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Can You Communicate Without Defensiveness? The Incredible Lesson of Shimon Hamsoni and Rabbe AkivaThis class was presented on Tuesday, 11 Av, 5785, August 5, 2025, Parshas Vaeschanan, at The Barn in Montebello, NY. There is a story in the Talmud, in which Shimon the Imsonite retracts his entire theory that the term "Es" indicates the inclusion of another person or item, due to a single verse in this week’s portion, “You shall fear -- Es -- the Lord your G-d.” How can we be in awe of anybody but G-d? Yet his student, Rabbi Akiva, rescues his teacher’s refuted theory. The obvious question is what did Rabbi Akiva discover which Shimon did not? Shimon could not entertain the notion of including anything in the commandment to fear G-d. For him, such a proposition would be blasphemy. Why did Rabbi Akiva, then, not have a problem of adding Torah scholars to the mitzvah of fearing G-d? How is it that for what Shimon was blasphemy was for Rabbi Akiva perfectly acceptable, and even a mitzvah?! You were selected to win the Nobel Prize for your contribution to physics. You received your tickets to Norway to attend the lavish ceremony. You were featured on the cover of Time magazine, and have been interviewed by hundreds of journals and networks. Minutes after you received the call that the Nobel Committee had chosen you from 40 possible candidates, you went from being an anonymous physicist spending the last 45 years in a laboratory to becoming a world-class scientist whose name will be immortalized in the annals of scientific innovation and discovery. You become a household name. The world is buzzing with your praise. And then… the unthinkable happens. Hours before you go to the airport to fly to Norway, you discover a subtle mistake in one of your 20,000 equations. It is a mistake that no eye has perceived and perhaps will not be perceived for many years. But it is a mistake. Your calculation is erroneous. You have refuted your discovery. You now have a choice to make. Will you allow the “small truth” to destroy your eternal glory? What would you do? It is such a story that the Talmud is addressing. If only we can internalize this type of integrity our lives can be transformed.View Source Sheets: https://portal.theyeshiva.net/api/source-sheets/9744
Norwegian Nobel Committee chair Jorgen Frydnes delivered a speech at Sophia University in Tokyo on Sunday, highlighting the need to listen to the voices of hibakusha, who survived the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Norwegian Nobel Committee chair Jorgen Frydnes has visited Hiroshima and called for attention to be paid to the voices of hibakusha, who survived the 1945 atomic bombing of the western Japan city.
This week on The Sound Kitchen, you'll hear the answer to the question about Mario Vargo Llosa. There's The Sound Kitchen mailbag, the “The Listener's Corner” with Paul Myers, and Erwan Rome's “Music from Erwan”. All that, and the new quiz and bonus questions too, so click the “Play” button above and enjoy! Hello everyone! Welcome to The Sound Kitchen weekly podcast, published every Saturday – here on our website, or wherever you get your podcasts. You'll hear the winners' names announced and the week's quiz question, along with all the other ingredients you've grown accustomed to: your letters and essays, “On This Day”, quirky facts and news, interviews, and great music … so be sure and listen every week.Erwan and I are busy cooking up special shows with your music requests, so get them in! Send your music requests to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr Tell us why you like the piece of music, too – it makes it more interesting for us all!Facebook: Be sure to send your photos to thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr for the RFI English Listeners Forum banner!More tech news: Did you know we have a YouTube channel? Just go to YouTube and write “RFI English” in the search bar, and there we are! Be sure to subscribe to see all our videos.Would you like to learn French? RFI is here to help you!Our website “Le Français facile avec RFI” has news broadcasts in slow, simple French, as well as bilingual radio dramas (with real actors!) and exercises to practice what you have heard.Go to our website and get started! At the top of the page, click on “Test level” and you'll be counselled to the best-suited activities for your level.Do not give up! As Lidwien van Dixhoorn, the head of “Le Français facile” service, told me: “Bathe your ears in the sound of the language, and eventually, you'll get it.” She should know – Lidwien is Dutch and came to France hardly able to say “bonjour” and now she heads this key RFI department – so stick with it!Be sure you check out our wonderful podcasts!In addition to the news articles on our site, with in-depth analysis of current affairs in France and across the globe, we have several podcasts that will leave you hungry for more.There's Spotlight on France, Spotlight on Africa, The International Report, and of course, The Sound Kitchen. We also have an award-winning bilingual series – an old-time radio show, with actors (!) to help you learn French, called Les voisins du 12 bis. Remember, podcasts are radio, too! As you see, sound is still quite present in the RFI English service. Please keep checking our website for updates on the latest from our journalists. You never know what we'll surprise you with!To listen to our podcasts from your PC, go to our website; you'll see “Podcasts” at the top of the page. You can either listen directly or subscribe and receive them directly on your mobile phone.To listen to our podcasts from your mobile phone, slide through the tabs just under the lead article (the first tab is “Headline News”) until you see “Podcasts”, and choose your show. Teachers take note! I save postcards and stamps from all over the world to send to you for your students. If you would like stamps and postcards for your students, just write and let me know. The address is english.service@rfi.fr If you would like to donate stamps and postcards, feel free! Our address is listed below. Another idea for your students: Brother Gerald Muller, my beloved music teacher from St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas, has been writing books for young adults in his retirement – and they are free! There is a volume of biographies of painters and musicians called Gentle Giants, and an excellent biography of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., too. They are also a good way to help you improve your English - that's how I worked on my French, reading books that were meant for young readers – and I guarantee you, it's a good method for improving your language skills. To get Brother Gerald's free books, click here.Independent RFI English Clubs: Be sure to always include Audrey Iattoni (audrey.iattoni@rfi.fr) from our Listener Relations department in your RFI Club correspondence. Remember to copy me (thesoundkitchen@rfi.fr) when you write to her so that I know what is going on, too. N.B.: You do not need to send her your quiz answers! Email overload!This week's quiz: On 19 April, I asked you a question about Mario Vargas Llosa, a Nobel Prize-winning author from Peru. You were to re-read Paul Myers' article “Nobel prize-winning author Mario Vargas Llosa dies aged 89”, and send in the answers to these questions: In which year did Llosa win the Nobel Prize for Literature, and what did the Nobel Committee write about his work?The answer is, to quote Paul's article: “His Nobel Prize in 2010 came 51 years after The Cubs and Other Stories. The Nobel committee said the accolade was an award for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat.”In addition to the quiz question, there was the bonus question, “What are the obstacles that impede your happiness?”, which was an idea from Erwan Rome, who suggested we look at the philosophy questions asked on the French baccalaureate exams, the French leaving-school exam. This one was for the 2018 students.Do you have a bonus question idea? Send it to us! The winners are: RFI Listeners Club member Father Stephen Wara from Bamenda, Cameroon. Father Steve is also the winner of this week's bonus question. Congratulations, Father Stephen,on your double win.Also on the list of lucky winners this week are RFI Listeners Club members Samir Mukhopadhyay from West Bengal, India - who noted Vargas is one of his favorite Latin American writers; Mahfuzur Rahman from Cumilla, Bangladesh; Niyar Talukdar from Maharashtra, India, and last but not least, RFI English listener Tanjim Tatini from Munshiganj, Bangladesh.Congratulations, winners!Here's the music you heard on this week's programme: “En route à Bengal” inspired by traditional Bengali folk music, arranged and performed by the Hamelin Instrumental Band; Traditional Peruvian Cumbia; “The Flight of the Bumblebee” by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov; “The Cakewalk” from Children's Corner by Claude Debussy, performed by the composer, and “The Loud Minority” by Frank Foster, performed by the the Loud Minority Big Band.Do you have a music request? Send it to thesoundkitchen@rfi.frThis week's question ... you must listen to the show to participate. After you've listened to the show, re-read Ollia Horton's article “Ukraine, Gaza and #MeToo in the spotlight as Cannes Film Festival opens”, which will help you with the answer.You have until 16 June to enter this week's quiz; the winners will be announced on the 21 June podcast. When you enter, be sure to send your postal address with your answer, and if you have one, your RFI Listeners Club membership number.Send your answers to:english.service@rfi.frorSusan OwensbyRFI – The Sound Kitchen80, rue Camille Desmoulins92130 Issy-les-MoulineauxFranceClick here to learn how to win a special Sound Kitchen prize.Click here to find out how you can become a member of the RFI Listeners Club, or form your own official RFI Club.
We welcome back KJ Noh for two discussions. First, we talk about Han Kang who won the Nobel Prize for Literature, and why this reflects the Nobel Committee's only chance to comment on the genocide in Gaza. Then we turn to the chaos that is going on in South Korea with the President calling for Marshall Law, the legislature rejecting that, and the hundreds of thousands of protestors taking to the streets. There is more here than our press and our government would like to admit. We finish with the song the protestors sing during the protests.
