Nobel Laureates

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July 2008
- Gore Pounds Pols on Energy Plan
  
  MSNBC | Jul 20, 08 4:13 PM CDT
  
  (Newser) - Al Gore made his first appearance on Meet the Press since he sought the presidency 8 years ago, Politico reports, this time pushing his agenda as the nation's self-appointed energy czar. "My own best role is to try to bring about a sea change in public opinion" on environmental issues, he said, following a Thursday speech in which he called for a switch to 100% renewable energy sources by 2018. "Incremental baby steps are no longer responsible proposals." More »
June 2008
- Sentences That 'Evoke an Entire Universe'
  
  Esquire | Jun 22, 08 7:32 PM CDT
  
  (Newser) - Celebrating 75 years of fiction, Esquire offers some samples from "writers who could evoke an entire universe with a single sentence." A smattering: "Now he would never write the things that he had saved to write until he knew enough to write them well," Ernest Hemingway, The Snows of Kilimanjaro , August, 1936. More »
May 2008
- Winning Nobel a Disaster: Lessing
  
  BBC | May 12, 08 9:24 AM CDT
  
  (Newser) - Author Doris Lessing says winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007 was a "bloody disaster" for her and her work. The 88-year-old author of The Good Terrorist and The Golden Notebook told the BBC she is in constant demand and has written little since winning. "All I do is give interviews and spend time being photographed," she complained. More »
April 2008
- More Notables Stay Away From Beijing Olympics
  
  Los Angeles Times | Apr 11, 08 11:17 AM CDT
  
  (Newser) - The controversy around the Olympic flame continued as Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan environmentalist and Nobel laureate, announced she was dropping out of the torch relay. Maathai was to carry the torch this weekend in Tanzania but pulled out in protest of China's human rights record. Maathai also told the Los Angeles Times that she supports fellow Nobelist Desmond Tutu's call for a boycott of the opening ceremony. More »
February 2008
- Gore to Investors: Ditch Guzzlers
  
  Associated Press | Feb 15, 08 7:36 AM CST
  
  (Newser) - Nobel prize-winner Al Gore yesterday urged financial leaders at a United Nations conference in Manhattan to unload their investments in businesses reliant on carbon-intensive energy. Gore likened such investments to the subprime mortgage market, warning that "the assumption you can safely invest" in business models that assume carbon is free is "about to go splat," AP reports. More »
December 2007
- British Library Acquires Harold Pinter Archive
  
  Times (UK) | Dec 12, 07 2:27 PM CST
  
  (Newser) - The British Library has bought the papers of Harold Pinter, the Nobel Prize-winning playwright, paying more than $2.2 million for 150 boxes of material, writes the Times of London. After the purchase of several British authors' archives by American universities, Pinter committed himself to finding a home in his own country for his material, which includes correspondence, scrapbooks, and at least one unpublished manuscript. More »
- Gore Blasts Climate Inaction in Nobel Speech
  
  Washington Post | Dec 10, 07 12:17 PM CST
  
  (Newser) - Al Gore collected his Nobel Peace Prize today in Oslo and blasted the US and China for blaming each other rather than addressing climate change. "Both countries should stop using each other's behavior as an excuse for stalemate," he said. Gore also called his 2000 presidential defeat a blessing in disguise that allowed him to devote his life to raising awareness of global warming. More »
November 2007
- Gore Finally Reaches Oval Office
  
  Chicago Tribune | Nov 26, 07 5:42 PM CST
  
  (Newser) - Al Gore met with President Bush in the Oval Office today, the first private meeting between the two since the 2000 election. The environmental activist called the meeting "very cordial" but then gave reporters the slip, the Chicago Tribune reports. "I'm not going to do an interview here,'' he said on the street outside the White House. More »
October 2007
- DNA Pioneeer Kornberg Dies
  
  New York Times | Oct 27, 07 4:05 PM CDT
  
  (Newser) - Nobel laureate Dr. Arthur Kornberg, 89, a pioneering biochemist in the fields of DNA and human genetics, has died of respiratory failure, the New York Times reports. Kornberg shared the award in 1959 for his research into how DNA works, and that research is the foundation for many of today's cancer drugs, notes the San Francisco Chronicle . More »
- Watson Retires Amid Race Furor
  
  New York Times | Oct 25, 07 12:39 PM CDT
  
  (Newser) - Amid outrage over recent racial remarks, Nobel Prize-winning geneticist James Watson is retiring as chancellor of Long Island’s Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, the New York Times reports. Watson, 79, said his departure was overdue but admitted this wasn’t how he’d wanted to leave. The lab suspended Watson after he said that black people were less intelligent than white. More »
- Nobel Laureate Downplays 9/11
  
