
