Piezo touch and pressure-sensing ion channels are showing up everywhere as the explanation for physiologic phenomena, both at the macro and micro levels. Ardem Patapoutian, my friend and colleague at Scripps Research, discovered these receptors back in 2010 and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2021 for his work. As you'll see/hear from our conversation, the field has exploded. And you'll get to know Ardem, who is such a fun, charismatic, and down-to-earth person. He also recently got a unique tattoo (videos below) and I wonder (unlikely) if any other Nobel laureates have one related to their discovery?!Below is a video clip from our conversation. Full videos of all Ground Truths podcasts can be seen on YouTube here. The current one is here. If you like the YouTube format, please subscribe! The audios are also available on Apple and Spotify.Transcript with links to audioEric Topol (00:07):Well, hello. It's Eric Topol with Ground Truths, and I've really got a special guest today. The first time for the podcast, I've been able to interview a colleague and faculty at Scripps Research, Ardem Patapoutian, who just by the way happens to be the 2021 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine. So welcome, Ardem. It's so wonderful to have you.Ardem Patapoutian (00:30):Thanks so much, Eric. Looking forward to chatting with you.Eric Topol (00:34):Well, this has been interesting because although I've known you for several years, I didn't research you. I mean, I had to learn about more than I even do. And of course, one of the great sources of that is on the Nobel Prize website where you tell your whole story. It is quite a story and not to review all of it, but I wanted to go back just before you made the call to move to Los Angeles from Beirut, Lebanon and with the scare that you went through at that time, it seemed like that was just extraordinary that you had to live through that.Ardem Patapoutian (01:11):Yeah, so I am of Armenian origin, but I was born in Lebanon and born in 1967, so I was eight years old when the civil war started. So it's a kind of bizarre childhood in the sense that with all the bombs and fighting in Lebanon. So it was tough childhood to have, but it was never personal. It was bombs and such. And so, the event you're talking about is, I happened to be kidnapped while crossing East to West Beirut. They only held me for four or five hours at first asking me questions to see who I am, but I think they pretty soon figured out that I was not a dangerous guy and they ended up letting me go. But before that, that incident really had a huge impact on me so that by the time I got home, I literally said, I'm out of here. I'm going to find a way to leave the country. And so, that's what, very quickly within a few months I packed and came to United States.Eric Topol (02:19):And how did you pick LA to be your destination?Ardem Patapoutian (02:22):Being from the Armenian community, there's a lot of Armenians in Los Angeles. My cousins already had moved there. They also grew up in Lebanon. And my brother, who's a few years older than me, got admitted to USC graduate school in engineering. So he was going to be there. So it made a lot of sense.Eric Topol (02:44):Oh yeah.Ardem Patapoutian (02:45):Unlike him, I came with no school or job prospects because it happened so fast that I kind of just left. One year I was at American University of Beirut for one year, but then just left and came here. So worked for a year in various jobs and then started going back to school to UCLA.Eric Topol (03:07):Yeah, I saw how there was about a year where you were delivering pizzas and before you got into UCLA, and that must have been an interesting off year, if you will. Well, the story of course, just to fast forward, you did your baccalaureate at UCLA, your PhD at Caltech, postdoc at UCSF, and then you came to Scripps Research 24 years ago along with Pete Schultz, and it's been quite an amazing run that you've had. Now, before we get into PIEZO receptors, the background, maybe you could help me understand, the precursor work seems to be all related to the transient receptor potential (TRP) series, also ion channels. They were of course related to whether it was heat and temperature or somatosensory. How do these channels compare to the ones that you discovered years later?Background on these Ion ChannelsArdem Patapoutian (04:09):Yeah, so the somatosensory neurons that innervate your fingertips and everywhere else in your body, their main job is to sense temperature and pressure. And this is very different than any other neuron or any other cell. So when you touch a hot stove that's burning hot, you need to know about that immediately within milliseconds or something cold. So the opposite side of it is pressure sensing, and it also comes in light touch, which is pleasant or a hammer hitting your finger, which is unpleasant. But all of these have the same characteristic anyway, that is your body has learned at the molecular level to translate a physical stimulus such as temperature and pressure into an electrical signal that neurons use to communicate with each other. But this idea of how you translate physical stimuli into chemical or electrical signal has been a long open question because as you know, most of our cells communicate by chemicals, whether that's hormones or small molecules, we know how that works, receptor bind to ligand, confirmational change and you get a kinase activation and that's enough. But here, how do you sense pressure? How do you sense temperature? It was just, there wasn't much known about that. And that's why our earlier work on TRP channels, which were temperature sensors came before the pressure. And so, they're very related in that sense.Eric Topol (05:52):The structure of these, if you were to look at them, do they look pretty similar? What the TRP as you say, and what you did back in the 2010 Science paper, which we'll link to, of course the classic paper where you describe PIEZO1 and PIEZO2, but if you were to look at this structures, would they look pretty similar?Ardem Patapoutian (06:14):No, that's a good question. And they absolutely don't. That's why finding these receptors were so hard. So if you go back to other sensory receptors, vision rhodopsin G-protein coupled receptor (GPCRs), larger G-protein coupled receptor look the same. So for example, when it was identified by chemically, that smell also works through G-protein coupled receptor. Richard Axel and Linda Buck, who also won the Nobel Prize, found those receptors by homology to visual GPCRs. The ion channels other than the fact that they crossed the membrane a few times or more, they have nothing else in common. If you looked at their structure, you can't even immediately tell they're ion channels. So you couldn't find these by structural homology or sequence homology. So you had to do something else. And usually that means functional screens and et cetera.Eric Topol (07:09):Well, yeah, and I'm in touch with the screening. We'll get to that and how you dig these up and find them. But the somatosensory ones are really interesting because I don't think a lot of people realize that when you have wasabi or you have Listerine mouthwash and feel the burn and that these are all mediated through these channels, right?Ardem Patapoutian (07:35):Yeah. So there's this whole field of chemesthesis, which means senses in your mouth, for example, that are not explained by taste transduction and olfactory. And these are actually by the same somatosensory neurons that help you sense temperature and pressure. And some of these receptors are the same. Their evolution has taken over and used them for many different things. The prime example of this is the capsaicin receptor that David Julius my co-laureate identified, which is also heat receptors. So all languages describe chili peppers as hot, and that's not a coincidence. It actually activates heat activated channel, and that's why we think of it as hot. And so, the same goes to another one of these TRP channels that you mentioned, which is TRPA1, and this one is also activated, but a lot of spicy foods other than the chili pepper active ingredient includes what's in garlic and onions and everything that has this burning sensation and chemicals of this and wasabi and chemicals of this are used in over the counter products like Listerine that cause that burning sensation.Eric Topol (08:54):So when you're chopping onions and it makes you cry, is that all part of it as well?Ardem Patapoutian (08:59):That's all TRPA1, yeah.The Discovery, A Test of PerseveranceEric Topol (09:01):It's wild. Now, this was the groundwork. There were these heat temperature and somatic sensory, and then you were starting to wonder what about touch, what about out pressure and proprioception. And so, you went on a hunt, and it's actually kind of an incredible story about how you were able to find out of these cells that you had, screening hundreds or I guess you got to 72 different small interfering RNA blocking that you finally found the one. Is that right?Ardem Patapoutian (09:37):That's right. So in retrospect, looking back at it, I think there's such an interesting scientific message there. And so, many of us were looking for this touch pressure sensors and we were all looking in the DRG sensory neurons that are complicated heterogeneous, they don't divide. It's not easy to do a screen on them. And ultimately after a lot of failures, what worked for us is to take a step back and ask a much more simpler question. And that was, can we find one of these cell lines that you could easily homogeneously grow in a culture dish, if they respond to mechanical force, can we find our channel there? And then go back and look if it's relevant in vivo for what process. So I think the message is ask the simplest question to answer the question you're after. And finding what that is, is actually the challenge lots of times.Ardem Patapoutian (10:36):But yeah, that's what Bertrand Coste in my lab did is found a simple cell line that neuroscientists had been using for a hundred years and somehow found that they over overexpressed this channel because you can record from them, you can push them and record the currents from them. And then it became a simpler question of finding it. It still took a whole year. He made a list and one by one knocking them out and looking at it. And finally, as you say, number 72 was the hit. When he knocked that out, the current was gone. And that's where we started believing that we have what we were looking for.Eric Topol (11:12):Were you all ever about ready to give up at that point?Ardem Patapoutian (11:16):Oh yeah. I mean that's another lesson. These are postdocs doing the work, right? And they're here three, four years and this was coming close to end of two years, and he didn't have anything yet. So we started talking about having a backup project and he started that and we said, okay, we were ordering this oligos 30 at a time because they're expensive. And so, the first 30 nothing, the second 30 nothing. And how many more are we going to do before we potentially give up? And we said, well, let's do at least a third and then decide, thank goodness it was in that last set.Eric Topol (11:54):Wow, that is so wild. Now what's happened since this discovery, which I guess when you published it in 2010, so it means 14 years ago, but we're on this exponential growth of learning that these piezo receptors are everywhere. They're doing everything. In fact, I recently put on Bluesky, PIEZO ion channels are to human physiology as GLP-1 drugs are to treating many diseases because it's just blowing up. And you've published on some of these of course, on itch and bladder function and vascular function. We'll get to maybe malaria, I mean, but even the cover of Science recently was about wet dog shakes and how animals shake because of water. These receptors are so fundamental to our function. So maybe you could comment, 15 years ago when you were doing the work and you're making this discovery, did you ever envision it was going to blow up like this?Ardem Patapoutian (12:57):Not to this level, but I should have. I think that this idea, again, that most of cell communication is through chemicals is of course a lot of it is true.Ardem Patapoutian (13:12):But it would be ridiculous for evolution to ignore all the physical forces, the pressures that cells experience. And once they do, you would think you would put an instructive way of sensing this pressure signal and using it beneficially to the system or the cell. And so, when we used to talk about pressure sensing at the beginning, there were a couple of touch, pain, maybe proprioception, hearing are like the poster children of pressure sensing. But I think what these molecules, as you say is enabling us is finding out the much more wider role that pressure sensing is playing in physiology and in disease that no one had thought seriously about. And this is, I compare sometimes the finding the PIEZO molecules. You're going in a dark room, and you need to find a door to get into there. And PIEZO is kind of that finding the door once you get in, now you use that molecule now to find physiology instead of the opposite way around. So by pursuing PIEZO expression and function, we're finding all these new roles that they play in physiology and in disease that we didn't think about. And because they're so specialized to sense tension, membrane tension, they don't do anything else. So if you see them expressed somewhere or if you see a function for them, you can bet that they are playing a role in sensing pressure. A lot of biology has kind of come from this hypothesis.Eric Topol (15:00):Well, I mean it is so striking to see the pervasiveness, and I do want to go back just for a second because when you name them PIEZO, you named it after the Greek word. How did you come to that name?Ardem Patapoutian (15:13):So Bertrand and I were actually sitting on Google Translate and we were typing pressure and trying to see what it's like in Greek or in Latin or different languages. His native French and my Armenian and píesi in Greek is pressure. And of course, what's really cool is that the word that more people know about this is piezoelectric device.Eric Topol (15:41):Oh, right.Ardem Patapoutian (15:41):Actually, translates physical force into electricity and vice versa. And in a way, this is a little molecular machine that does the same thing, and he uses this piezoelectric device to actually push on the cell. That's his assay. So it all came together as a very appropriate name for this gene and protein.Call from the Nobel CommitteeEric Topol (16:04):Oh really, it's perfect. And you get to name it, even that's fun too, right? Now we're going to go to getting the call at 2:00 AM, but it didn't come to you because your phone from the Nobel Committee was on ‘do not disturb' and your 94-year-old father, Sarkis. How did the Nobel Committee know to get ahold of him? How did they reach him in the middle of the night?Ardem Patapoutian (16:37):Yeah, so I mean, since receiving it, I've had conversations with various committee members, and they are very resourceful folks, and they have assistants who throughout the year collect information on all potential people who might win. They're also doing last minute searches. So they looked for other Patapoutian's in California. So they just called my dad who initially yelled at them for disturbing him at 2:00 AM.Eric Topol (17:17):And he could get through to you because he was not on your list of ‘do not disturb' or something like that.Ardem Patapoutian (17:22):I didn't even know this. And I don't know if the policy has changed, but in some phones the ‘do not disturb' if it's called by someone who's in your contacts or favorites.Ardem Patapoutian (17:34):After I think they called twice and they get through, and that's how.Getting a Tattoo!Eric Topol (17:39):That's amazing. Wow. Well, that's quite a way to find out that you're getting recognized like this. Now recently you got a tattoo, which I thought was really remarkable, but we're going to put that of course in the post. Tell us about your decision to get the PIEZO channel on your arm.Ardem Patapoutian (18:02):So as you can tell, I'm obsessed about PIEZO and it's been good to me. And I had the idea a while ago, and my very wise wife, Nancy Hong, said that you might be going through midlife crisis. Why don't you wait a year? If you still believe in it, you should do it. And that's what I did. I waited a year, and I was like, I still want to do it. And I guess I could show it. Here it is.Eric Topol (18:32):Oh yeah, there it is. Oh wow.Ardem Patapoutian (18:33):What's cool is that I can pretty much flex to show the activation mechanism because the channel is like bent like this in the plasma membrane. When it's stretched, it opens and it actually flattens like this. So I feel like other than being a tattoo, this is both performance art and instructional device. When I'm giving talks without PowerPoint slides, I could give a demonstration how this ion channel works.