  Associated Press | Oct 23, 07 9:03 AM CDT
  
  (Newser) - Freshly minted Nobel laureate Doris Lessing said the 9/11 terrorist assault on the World Trade Center “wasn’t that terrible” in comparison to violence wreaked by the IRA in Britain. "Some Americans will think I'm crazy," she said in an interview in Spanish daily El Pais . "Many people died, two prominent buildings fell, but it was neither as terrible nor as extraordinary as they think. They're a very naive people, or they pretend to be." More »
- Lab Suspends Watson After Race Row
  
  Times (UK) | Oct 19, 07 2:00 PM CDT
  
  (Newser) - Embattled geneticist James Watson was suspended from his laboratory today in response to comments he made suggesting that black people are inherently less intelligent than whites, the London Times reports. The 79-year-old scientist canceled a British book tour and headed back to the States. The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, which he has led for 40 years, said it was suspending his administrative duties "pending further deliberation.” More »
- DNA Pioneer Ignites Furor Over Race and Intelligence
  
  Independent (UK) | Oct 17, 07 12:05 PM CDT
  
  (Newser) - One of the most decorated modern scientists has ignited an explosion after telling the Independent that white people are smarter than black people—a view also reflected in his new book. James Watson, who helped discover the structure of DNA, claimed Western policies towards Africa should not assume "that their intelligence is the same as ours." Politicians and scientists alike are decrying Watson's propositions. More »
- Gore Rules Out Presidential Run
  
  Associated Press | Oct 17, 07 10:08 AM CDT
  
  (Newser) - Nobel or not, Al Gore still isn’t running for president. “I’m involved in a different kind of campaign," Gore told Norwegian TV in an interview broadcast today. "It’s a global campaign to change the way people think about the climate crisis.” Many hoped the award would push Gore to run, but a poll yesterday showed Americans against it 54% to 47%, about the same as a poll last spring. More »
- Gore Inspires ‘Deranged’ Righty Hatred
  
  New York Times | Oct 15, 07 6:06 PM CDT
  
  (Newser) - Conservatives are incensed over Al Gore’s Nobel prize, and the Times' Paul Krugman says he knows why: The former veep “keeps being right.” The reactions range from the Journal's refusal to mention his name while rattling off more worthwhile contenders to a National Review suggestion that climate-sensitive Osama should have shared the honor. More »
- Nobel Hard Drive Tech Revived
  
  Wall Street Journal | Oct 15, 07 12:29 PM CDT
  
  (Newser) - Hard disk space is about to quadruple, says Hitachi, thanks to this year’s Nobel Prize-winning physicists. The company today announced it had developed a new technology for passing data between the disk and the disk-reading heads which shrinks the heads and allow for disk storage of up to 4 terabytes of data. It marks a return to tech pioneered by the Nobel winners. More »
- 3 Americans Share Nobel in Economics
  
  Reuters | Oct 15, 07 8:06 AM CDT
  
  (Newser) - Americans Leonid Hurwicz, Eric Maskin, and Roger Myerson have won this year’s Nobel Prize in economics for developing "mechanism design theory," which indicates when markets are working effectively, Reuters reports. The theory can be used to assess the factors which make individuals and corporations deviate from the ideal market suggested by Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’ metaphor, the prize committee noted. More »
- Bush v. Gore, Seven Years Later
  
  Washington Post | Oct 13, 07 9:01 AM CDT
  
  (Newser) - The Gore camp couldn't resist gloating yesterday: "Bush earned the Iraq war, and Al Gore earned the Nobel Prize. Who knew Al Gore would one day thank the Supreme Court for their judgment?" The day after the prize, the Washington Post takes a look at how the fortunes of Gore and the man who defeated him have reversed since the 2000 election. More »
- Nobel-Winning UN Panel Head: I'm 'a Symbol'
  
  BBC | Oct 12, 07 4:30 PM CDT
  
  (Newser) - The Nobel Peace Prize came as a surprise to the head of the UN committee that shared the award with Al Gore, who seized the opportunity to share the panel's mission: "To tell the world we need to do something about climate change urgently." Rajendra Pachauri deflected praise to his fellow scientists, saying he is "just a symbol," the BBC reports. More »
- White House by Way of Oslo?
  
  Politico | Oct 12, 07 12:34 PM CDT
  
  (Newser) - Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize will increase calls for the Oscar winner to run for president. The Politico says the laureate’s likely to stay out of the race—after this, a political campaign would be an awful downer, the Washington Post notes—but not until he’s drawn out speculation first. And the most prestigious award in the world will make Gore's endorsement, which was deeply discounted in 2004, much more valuable. More »