[Below is from a presentation that Ardem recently gave, the Harvey Lecture, at Rockefeller University.]Eric Topol (19:04):It's wild. Now how did you find a tattoo artist that could, I mean, it's pretty intricate. I mean, that's not your typical tattoo.Ardem Patapoutian (19:14):Yeah, I put it up on social media that I was thinking of doing this, and many scientists are into tattoos, so I actually got so many recommendations. And one of them was a local here in San Diego, and she is very popular. I waited six months to get this, I was on a waiting list. The appointment was six months off when we made it. So she's very popular and she's very good.Eric Topol (19:45):Was it painful to get that done?Ardem Patapoutian (19:47):Well, that's actually really cool, right? Because PIEZO2 is involved in pain sensation, and I felt it while it was being tattooed on my arm. The whole day, I was there like six and a half hours.New Prospect for Pain MedicationEric Topol (20:00):Oh my gosh. Wow. Now that gets me to pain because, I'd like you to talk a bit about the people that don't have mutations or loss of function PIEZO receptors and also what your thoughts are in the future as to maybe we could develop a lot better pain medications.Ardem Patapoutian (20:22):Yeah, we're working on it. So you're right. One of the great parts of the science story, and this is mainly the work of Alex Chesler and Carsten Bönnemann at the NIH, where they identified people who came to the clinic for undiagnosed conditions, and they were uncoordinated and had difficulty walking. And when they did whole-exome sequencing, they found that they had mutations in PIEZO2, there were loss of function, as you say. So complete loss on both chromosomes. And when they started testing them, they realized that just like we had described them in animal models, humans without PIEZO2 as well, didn't sense touch, don't have proprioception. This sense of where your limbs are, that's so important for balance and most other daily functions that we take it for granted. So they were completely lacking all of those sensations. They also do not feel their bladder filling.Ardem Patapoutian (21:26):And so, they have learned to go on a schedule to make sure they don't have accidents. And many of these projects that we've done in the lab collaboration with Alex Chesler, et cetera, have come from the observations of what else these individuals experience. And so, it's been a great kind of collaboration communication between mechanistic animal model studies and the clinic. And so, one of the things that these individuals don't sense in addition to touch, is something called tactile allodynia, which is simply when touch becomes painful. You and I experienced this after small injury or sunburn where just touching your shoulder becomes painful, but for peripheral neuropathy and other neuropathic pain conditions, this is one of the major complaints that individuals have. And we know from the NIH studies that these individuals don't have this tactile allodynia. So touch becomes painful and doesn't apply to them, which tells us that if we block PIEZO2, we can actually get interesting relief from various aspects relative to neuropathic pain on other pain related neuropathies. But given everything we talked about, Eric, about how this is important for touch and proprioception, you don't want to make a pill that blocks PIEZO2 and you take it because this will have some serious on target side effects. But we are developing new compounds that block PIEZO2 and hope that it might be useful, at least as a topical medication pain and other indications. And we're actively working on this, as I said.Eric Topol (23:15):Yeah, I mean the topical one sounds like a winner because of peripheral neuropathy, but also I wonder if you could somehow target it to sick cells rather than if giving it in a systemic targeted way. I mean it has tremendous potential because we are on a serious hunt for much better relief of pain than exists today.Ardem Patapoutian (23:41):Absolutely.Eric Topol (23:42):Yeah. So that's exciting. I mean, that's another potential outgrowth of all this. Just going back, I mean the one that prompted me in November to write that about the human physiology in PIEZO, it was about intestinal stem cell fate decision and maintenance. I mean, it's just everywhere. But the work you've done certainly now has spurred on so many other groups to go after these different and many unanticipated functions. Were there any ones, of course, you've been pretty systematically addressing these that actually surprised you? You said, oh, are you kidding me when you read this? I never would've guessed this, or pretty much they followed suit as things were moving along.Ardem Patapoutian (24:33):So one of them is this role in macrophages that I found fascinating that we found a few years ago. So again, this came from human studies where PIEZO1 gain-of-function mutations. So in relation to loss of function, their gain-of-function where there's more activity given a certain amount of pressure. They have dehydrated red blood cells, which I'm not going to talk about right now. But they also have shown that in these patients, individuals, it's not really that pathological. They also have age-onset iron overload. What does that have to do with pressure sensing? And we brought that information into animal models, and we found that macrophages, their rate of phagocytosis depends on PIEZO, so that if you have too little PIEZO, they don't phagocytosis as much. If you have too much PIEZO, the phagocytosis too much. And this increased rate of phagocytosis in the long term because it's constantly eating red blood cells and the iron is circulating more causes long-term effects in iron overload. And again, as you kind of set that up, who would've thought that mechanical sensation is important for this basic hematology type?Eric Topol (25:52):Yeah, I mean, because we've been talking about the macro things, and here it is at the cellular level. I mean, it's just wild.Ardem Patapoutian (25:59):If you go back and look at a video of a macrophage eating up red blood cells, then you go, oh, I see how this has to do with pressure sensing because it is like extending little arms, feeling things letting go, going somewhere else. So again, I want to bring it back by this simple cell biological function of a cell type, like macrophage, exploring its environment is not just chemical, but very mechanical as well. And so, in retrospect, it is maybe not that surprising, that pressure sensing is important for its physiology.Career Changing?Eric Topol (26:33):Yeah, that's extraordinary. Well, that gets me to how your life has changed since 2021, because obviously this a big effect, big impact sort of thing. And I know that you're the first Armenian, first person from Lebanon to get this recognition. You recognized by the Lebanese Order of Merit. There's even a stamp of you, your picture characterized in 2022.Eric Topol (27:04):So if you were to sum up how it's changed because I see no change in you. You're the same person that has a great sense of humor. Often the tries to humor relaxed, calming. You haven't changed any to me, but how has it affected you?Ardem Patapoutian (27:26):Thank you, Eric. That's very kind of you. I try very hard for it not to change me. I do get a little bit more attention, a ton more invites, which unfortunately I have to say no to a lot of them because, and I'm sure you're very familiar with that concept and a lot of things are offered to you that I feel like it's so tempting to say yes because they're wonderful opportunities and an honor to be asked. But the end of the day, I'm trying to be very disciplined and not taking things on that I can do as an opportunity. But things that I really want to do. I think that's so hard to do sometimes is to separate those two. Why am I doing this? Is this really important for the goals that I have? So in one way, the answer for that is that I just want to stay in the lab and do my research with my students and postdoc, which is what I enjoy the most. But on the other hand, as you said, being the first Armenian who's received this, literally after the Nobel, I got this whole elementary school, all Armenian kids write to me multiple letters.Ardem Patapoutian (28:39):And they said, you look like me. I didn't think I could do this, but maybe I can. So in a sense, to ignore that and say, no, I just want to do my science, I don't want to be involved in any of that is also wrong. So I'm trying to balance being engaged in science outreach and helping to make science understood by the general public, realize that we're just regular people and at the same time how awesome science is. I love science and I like to project that, but leave plenty of time for me to just be a scientist and be in my lab and interact with my colleagues at Scripps, including you.Immigrant ScientistsEric Topol (29:21):Well, we're so lucky to have that chance. And I do want to mention, because you're prototyping in this regard about great immigrant scientists and other domains of course, but every year the Carnegie Foundation names these great immigrants and one year you were of course recognized. And in recent years, there have been more difficulties in people wanting to come to the US to get into science, and they wind up going to other places. It seems like that's a big loss for us. I mean, what if we weren't able to have had you come and so many hundreds, thousands of others that have contributed to this life science community? Maybe you could comment about that.Ardem Patapoutian (30:10):Yeah, I think it is tragic, as you say. I think in some circles, immigrants have this negative image or idea of what they bring, but at every level, immigrants have contributed so much to this country. It's a country of immigrants, of course, to start with. And I think it is important to put up a positive image of immigration and science is the ultimate example of that, right? I mean, I think when you go into any laboratory, you probably find if there's a lab of 16 people, you probably find people from 10 different countries. And we all work together. And the idea of also immigrant and especially about science is that I'm a big believer of changing field, changing things because just like that, immigrants have changed their whole life. So they come to a new culture, they bring with them their own way of thinking and their way of seeing things. And then you come into a new environment, and you see it a little bit differently. So that kind of change, whether it's because of physical immigration or immigrating from one field to another in science is really beneficial for science and society. And I think positive examples of this are an important part of highlighting this.Eric Topol (31:40):I couldn't agree with you more really.Bluesky vs Twitter/XEric Topol (31:41):Now, speaking of migration, there's been recently a big migration out of X, formerly Twitter to Bluesky, which I like the metaphor you liken to the Serengeti. Can you tell us about, now I know you're posting on Bluesky and of course so many others that you and I are mutual contacts, and our different networks are. What do you think about this migration outside of what was the platform where a lot of this, we shared things on X or before Musk took over known as Twitter? Thoughts about Bluesky?Ardem Patapoutian (32:27):Yeah, I think I use social media for a few reasons. The number one reason should be is to see new science by colleagues. My main point is that, but also, again, having fun in science is a big part of my draw to this. And as you can see from my posts, it's a bit lighthearted, and that's really me.Eric Topol (32:52):Right. Yeah.Ardem Patapoutian (32:52):I think on Twitter, things start getting a little bit dark and too many negative comments, and it was just not productive. And I just felt like after the elections, I felt like it was time to migrate. And I find Bluesky a great scientific community, and it's remarkable how quickly people have migrated from Twitter to Bluesky. But the counter argument for this is that you should stay in a place where majority of people are, because being in a bubble surrounding yourself by people like you doesn't help society. And so, I get that perspective as well. It just depends on what you're using the platform for and it's a difficult issue. But yeah, I've taken a break probably long-term break from Twitter. I'm on Bluesky now.Eric Topol (33:48):Yeah, no, the point you're bringing up about the echo chamber and is there going to be one for people that are leaning one way and they're thinking, and another with a whole different, often politically charged and even extreme views? It's really unfortunate if it does wind up that way. But right now, it seems like that migration is ongoing and it's substantial. And I guess we'll see how it settles out. I share your concern, and so far, I've been trying to keep a foot in both areas because I think if we all were to leave, then we're just kind of caving into a, it's tricky though. It really is because the noxious toxic type of comments, even when you try to avoid comments, you say, only followers can make a comment, they'll of course, quote your thing and then try to ding you and whatever. It's just crazy stuff, really.Ardem Patapoutian (34:53):I mean, what I think is that, that's why I said depends on why. I mean, your presence on social media is such an important part of science education. And I could almost say you can't afford to do what I do, which is I'm just putting my goofy posts and having fun. So we have different purposes in a way, and yeah, that affects what you use and how you use it.Eric Topol (35:17):Yeah, no, it's tricky it really is. We covered a lot of ground. Is there anything I missed that you want to get out there? Any part of this, your story and the PIEZO story, science and everything else that I didn't bring up?The Essentiality of Basic ScienceArdem Patapoutian (35:42):I just think that the basic science community is really suffering from decreasing amounts of funding and appreciation of doing basic science. And one of my goals, in addition to this immigrant scientist thing, is to remind people that all medicines start with basic science work. And funding this has mainly been through NIH and it's getting harder and harder for basic scientists to secure funding and I'm really worried about this. And we need to find ways to be okay for people to do basic science. And I'll give you one example. Whenever we make a publication and there's a journalist talking to us or some kind of press coverage, they ask, how is this directly affecting patients? And my work actually is very much related to patients, and I answer that question, but I also say, but it's also important to do science for the science sake because you don't know where the applications are going to come from. And we need to, as a society, encourage and fund and support basic science as the seeds of all these translational work. And I think doing that just kind of highlights that this is important too. We should support it, not just things that right now seem very related to translational that directly helps patients.Eric Topol (37:16):Well, I'm so glad you emphasized that because I mean, the PIEZO story is the exemplar. Look what's come of it, what might still come of it. In many respects here you are maybe 15 years into the story and there's still many parts of this that are untold, but if it wasn't for the basic science, we wouldn't have these remarkable and diverse insights. And recently you cited, and I think so many people read about the ‘crown jewel' NIH, front page New York Times, and how it's under threat because the new NIH director doesn't have a regard for basic science. He's actually, he's confirmed, which is likely, he's an economist, physician economist, never practiced medicine, but he doesn't really have a lot of regard for basic science. But as you point out, almost every drug that we have today came out of NIH basic work. And I mean, not just that, but all the disease insights and treatments and so much.Eric Topol (38:25):So this is really unfortunate if we have not just an NIH and other supporting foundations that don't see the priority, the fundamental aspect of basic science to then lead to, as we call translational, and then ultimately the way to promote human health, which is I think what we're all very much focused on ultimately. But you can't do it without getting to first base, and that's what you have done. You served it up and it's a great example. Well, Ardem, it's always a pleasure. This is a first time talking through a podcast. I hope we'll have many, many visits informally that will complement the ones we've already had, and we will follow the PIEZO work. Obviously, you have had just an exceptional impact, but you're still young and who knows what's next, right? I mean, look what happened to Barry Sharpless. He won here. He won two Nobel prizes, so you never know where things are headed.Ardem Patapoutian (39:36):Thank you, Eric, and I really appreciate what you do for the biomedical community. I think it's wonderful through your social media and this podcast, we all appreciate it.***********************************************************************************Please take a moment to complete the poll above.Thank you for reading, listening and subscribing to Ground Truths.If you found this informative please share it!All content on Ground Truths—its newsletters, analyses, and podcasts, are free, open-access.Paid subscriptions are voluntary and of course appreciated. All proceeds from them go to support Scripps Research. Many thanks to those who have contributed—they have greatly helped fund our summer internship programs for the past two years. I welcome all comments from paid subscribers and will do my best to respond to each of them and any questions.Thanks to my producer Jessica Nguyen and to Sinjun Balabanoff for audio and video support at Scripps Research.And Happy New Year! Get full access to Ground Truths at erictopol.substack.com/subscribe
When the phone rang 10 years ago while Norwegian neuroscientist May-Britt Moser was in a particularly engaging lab meeting, she almost didn't answer it.Good thing she did! It was Göran Hansson, secretary of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine, with the news: May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser, along with their mentor and colleague John O'Keefe from the University College London, had just won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries of two types of brain cells that work together to function like a GPS in the brain.That system allows animals -including us - to know where they are, and navigate to where they want to go. This was a groundbreaking discovery because it gave us critical insight into how an area of the brain, far from the normal sensory inputs of sight, sound and touch, constructs its own way of understanding space. And, because this same area of the brain, and our ability to navigate, are affected early on in Alzheimer's patients, it offers an inroad for clinicians studying the disease. In fact, the KG Jebsen Centre for Alzheimer's Disease, a part of the Mosers' Kavli Institute, is working to bring these fundamental insights about the brain to clinical practice. This episode is a celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Nobel award. To make it, I cracked open a time capsule of sorts: When the Mosers first learned that they had won the scientific world's highest honour, I ran down to their lab and recorded everything! The files in this podcast are from that day and the heady days afterwards.My guests on today's episode are May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser.You can also find lots more material, including videos, more popular science articles and background information on this webpage. And don't forget to subscribe to 63 Degrees North to hear my second podcast, coming in early 2025, about the most recent findings from the Mosers' lab – and a look into the future. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
South Korean writer Han Kang won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday. The Swedish Academy's Nobel Committee said her work “confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.” 韩国作家韩康周四荣获 2024 年诺贝尔文学奖。瑞典学院诺贝尔委员会表示,她的作品“直面历史创伤,暴露了人类生命的脆弱”。 Born in 1970, Han Kang is the first South Korean to win the literature prize. Kang began her career in 1993 with the publication of several poems in Literature and Society. She published her first story in 1995 with Love of Yeosu. 韩康出生于1970年,是第一位获得文学奖的韩国人。康于1993年开始了她的职业生涯,在《文学与社会》上发表了几首诗。1995年,她发表了第一篇小说《丽水之恋》。 In 2016, Kang won the Man Booker International Prize for The Vegetarian. It tells the story of a woman's decision to stop eating meat and her family's worry about her mental health. The novel was the first of her books to be translated into English and was seen as her major international breakthrough. 2016年,康凭借《素食者》获得曼布克国际奖。它讲述了一名女性决定停止吃肉以及家人对她心理健康的担忧的故事。这本小说是她第一本被翻译成英文的书,被视为她在国际上的重大突破。 In a talk with the Booker Prizes, published last year, Kang said the book was written during a difficult period in her life. She questioned whether she could finish the story or even survive as a writer. 在去年出版的布克奖颁奖典礼上,康表示这本书是在她人生的困难时期写成的。她质疑自己能否完成这个故事,甚至能否作为一名作家生存下去。 "I was suffering from severe arthritis…To this day, I feel awkward when I hear about the novel's ‘success,'” she said. “我当时患有严重的关节炎……直到今天,当我听到这部小说的‘成功'时,我都感到很尴尬,”她说。 In the novel Human Acts, Kang explored the 1980 killing of hundreds of students and unarmed civilians by the South Korean military in the city of Gwangju, where she grew up. 在小说《人类的行为》中,康探讨了 1980 年韩国军队在她长大的光州市杀害数百名学生和手无寸铁的平民的事件。 "In seeking to give voice to the victims of history, the book confronts this episode with brutal actualization and, in so doing, approaches the genre of witness literature," the Academy said. 该学院表示:“为了向历史受害者发出声音,这本书以残酷的现实来面对这一事件,并以此接近了见证文学的类型。”Kang is the second South Korean to win a Nobel Prize. Former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000 for his efforts to restore democracy in the South and improve relations with North Korea. 康是第二位获得诺贝尔奖的韩国人。韩国前总统金大中因其在韩国恢复民主和改善与朝鲜关系的努力而获得2000年诺贝尔和平奖。 The literature prize has long faced criticism that it is too centered on European and North American writings. It has also been awarded mainly to male writers. Kang is only the 18th woman to receive the award among more than 100 winners. 长期以来,文学奖一直面临着过于以欧洲和北美作品为中心的批评。该奖项也主要颁发给男性作家。Kang是100多名获奖者中第18位获得该奖项的女性。 Past winners of the prize include well-known writers like Irish poet W.B. Yeats, American writer Ernest Hemingway and Colombia's Gabriel Garcia Marquez. In 2016, American singer Bob Dylan also received the prize “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition” 该奖项的历届获奖者包括爱尔兰诗人 W.B. 叶芝、美国作家欧内斯特·海明威和哥伦比亚的加布里埃尔·加西亚·马尔克斯。2016年,美国歌手鲍勃·迪伦也因“在伟大的美国歌曲传统中创造了新的诗意表达方式”而获奖。 Mats Malm is Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy. He told reporters, “I was able to talk to Han Kang over the phone. She was having an ordinary day, it seems, she had just finished supper with her son." 马茨·马尔姆 (Mats Malm) 是瑞典学院常务秘书。他告诉记者,“我能够通过电话与韩康交谈。她今天过得很平常,好像刚刚和儿子吃完晚饭。” The prize comes with a money award of $1.1 million. 该奖项奖金为 110 万美元。
12 October, the day after the announcement of the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize, we invited Jørgen Watne Frydnes, Chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee to give a short lecture on awarding the prize to Nihon Hidankyo. Read more about the Japanese organisation Nihon Hidankyo here: https://peaceprizelaureates.nobelpeacecenter.org/en/laureate/2024-nihon-hidankyo
The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to a Japanese grassroots movement working to eliminate nuclear weapons. It's made up of survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings. The group's leader says he felt people helping Palestinians in Gaza deserved to win instead. So, what's behind the Nobel Committee's decision? In this episode: Asmund Aukrust, Member of Parliament, Norway's Labour Party. Lex Takkenberg, Senior Advisor, Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development. Henrik Urdal, Director, Peace Research Institute Oslo. Host: Tom McRae Connect with us:@AJEPodcasts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook At Al Jazeera Podcasts, we want to hear from you, our listeners. So, please head to https://www.aljazeera.com/survey and tell us your thoughts about this show and other Al Jazeera podcasts. It only takes a few minutes!
On the day the Nobel Committee awards the Peace Prize, Gideon Rose, adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the former editor of Foreign Affairs and author of How Wars End (Simon & Schuster, 2010), looks at this year's recipient and back through its impact over the last century, as part of our ongoing centennial series.
This year's Nobel Peace Prize winner is a Japanese organization working toward global nuclear disarmament.On Today's Show:On the day the Nobel Committee awards the Peace Prize, Gideon Rose, adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the former editor of Foreign Affairs and author of How Wars End (Simon & Schuster, 2010), looks at this year's recipient and back through its impact over the last century, as part of our ongoing centennial series.
*) Israel orders Beirut residents to leave before air strikes The Israeli military has issued an urgent warning for residents in southern Beirut to evacuate ahead of planned air strikes, which it claims are targeting Hezbollah-linked sites as Tel Aviv widens its war throughout the Middle East. According to the Lebanese Health Ministry over 2,100 Lebanese people have been killed and thousands have been wounded since the Israeli attacks began. Meanwhile, Tel Aviv's ally, the US' trust in Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's government is eroding, with concerns over Israel's handling of Gaza and rejection of a ceasefire proposal, according to a report published by Axios. US officials have said they are concerned that the directive is setting the stage for a potential siege and that Palestinian civilians would not be allowed to return. *) WHO warns of disease outbreaks in Lebanese shelters amid Israel's invasion The World Health Organization warns of looming disease outbreaks in Lebanon as crowded shelters and hospital closures strain the health system amid Israel's intensified ground invasion. The UN health agency has already warned that the system is overstretched and five hospitals in the country have closed so far and four are only partly functional. Meanwhile, the WFP highlighted Lebanon's food crisis, with abandoned farmland and rotting crops threatening food security in the conflict zone. *) India's Modi surprises with Haryana win as opposition alliance takes Kashmir Indian PM Narendra Modi's BJP clinched a surprise win in Haryana state, defying exit polls and reinforcing its strength despite recent national setbacks. The Congress party, predicted to win, called the outcome "unexpected" and plans to challenge the results. Meanwhile, National Conference, a regional Kashmiri opposition alliance won in India-administered Kashmir, signalling shifting dynamics ahead of key state elections. *) British spy chief reveals surge in youth involvement in extremism UK's MI5 Chief Ken McCallum warns of a surge in youth terrorism cases, with under-18s now making up 13 percent of investigations—a threefold rise in three years. He cites online extremism, driven by right-wing ideologies, as a key factor. McCallum said the intelligence service was seeing "far too many cases where very young people are being drawn into poisonous online extremism" and singled out "canny" internet memes. *) AI pioneers Geoffrey Hinton and John Hopfield receive Nobel honours Geoffrey Hinton, the "Godfather of AI," and physicist John Hopfield won the Nobel Physics Prize for groundbreaking AI foundations. Hinton, 76, expressed concern over AI's future dominance, despite its benefits. The Nobel Committee highlighted AI's daily impact, urging ethical use. Hopfield, 91, was honoured for his "Hopfield network," crucial for image and pattern recognition.
“I heard what sounded like an authentic call from the Nobel Committee!” New medicine laureate Gary Ruvkun might have received a prank call or two in the past, but today's was genuine. He talked to the Nobel Prize's Adam Smith minutes after hearing the news, about the pleasure of finding things out, the electrifying growth of the microRNA field over the years, and the benefits of taking time out. And as for what's about to follow: “It's going to be a fun ride!” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Chris and Doran are joined by Christopher Feran to discuss, "Effects of coffee roasting technologies on cup quality and bioactive compounds of specialty coffee beans", appearing in Food Sci. Nutr., 2020, 8, 6120. This paper has some major issues — I hope you enjoy us diplomatically deconstructing it. The article can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1002/fsn3.1904 About Christopher: Despite having recently opened his own roastery, Aviary, based in Ohio, Christopher finds time to be a leading consultant in the specialty coffee industry. He has a wealth of knowledge and shares some of it today, discussing sample roasting. Introduction preamble: The Nobel Committee.
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Rapid capability gain around supergenius level seems probable even without intelligence needing to improve intelligence, published by Towards Keeperhood on May 6, 2024 on LessWrong. TLDR: 1. Around Einstein-level, relatively small changes in intelligence can lead to large changes in what one is capable to accomplish. 1. E.g. Einstein was a bit better than the other best physi at seeing deep connections and reasoning, but was able to accomplish much more in terms of impressive scientific output. 2. There are architectures where small changes can have significant effects on intelligence. 1. E.g. small changes in human-brain-hyperparameters: Einstein's brain didn't need to be trained on 3x the compute than normal physics professors for him to become much better at forming deep understanding, even without intelligence improving intelligence. Einstein and the heavytail of human intelligence 1905 is often described as the "annus mirabilis" of Albert Einstein. He founded quantum physics by postulating the existence of (light) quanta, explained Brownian motion, introduced the special relativity theory and derived E=mc from it. All of this. In one year. While having a full-time job in the Swiss patent office. With the exception of John von Neumann, we'd say those discoveries alone seem more than any other scientist of the 20th century achieved in their lifetime (though it's debatable). Though perhaps even more impressive is that Einstein was able to derive general relativity. Einstein was often so far ahead of his time that even years after he published his theories the majority of physicists rejected them because they couldn't understand them, sometimes even though there was experimental evidence favoring Einstein's theories. After solving the greatest open physics problems at the time in 1905, he continued working in the patent office until 1908, since the universities were too slow on the uptake to hire him earlier. Example for how far ahead of his time Einstein was: Deriving the theory of light quanta The following section is based on parts of the 8th chapter of "Surfaces and Essences" by Douglas Hofstadter. For an analysis of some of Einstein's discoveries, which show how far ahead of his time he was, I can recommend reading it. At the time, one of the biggest problems in physics was the "Blackbody spectrum", which describes the spectrum of electromagnetic wavelengths emitted by a Blackbody. The problem with it was that the emitted spectrum was not explainable by known physics. Einstein achieved a breakthrough by considering light not just as a wave, but also as light quanta. Although this idea sufficiently explained the Blackbody spectrum, physicists (at least almost) unanimously rejected it. The fight between the "light is corpuscles" and "light is a wave" faction had been decided a century ago, with a clear victory for the "wave" faction. Being aware of these possible doubts, Einstein proposed three experiments to prove his idea, one of which was the photoelectric effect. In the following years, Robert Millikan carried out various experiments on the photoelectric effect, which all confirmed Einstein's predictions. Still, Millikan insisted that the light-quanta theory had no theoretical basis and even falsely claimed that Einstein himself did not believe in his idea anymore. From Surfaces and Essences (p.611): To add insult to injury, although the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Albert Einstein, it was not for his theory of light quanta but "for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect". Weirdly, in the citation there was no mention of the ideas behind that law, since no one on the Nobel Committee (or in all of physics) believed in them! [1][...] And thus Albert Einstein's revolutionary ideas on the nature of light, that most fundamental and all-...
Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Rapid capability gain around supergenius level seems probable even without intelligence needing to improve intelligence, published by Towards Keeperhood on May 6, 2024 on LessWrong. TLDR: 1. Around Einstein-level, relatively small changes in intelligence can lead to large changes in what one is capable to accomplish. 1. E.g. Einstein was a bit better than the other best physi at seeing deep connections and reasoning, but was able to accomplish much more in terms of impressive scientific output. 2. There are architectures where small changes can have significant effects on intelligence. 1. E.g. small changes in human-brain-hyperparameters: Einstein's brain didn't need to be trained on 3x the compute than normal physics professors for him to become much better at forming deep understanding, even without intelligence improving intelligence. Einstein and the heavytail of human intelligence 1905 is often described as the "annus mirabilis" of Albert Einstein. He founded quantum physics by postulating the existence of (light) quanta, explained Brownian motion, introduced the special relativity theory and derived E=mc from it. All of this. In one year. While having a full-time job in the Swiss patent office. With the exception of John von Neumann, we'd say those discoveries alone seem more than any other scientist of the 20th century achieved in their lifetime (though it's debatable). Though perhaps even more impressive is that Einstein was able to derive general relativity. Einstein was often so far ahead of his time that even years after he published his theories the majority of physicists rejected them because they couldn't understand them, sometimes even though there was experimental evidence favoring Einstein's theories. After solving the greatest open physics problems at the time in 1905, he continued working in the patent office until 1908, since the universities were too slow on the uptake to hire him earlier. Example for how far ahead of his time Einstein was: Deriving the theory of light quanta The following section is based on parts of the 8th chapter of "Surfaces and Essences" by Douglas Hofstadter. For an analysis of some of Einstein's discoveries, which show how far ahead of his time he was, I can recommend reading it. At the time, one of the biggest problems in physics was the "Blackbody spectrum", which describes the spectrum of electromagnetic wavelengths emitted by a Blackbody. The problem with it was that the emitted spectrum was not explainable by known physics. Einstein achieved a breakthrough by considering light not just as a wave, but also as light quanta. Although this idea sufficiently explained the Blackbody spectrum, physicists (at least almost) unanimously rejected it. The fight between the "light is corpuscles" and "light is a wave" faction had been decided a century ago, with a clear victory for the "wave" faction. Being aware of these possible doubts, Einstein proposed three experiments to prove his idea, one of which was the photoelectric effect. In the following years, Robert Millikan carried out various experiments on the photoelectric effect, which all confirmed Einstein's predictions. Still, Millikan insisted that the light-quanta theory had no theoretical basis and even falsely claimed that Einstein himself did not believe in his idea anymore. From Surfaces and Essences (p.611): To add insult to injury, although the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Albert Einstein, it was not for his theory of light quanta but "for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect". Weirdly, in the citation there was no mention of the ideas behind that law, since no one on the Nobel Committee (or in all of physics) believed in them! [1][...] And thus Albert Einstein's revolutionary ideas on the nature of light, that most fundamental and all-...
rWotD Episode 2483: Gerhard Ertl Welcome to random Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of a random Wikipedia page every day.The random article for Tuesday, 20 February 2024 is Gerhard Ertl.Gerhard Ertl (German pronunciation: [ˈɡeːɐ̯haʁt ˈɛʁtl̩] ; born 10 October 1936) is a German physicist and a Professor emeritus at the Department of Physical Chemistry, Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft in Berlin, Germany. Ertl's research laid the foundation of modern surface chemistry, which has helped explain how fuel cells produce energy without pollution, how catalytic converters clean up car exhausts and even why iron rusts, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.His work has paved the way for development of cleaner energy sources and will guide the development of fuel cells, said Astrid Graslund, secretary of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.He was awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his studies of chemical processes on solid surfaces. The Nobel academy said Ertl provided a detailed description of how chemical reactions take place on surfaces. His findings applied in both academic studies and industrial development, the academy said. “Surface chemistry can even explain the destruction of the ozone layer, as vital steps in the reaction actually take place on the surfaces of small crystals of ice in the stratosphere,” the award citation reads.In 2015, Ertl signed the Mainau Declaration 2015 on Climate Change on the final day of the 65th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting. The declaration was signed by a total of 76 Nobel Laureates and handed to then-President of the French Republic, François Hollande, as part of the COP21 climate summit in Paris.This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:48 UTC on Tuesday, 20 February 2024.For the full current version of the article, see Gerhard Ertl on Wikipedia.This podcast uses content from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.Visit our archives at wikioftheday.com and subscribe to stay updated on new episodes.Follow us on Mastodon at @wikioftheday@masto.ai.Also check out Curmudgeon's Corner, a current events podcast.Until next time, I'm Danielle Neural.
Free, ungated access to all 265+ episodes of “It's 5:05!” on your favorite podcast platforms: https://bit.ly/505-updates. You're welcome to
It's that time of year when an economist is woken by an early call from the Nobel Committee in Sweden. This year, it was the turn of Claudia Goldin, whose work has revolutionised our understanding of gender in the labour market. And on this week's podcast, we speak to her.Hosts: Mike Bird, Alice Fulwood and Tom Lee-Devlin. Guests: Arjun Ramani, from The Economist; and Claudia Goldin.Sign up for Economist Podcasts+ now and get 50% off your subscription with our limited time offer. You will not be charged until Economist Podcasts+ launches.If you're already a subscriber to The Economist, you'll have full access to all our shows as part of your subscription.For more information about Economist Podcasts+, including how to get access, please visit our FAQs page. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
It's that time of year when an economist is woken by an early call from the Nobel Committee in Sweden. This year, it was the turn of Claudia Goldin, whose work has revolutionised our understanding of gender in the labour market. And on this week's podcast, we speak to her.Hosts: Mike Bird, Alice Fulwood and Tom Lee-Devlin. Guests: Arjun Ramani, from The Economist; and Claudia Goldin.Sign up for Economist Podcasts+ now and get 50% off your subscription with our limited time offer. You will not be charged until Economist Podcasts+ launches.If you're already a subscriber to The Economist, you'll have full access to all our shows as part of your subscription.For more information about Economist Podcasts+, including how to get access, please visit our FAQs page. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
It's Nobel week on the podcast, and reporter Megan Molteni details the unique story of this year's winners for medicine, Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman. Then, our colleague Jason Mast joins us to explain the scientific and ethical quandaries facing the teams attempting to develop HIV vaccines.
The Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930 was awarded to Raman for the discovery of the effect named after him. The next time physics prizes were announced was in November 1933, which makes this the longest peace-time gap in the history of the Nobel Prize in Physics. Considering that the 1932 year's prize was awarded in 1933 to Heisenberg and the 1933 year's prize to Schrödinger and Dirac for their contributions to the new quantum mechanics, this gap is the more puzzling. I will describe, based on archive material, the struggle facing the Nobel Committee during those years, and how it eventually arrived at a name combination comprising three of the greatest physicists of the twentieth century. I will also describe briefly the three Nobel Prizes concerning quantum mechanics that followed later, in 1945, 1954 and 2022.
Dr Glenn McConell chats with Professor Juleen Zierath who has had a remarkable background with current senior roles at both the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. She was also previously the Chair of the Nobel Committee. We discuss the effects of circadian rhythms on: muscle insulin sensitivity, metabolic responses to exercise in T2D vs controls, exercise performance, metabolism in men vs women and integrative physiology. A very interesting chat. Twitter: @JuleenRZierath. 0:00. Introduction and Juleen's academic and research background 7:39. Ball State University and David “Doc” Costill 9:40. What it's like on the Nobel Prize committee 15:00. Circadian rhythms and physiology/metabolism/exercise 18:50. Metabolic flexibility, circadian biology and exercise 19:50. Central and peripheral clocks etc. 23:55. Jet lag and light/clocks 24:25. Different experimental models: Insects, mice and humans 27:53. Circadian misalignments in obesity and diabetes 29:02. Genetics + environment re obesity, insulin sensitivity 30:06. Circadian rhythms in muscle cells 32:40. Exercise: can it cure type 2 diabetes? 35:32. Genes matter 35:42. Shift work and insulin resistance / cancer 36:46. Hyperglycemia after morning not afternoon exercise (CGMs) 43:50. Mortality and the time of exercise 44:56. Effect of the time of day on exercise performance 46:18. Sex differences: exercise, inflammation and the genome 50:37. Controversies?: we don't know enough/more to learn 53:43. Takeaway messages 56:09. Outro (9 secs) Inside Exercise brings to you the who's who of research in exercise metabolism, exercise physiology and exercise's effects on health. With scientific rigor, these researchers discuss popular exercise topics while providing practical strategies for all. The interviewer, Emeritus Professor Glenn McConell, has an international research profile following 30 years of Exercise Metabolism research experience while at The University of Melbourne, Ball State University, Monash University, the University of Copenhagen and Victoria University. He has published over 120 peer reviewed journal articles and recently edited an Exercise Metabolism eBook written by world experts on 17 different topics (https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-94305-9). Connect with Inside Exercise and Glenn McConell at: Twitter: @Inside_exercise and @GlennMcConell1 Instagram: insideexercise Facebook: Glenn McConell LinkedIn: Glenn McConell https://www.linkedin.com/in/glenn-mcconell-83475460 ResearchGate: Glenn McConell Email: glenn.mcconell@gmail.com Subscribe to Inside exercise: Spotify: shorturl.at/tyGHL Apple Podcasts: shorturl.at/oFQRU YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@insideexercise Anchor: https://anchor.fm/insideexercise Google Podcasts: shorturl.at/bfhHI Anchor: https://anchor.fm/insideexercise Podcast Addict: https://podcastaddict.com/podcast/4025218 Not medical advice
Welcome to December 10, 2022 on the National Day Calendar. Today we celebrate with a toast to Summer and those who change the world. Lagers are distinguished from other beers by their cold-conditioning process. They are made with “bottom-fermenting” yeast that can develop at colder temperatures. Before the advent of refrigeration, brewers perfected this process in cellars dug into the ground that were filled with ice. The delicious results are often described as “crisp” and “refreshing.” With so many choices from pale, amber or dark to several craft varieties, you will likely add lager to your list of favorite things. On National Lager Day, grab your friends and celebrate the midwinter season with the taste of Summer. At the age of 17, Alfred Nobel spoke five languages fluently. This was only the beginning of the young man's accomplishments. Through the course of his life, Nobel amassed a fortune from his 87 businesses and 355 patents worldwide, including the patent for dynamite. In his third and last will, Nobel stated that the money should be given away to those who had done their best to benefit mankind. Each annual prize would recognize the fields of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and peace. Though it took nearly five years after his passing, the Nobel Committee has awarded these prizes every year since 1901. On Nobel Prize Day, we celebrate the generosity of Alfred Nobel and those who continue to make the world a better place. I'm Anna Devere and I'm Marlo Anderson. Thanks for joining us as we Celebrate Every Day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Smart 7 Ireland Edition is the daily news podcast that gives you everything you need to know in 7 minutes, at 7am, 7 days a week… Consistently appearing in Ireland's Daily News charts, we're a trusted source for people every day. If you're enjoying it, please follow, share or even post a review, it all helps… Today's episode includes references to the following guests: Sergiu Pasca - Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Stanford School of MedicineThors Hans Hansson - Member of the Nobel Committee for Physics Professor Robert Baloh - Professor of Neurology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLADavid Relman - Chair of the National Academies PanelKen Buesseler - Senior Scientist for Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's Ocean Twilight ZoneHeidi Sosik - Lead Scientist for Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's Ocean Twilight ZoneMaria Elena de Obaldia - Postdoctoral Researcher at Rockefeller UniversityTerry Virts - Former astronaut and retired air force colonelLinda Hill - Owner of Hill House Manor Contact us over at Twitter or visit www.thesmart7.com Presented by Ciara Revins, written by Oliva Davies and Liam Thompson and produced by Daft Doris. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The Smart 7 is a daily podcast that gives you everything you need to know in 7 minutes, at 7 am, 7 days a week... With over 11 million downloads and consistently charting, including as No. 1 News Podcast on Spotify, we're a trusted source for people every day. If you're enjoying it, please follow, share, or even post a review, it all helps... Today's episode includes the following guests: Sergiu Pasca - Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Stanford School of MedicineThors Hans Hansson - Member of the Nobel Committee for Physics Professor Robert Baloh - Professor of Neurology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLADavid Relman - Chair of the National Academies PanelKen Buesseler - Senior Scientist for Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's Ocean Twilight ZoneHeidi Sosik - Lead Scientist for Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's Ocean Twilight ZoneMaria Elena de Obaldia - Postdoctoral Researcher at Rockefeller UniversityTerry Virts - Former astronaut and retired air force colonelLinda Hill - Owner of Hill House Manor In Ireland? Why not try our Ireland Edition?Contact us over at Twitter or visit www.thesmart7.com Presented by Jamie East, written by Olivia Davies and produced by Daft Doris. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Our host, Dr. Fethke, dedicates this episode to a remarkable college classmate and friend at a time when she needs everyone's support. This person is none other than Maria Ressa, the recipient of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, recognized for her tireless efforts over the past three decades to champion Freedom of the Press in the face of overwhelming obstacles. In the words of the Nobel Committee, Maria Ressa received the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Russia's Dmitry Muratov for "their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace."In order to do justice to Ressa's cause, Dr. Fethke has invited a very special and highly knowledgeable guest, Professor Kathy Kiely. She is the Lee Hills Chair in Free Press Studies at the Missouri School of Journalism. She has worked more than four decades as a reporter and editor for regional and national newspapers as well as online and multimedia publications. She has been recognized for her passionate support of transparency, free speech and education. After a long career covering politics in Washington, Kiely moved into the classroom full-time because, she says, universities are the laboratories that will discover the formula for making fact-based journalism viable again. Kiely has covered regional and national politics for a number of news outlets, including USA TODAY, the New York Daily News, the Houston Post, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and the Pittsburgh Press. She served as an editor for WAMU, Bill Moyers, the Sunlight Foundation, Bloomberg Politics and helped coordinate the National Journal's campaign coverage with CBS News. She also served on the Congressional Standing Committee of Correspondents and on the boards of the National Press Club Journalism Institute and the Daily Princetonian. She holds a master's degree from American University and a bachelor's degree from Princeton University. She is the inaugural Press Freedom Fellow for the National Press Club‘s nonprofit Journalism Institute.Prof. Kiely is a well recognized advocate of Journalistic Freedom who believes that Maria Ressa's voice is at an extremely high risk of being silenced by those in power in the Philippines who are threatened by the integrity and truth of her work. Kiely has commented that the Nobel Peace Prize given to journalists Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov is a warning that across the globe, “forces of darkness and intolerance are on the march… Journalists are the canaries in the mine shaft.In this episode, Prof. Kiely teaches us why Freedom of Speech and Health are intrinsically linked. Dr. Fethke and Prof. Kiely review the rationale behind the U.S. Consititution's 1st Amendment protecting free speech and a free press. She then clearly reviews the evolution of digital and social media, with its pros and cons. She defines the concepts of Misinformation and Disinformation, clarifying why the latter is so dangerous to us all. She explains that the Nobel Committee has specifically recognized Maria Ressa because she has led the way for us all to understand the impact of Disinformation and is actively working on solutions to regain the integrity of facts and bring the truth back to journalism. Kiely stresses that the battles that Maria Ressa and her journalist team at Rappler are fighting in the Philippines are critically relevant to the Global pursuit of democracy. As Kiely reminds us, “My father fought in WW2 to defend and help establish a free Philippines. We must never forget that Maria Ressa's defense of Freedom of the Press is a part of our fathers' legacies. To do so would be a dishonor to their cause and memory.”LINKS:House: https://www.house.gov/Senate: https://www.senate.gov/Post office (where you can look up ZIP+4 to get House member's name: https://www.usps.com/
And now for some more Fatal Conceits…“I think those people at the Nobel Committee must have a sense of humor,” quipped Bill Bonner, in response to the questionable judgement that resulted in Ben Shalom Bernanke being awarded the Nobel Prize for economics earlier this week. “They're either very dumb or very cynical,” Bill continued. “And I'm not sure which it is because, if you remember that time, Ben Bernanke was wrong about everything. And no major issue came to him that he was not wrong about.”Alas, 14 years after Mr. Bernanke's preposterous “we may not have an economy on Monday morning” speech, in which he presented one of the most galling false dichotomies of the modern era (pass this unprecedented – and lately unread – stimulus bill… or the sky will fall), and we are now reaping the whirlwind of his profligacy.Over the course of a half hour or so, Bill shared with us his thoughts on the end of the Age of Abundance, the reason our current financial predicament differs greatly from what Volcker faced in the ‘70s (Hint: It begins with D and rhymes with “regret”) and why those born after 1980 cannot know, first hand, what a return to the “Old Normal” will entail…All that and plenty more on Ep #74 of the Fatal Conceits podcast. Please enjoy and, if you have a moment, share with a friend…Also, if you're interested in purchasing some of Bill's wine, which we talk about towards the end of the episode, their Tacana 2020 vintage is now available to select buyers. The first half of the allotment (reserved for the Bonner Wine Partnership's private Tacana buyer's list) sold out in a day. The rest probably won't be around for long, so if you want to grab a few bottles… for the cellar or the bunker… don't dilly-dally. More information here: And for those of you who are less audio-inclined, you'll also find a full transcript of today's interview, below. Until next time…Cheers,Joel BowmanThank you for reading Bonner Private Research. This post is public so feel free to share it.TRANSCRIPT:Joel Bowman:Welcome back to another episode of the Fatal Conceits Podcast dear listener. It's the show, as you know, about money markets, mobs and manias. If you have not already done so, please head on over to our Substack page. You can find us at bonnerprivateresearch.substack.com. On that page, you'll be able to find hundreds now of essays authored by today's guest, Bill Bonner, in the daily section. We've got plenty of research reports from Dan Denning and Tom Dyson. And of course, many more conversations like this under the Fatal Conceits Podcast tab at the top of the page. So without further ado, I think you can probably see in your screen there, framed by gilted cornices, remnants of a bygone era of abundance, Mr. Bill Bonner, welcome to the show. How do you do sir?Bill Bonner:Thank you Joel. It's a pleasure to be with you.Joel Bowman:You're up there in Baltimore at the moment, that's correct?Bill Bonner:In Baltimore. And you're right, it is the bygone remnants of an ancient civilization. Baltimore was by the way, the richest city in America in say the early 19th century because it had such a great harbor. And it was also connected, through the Cumberland Gap, it was connected to the whole Ohio Valley and all that area over there on the other side of the Appalachian Mountains. So it was a big important port for people coming from Europe and a big important port for people making mostly food things that they exported it to Europe. And people got rich. And movies from say the 1920s or so, maybe a little bit later, they will frequently have a rich person as somebody from Baltimore. And that all seems so unlikely now. It's hard to even imagine.Joel Bowman:To be rich like a Baltimorean is like to be rich like an Argentine.Bill Bonner:Same thing.Joel Bowman:Exactly. And I'm racking my brain here, but how on earth were they able to get rich without ESG governance and diversity boards and equity programs…?Bill Bonner:That was before the foundation of the Federal Reserve. I mean, how did they know what interest rates to charge? They were building in the early 19th century here in Baltimore. They had huge factories. They made things, made things that they exported out of profit. How did they know how to do that without the feds showing them what interest rates to charge and so on, without the Fed printing money to stimulate them? Nobody stimulated them at all. They were stimulated by the desire to make money I guess. And they did quite well with it in that. But now we have, thank God, we have the Fed to stimulate the economy when it's needed to support the stock market when it seems to be falling and to provide us with the interest rates that we need. How they know what interest rates we need has never been clarified. But that's one of mysteries of the Fed.Joel Bowman:Yes, we certainly couldn't rely on the market for any, shall we say, “self stimulation”?Bill Bonner:NoJoel Bowman:Top down only. Speaking of which, that dovetails into news this week of, I don't know whether you would call him our colleague, but another economic luminary, Mr. Ben Bernanke, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics earlier this week. This of course is the man who had the “courage to act," at least according to himself, and who saved us from “not having an economy on Monday” as he warned us with such certainty...Bill Bonner:October the fifth, 2008. He went before Congress and he said, Look, if you guys don't pass this act, which I think was what was known as the TALF Act, it was a lot of spending to try to stimulate the economy, that if you don't pass this, we may not have an economy on Monday. He was talking on Friday. And thank God he rose to the challenge and showed that courage to act because otherwise we still wouldn't have an economy.Joel Bowman:Incredible. It does seem so "through the looking glass," the up is down back is forwards, when we see that not only did the man who failed to foresee the bubbles that had been created during the Greenspan era and that had led to these enormous imbalances and malinvestments, in particular the housing market. I remember yourself writing about huge irregularities in the mortgage back securities markets and Eric Fry writing about that. Our colleague Dan Denning was on the case of course. So it seemed like everybody except Federal Reserve economists were on the case. What does it say that 14 years later, having stimulated, it seems now, an even a larger bubble, that we not only look back and have not learned our lesson, we're gifting the guy the highest prize there is in the dismal science?Bill Bonner:Well, I think those people at the Nobel Committee must have a sense of humor. That's all I can think of.Joel Bowman:That's big sense of humor.Bill Bonner:They're either very dumb or very cynical. And I'm not sure which it is because Ben Bernanke, if you remember that time, he was wrong about everything. And no major issue came to him that he was not wrong about it. He was the one who said the subprime problem before the crisis of 2008, the subprime problem crisis was "contained." Of course it wasn't contained at all. He had all these things that were idiotic, like zero rates. He came up with that QE, he didn't invent it, it was the Japanese who developed it. But a lot of these things which now we see clearly are the cause, the proximate cause, not the only cause, but the proximate cause of our inflation and our economy, which is now melting down in order to try to contain inflation, those stemmed from policies put in place by Ben Bernanke. And not the only one because Janet Yellen kept doing the same thing and Powell came along and followed right in their footsteps.But for the Nobel Committee to award him a Nobel Prize is really quite remarkable. And it calls into question our whole elite process. Why do they think that he should get a prize for that? And then to have the hubris, the conceit, the unmitigated gall to write a book called The Courage to Act. I thought it was a joke when I first heard about it. I said, no sensible person would do that. Even if he believed that he had the courage to act, even if he believed that he had saved the economy, you still wouldn't put it out there. That makes you sound like an utter fool. What it does is it invites the wrath of the gods. There's someone way up there they must be after him. Now I don't know what they're going to do, but they're going to be after him.Joel Bowman:Pride before the fall. And for a man with a legacy unblemished by, as you said, a single success in the real world. So it does beg a lot of questions. But let's fast forward then 14 years after that fateful October Friday to where we are presently. And as you look across the landscape, I know you spent a lot of time down here in Argentina and then split between both sides of the Atlantic. When you look forward to what has happened in Argentina, they've been at the forefront of every boneheaded economic and financial policy known to man, real pioneers in the dismal art. When you look from here to where you are now in the United States, you look over to what's happening with the Bank of England or in the Japanese bond market. It does seem that there are enough signs that sort of point to this time maybe actually being different and this time maybe being the end of what you and Dan and our colleague Tom Dyson have called the Greatest Financial Experiment in History?Bill Bonner:Well, I think that's exactly right and I think people are having a very hard time coming to grips with it. Even people in the financial industry, they're so used to what they think as 'normal.' I was just speaking to some of my colleagues here in Baltimore about it and trying to explain it from my standpoint. And I realized that everybody I was talking to was born after 1980. I mean they were literally not born in any time other than the boom that we have known for the last 40 years. In 1980, of course then Paul Volker got control of inflation. Interest rates came down ever since. And there were a lot of things going on. Most important was the entry of like 500 million Chinese people into the market. And those people produced things at a low price.But for these people, I'm talking about people who were born after 1980, it's very hard to get to understand that the whole circumstance of your life, the whole circumstance of your life has been phony. Faith been synced up by the Federal Reserve to give the impression that everything is always up. The stocks and financial advisors will tell you this to these young financial advisors say, Well yeah, stocks go down, but they always go back up. And so what you have to do is buy the dip. Now they're all out there looking for the bottom. The bottom is the point in which they don't go down anymore. Now they're going to go up, so you got to buy. And they have these charts and graphs that show that you buy it every dip, it always goes up.But it's not that simple at all. If you had bought stocks in 1966, which was a good year for a stock market, you would've held them for the next 16 years until 1982 really. And the prices would've been about the same. But because inflation was happening, you would've lost 75% of your money. That was a long time to lose 75% of your money. And to talk to somebody and say, Well, you just hold on, they'll go back up. Well maybe they'll go back up, but it could be after you're dead. You're not going to have an infinite amount of time here.And so there are times in history, and I think this is the key point, that if you look at anybody who is telling you they have a good track record, and of course that's everybody. And in the financial industry, they boast about what they've done and so on. All of that happened during a very special time which no longer exists. Now that's a hard thing to under for anybody to understand. And it's not that I'm saying, by the way, I'm not saying this is a new era. I'm saying this is the old era. What we've been through in mostly the last 10 years. But you could stretch it and explain that whole 40 year period was a grotesque and unusual series of things that came together, mostly including federal money printing by the Fed and QE and all the other things that they were doing. And that era is over and it ended in 2021. It ended when the bond market turned around, when actually it was 2020, it's the end of 2020. The bond market turned. When that happened, that was the end.And since then nothing has worked very well because the fundamental aspect of our financial lives is altered. And it no longer is a market with falling interest rates. It's no longer a market that the Fed can support by driving interest rates lower. It's a different world in which now the Fed is battling inflation. And once it decides not to battle inflation anymore, which I think it will, then you're going to see worse inflation. So that won't be like the period from 1980 to 2020. Not at all. It's going to be a whole different world with a different battle going on that'll be very hard to understand. And people say, Well, your stocks are going to go up. Well, they probably are going to go up, but they're going to go up like they did in Zimbabwe. They're going to go up like they did in Venezuela and like they did in Argentina. All of those markets were once the world's top performers. But when you adjust for the inflation, they were going down, it gets more complicated.And by the way, you have the advantage of being in the most complicated place in the world financially. And the Argentines learned to do these calculations. They have the blue dollar and they have the black dollar and they have the white dollar and they have the soy dollar. I'm not sure what that is. But now they have a new dollar. Did you know this as of yesterday, the Qatar dollar?Joel Bowman:Oh, I haven't heard about the Qatar dollar...Bill Bonner:The World Cup is taking place in Qatar and for Argentines who want to go, they have a special exchange rate.Joel Bowman:That's very interesting because I know I was aware, of course having lived here over the last dozen or so years, that we do have a dollar for every color of the rainbow and every gender you can imagine and pesos down here, they self-identify as all kinds of things. But I was made sort of brutally aware when I was on vacation just a couple of weeks ago to Brazil, I had forgotten that there is a clawback tax. This is part of the capital controls that happen here when you use an Argentine credit card abroad. I made the mistake of just handing it over for a hotel payment and then getting home to see my receipt and realizing that I'd had it sort of an extra 40 or 50% clawed back out of my account by the state. But this is the kind of shenanigans that happens when inflation gets out of hand.Bill Bonner:People, they find ways to try to obscure it, try to disguise it, try to eliminate it, but in doing everything but the one thing that really will work, right? They want to control prices. Now they're talking about controlling gas prices and states are providing people with extra money. There are all kinds of things and people find to try to overcome the fundamental reality of rising prices. And as in Argentina, they don't work, they never work.Joel Bowman:But it doesn't stop them from trying.So let's go back a little further then, because I was speaking to somebody just yesterday about this, it's a common kind of rejoinder to this narrative that we present in at Bonnet Rrivate Research, and that is where people say, Well, we've seen this before. It was the 1970s. Look, we had an oil embargo where a major oil producing block took supply off the global markets. We had the Nixon shocks, we had double digit inflation, it was runaway. And then we got Volker, and he marched in and whipped everyone into shape. And then as you said, then we're off to the races for the next 20, 40 odd years, rather. So what about today is different fundamentally than that seventies landscape that people think will just kind of, well, we'll muddle through and then we'll be off for another to a moonshot again?Bill Bonner:Well, the fundamental difference is 30 trillion dollars. The federal debt in 1980 was one trillion. Actually, it was below, it was actually 900 billion, below a trillion. Now it's 31 trillion, 30 times as much. That's the fundamental difference. And it's added to, it's not just the federal debt, it's also private debt, household debt, corporate debt, all at record levels. So they take them together and the whole sum of debt in America now is about 90 trillion. And what happens is, in this process of rates going up to bring things back to normal, the cost of all that debt goes up. And you soon realize that you can't pay it. That is not going to work.And that's what happened just two weeks ago in England when the traders saw what was happening and they were bidding up the yields, which is to say they're bidding down the prices on UK government bonds. And pretty soon all those big institutions, the pension funds, they rely on the price of those bonds to make their numbers work. And then suddenly it became clear they weren't going to work. And so the bank had to intervene. The Bank of England intervened with support stimulation, whatever you call it. They were buying bonds in order to save them from bankruptcy.And so what I suspect, I expect, this is what you call a high probability hunch, that the US is in the same situation, really even a worse situation in some ways. And as the Fed stays the course raises rates to try to get ahead of inflation, as they do so, we're going to see some things like what we just saw in England that certain institutions, could be Goldman Sachs, it could be JP Morgan, it could be a state pension fund like CalPERS in California. They've got billions of dollars. And they have done the same thing because this theory was pitched to them by Goldman Sachs of what they call LDI, which was matching your liabilities to some long-term goal. But what it really meant was they were ratcheting up the risk in order to try to improve the results. You can do that if you're a young speculator. But if you're managing the pension funds for a lot of retirees, that is practically criminal.So what's going to happen is somebody's going to get in big trouble and suddenly there's going to be that meltdown crisis on Wall Street in which the Powell and his fellow bankers, they really are part of a banking cartel in order to save themselves and their clients and their members Wall Street itself, they're going to say, Well, okay, that was a good idea. We need to get control of inflation, but not right now. Now we have to save the system because otherwise it'll go totally bad. I would say again, a high probability hunch is that that's going to happen and we're going to see a pivot from the central bank because they just owe too much.So your question was what's the difference now than from 1980? Well, the difference is all of that debt that they didn't have. Volker could raise rates to 20%. He could do that. He was condemned. He practically had to have an armed guard. People were threatening his life. But he could do that because America could afford it. Also, by the way, in 1980, it might have been 1979, stocks had already been squeezed so hard by inflation that they were already very, very cheap. They're not yet very, very cheap here. So we have a lot to lose. Trillions of dollars still to lose till we get there.By the way, we like to measure things in terms of gold, and in terms of gold, for a brief time you could buy the entire 30 Dow Jones industrial stocks for one single ounce of gold. And today, what is it? 18. What we're looking at is a totally different situation in which we have high deficit. The deficit was announced just yesterday for the current year of 1.4 trillion dollars. And this is at a year without really a crisis. A crisis hasn't appeared yet. They're running huge deficits. The debt is multiplying even without them. And we're in a situation where we can no longer continue on this course of action.And so what will happen, I believe is we'll see something will come up, some Lehman Brothers moment as they say on Wall Street will happen. And then the Federal Reserve will be forced to change towards inflation. And once that happens, it'll be the next stage. The stage we're in now is deflation. We're deflating all of those, a lot of those promises, obligations, debts and so on from the bubble era. That will go on until it becomes really painful and then they'll start inflating it again.Joel Bowman:And so this is what sets the backdrop for something that Richard Russell wrote about maybe 10 or 12 years ago. But it's the idea, and Tom Dyson of course has written about it over on our Substack page as well, and that is the idea of "cash now gold later." So gold after the pivot when hyperinflation, is off to the races...Bill Bonner:And we see so far that advice has been very, very good. Nobody really took it totally because it just felt awkward. We saw inflation running at 8%. So who wants to hold cash when inflation is running at 8%? But in fact dollars have ended up being the best investment so far this year. As long as we're in the deflation stage, you want cash and after the deflation stage you want something else. Probably gold, maybe stocks, stocks go up too. But you have to adjust that price by inflation, which is then out of control for the foreseeable future. That is going to be a different world. And that's a world that you probably know better than anyone because the inflation of Argentina is about 90%.Joel Bowman:Officially 90%. I tell my friends down here that Americans and Brits and Australians are worrying about 9% inflation. And they asked me to repeat myself, Sorry, did you say nine? We would kill for a 9% inflation. That would be a day in the sun for them.And so from then, from the past and the setup to where we think we are right now, I was speaking with our colleague last week, Mr. Byron King, and he and I spoke a little bit about the end of these three cheap abundant stimulants of this modern world that we've all come to just take for granted. Certainly in the last 40 years, and you've alluded to a couple of them already. But we've coming to the end, through various geopolitical kerfuffles and conflicts, of cheap energy. And we've outlined this over at Bonner Private Research. This feeds into our trade of the decade, which is long conventional energy. But that whole era of cheap, reliable local gas from various places seems to be coming to an end. This era of mass produced manufactured goods and tight supply chains unruffled by policies or global lockdowns, that seems now to be coming to an end. And of course as you've spoken about, we have potentially the end, at least for the foreseeable future, of cheap and available funny money, cheap and available discounted credit.Where do we go exactly from here? And I mean is it time to just build a bunker and buy gold and do nothing? I mean, how does the average person live through this if they're in that state of mind?Bill Bonner:One thing that we learned from the Argentine example is that you can live with inflation at a fairly high level. And this is not the first time they've done it in Argentina. You can live, but you can't live very well. The economy falls apart and you need to have protection from the local currency, which of course is what you do and what foreigners in Buenos Ares do because they operate on dollars rather than pesos, not prisoners of the local peso economy. And in a larger scale, when the economy turns around with the pivot on the Fed and more inflation in the US, that will be a similar reality in America, which you will not want to be dependent on the dollar completely, which is why you'll probably want to move assets into things which are not dollar dependent like gold, minerals, real things, timber. I'd like to be in the timber business. It looks good to me. Farming, a lot of things which are real and don't depend entirely on the value of the dollar. So I think that's where you're going to end up.It's not the end of the world by the way, no, it is not the end of the world if things go on, but they get more confusing. And they get a lot more confusing and people don't know what to do or what to make of them. And that's where you get the real problems because they feel cheated, and they are cheated. The whole idea of inflation is to cheat people. And so the guy who's worked all of his life, he's expecting his pension and his pension comes in and he realizes it's only worth half what he thought it was going to be worth. That guy gets pretty mad and he justifiably he gets angry and next thing you know he's out on the street or voting for somebody that he probably shouldn't vote for or whatever. People look for solutions. They want solutions. That's when they turn to the guy who has the easy solution. And that guy is almost always a fraudster.So it's a problem. And you get a big breakdown in society. Argentina, they had that inflation of, I'm not sure if it was the eighties, which ended up in the generals taking charge and military dictatorship was very common. In Venezuela you have that puppet government. I don't know what the world they are doing, but the guy Madura said that he had a crow or something on his shoulder who was whispering in his ear channeling the Chavez who was dead.Joel Bowman:Sounds as reasonable. Maybe we should get the Nobel Committee to give that guy a prize for telepathy from the great beyond or something.So speaking of the end of world and real assets, I promised our friend and our colleague Diego Samper that we would mention the solution to all of life's problems, all of the above. And that is your latest harvest of Tacana wine from your ranch down here up in the northern reaches of Argentina. I don't know how many people have looked at this on a map, but it's way up there in the north, right up close to the Bolivian border and it's really extreme country. We've been up there, we've been up there a few times.Bill Bonner:As you say, the solution begins with that popping of the cork.Joel Bowman:Around 6:00 PMBill Bonner:That's the most pleasant sound of the day. You pour yourself a drink and here in the autumn, here in Maryland, in the autumn, recently it's been chilly enough. So I just had a little fire in the fireplace, and at six o'clock I sit in front of the fire with a glass of Malbec and for a while it doesn't seem too bad.Joel Bowman:Yeah, it's palliative. So tell readers who haven't maybe experienced it yet the difference between, and I've spoken to Will, your son Will Bonner about this, the difference between what you can expect from a high altitude Malbec grown in really unique and extreme conditions and the watery diluted over sugared dyed stuff you might pick up at the supermarket.Bill Bonner:You stole my thunder there. But that is the difference that the high altitude, what it's doing is it the extremes between day and night. And the extremes between day and night require a thick skin to survive. And so the grapes grown at that elevation, they tend to have these very thick skins, and in the skins is all the flavor. So when you get that, the high altitude, not just our place, but any place in the valley, because we're in the valley which is the highest in the world for wine. You get wine that is very strong. And some people don't like it because it's too strong, but you get used to it soon enough and then everything else seems weak. When I drink my own Malbec, I feel like, well, there's real wine and everything else seems to be an imitation.Joel Bowman:Well I think “having a thick skin to last one through” is probably a good point to end our powwow today, Bill. I'm not sure where we're going to catch up next, but I hope there's a glass of high altitude Malbec involved in it and we can get a front row seat to whatever it is about to happen next in this passing parade.Bill Bonner:Well thank you Joel. It's been a pleasure.Joel Bowman:Yeah, thank you Bill. Cheers.P.S. Readers and or listeners wishing to grab a few bottles of high altitude Malbec will want to be nimble. Bill doesn't sell his Tacana bottles to supermarkets or restaurants, but instead directly to his dear readers… like you! But they typically sell out pretty quickly. If there's any left by the time you read this, you be able to secure your supplies here. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bonnerprivateresearch.substack.com/subscribe
In today's episode for 12th October 2022, we see why the Nobel Committee awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences to Bernanke, Diamond and Dybvig.
The Smart 7 is a daily podcast that gives you everything you need to know in 7 minutes, at 7 am, 7 days a week... With over 11 million downloads and consistently charting, including as No. 1 News Podcast on Spotify, we're a trusted source for people every day. If you're enjoying it, please follow, share, or even post a review, it all helps... Today's episode includes the following guests: Svante Pääbo - Director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary AnthropologyProfessor Anna Wedell - Chair of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or MedicineDerrick Williams - DW News Senior Science CorrespondentClare Wilson - PhD candidate at Queen's University BelfastBeyza Ustun - Postgraduate researcher at the University of Durham Dr Elizabeth Shadwick - Team Leader for Ocean Carbon Observations at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research OrganisationDr Cateryn Wynn-Edwards - Researcher from the Institute for Marine and Arctic StudiesAlex Agius Saliba - Member of the European ParliamentRichard Waters - West Coast Tech Editor at Financial TimesDr Federica Bertochini - Molecular biologist at the Spanish Research Council In Ireland? Why not try our Ireland Edition? Contact us over at Twitter or visit www.thesmart7.com Presented by Jamie East, written by Olivia Davies and produced by Daft Doris. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The Smart 7 Ireland Edition is the daily news podcast that gives you everything you need to know in 7 minutes, at 7am, 7 days a week… Consistently appearing in Ireland's Daily News charts, we're a trusted source for people every day. If you're enjoying it, please follow, share or even post a review, it all helps… Today's episode includes references to the following guests: Svante Pääbo - Director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary AnthropologyProfessor Anna Wedell - Chair of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or MedicineDerrick Williams - DW News Senior Science CorrespondentClare Wilson - PhD candidate at Queen's University BelfastBeyza Ustun - Postgraduate researcher at the University of Durham Dr Elizabeth Shadwick - Team Leader for Ocean Carbon Observations at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research OrganisationDr Cateryn Wynn-Edwards - Researcher from the Institute for Marine and Arctic StudiesAlex Agius Saliba - Member of the European ParliamentRichard Waters - West Coast Tech Editor at Financial TimesDr Federica Bertochini - Molecular biologist at the Spanish Research Council Contact us over at Twitter or visit www.thesmart7.com Presented by Ciara Revins, written by Oliva Davies and Liam Thompson and produced by Daft Doris. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Russian human rights organization "Memorial", the Belarusian human rights activist, chairman of the "Viasna" center Ales Byalyatsky and the Ukrainian organization "Center for the Rise of Freedom". How did the officials react to the decision of the Nobel Committee? - Нобелевская премия мира присуждена российской правозащитной организации "Мемориал", белорусскому правозащитнику, председателю центра "Вясна" Алесю Беляцкому и украинской организации "Центр гражданских свобод". Как отреагировани на решение Нобелевского комитета лауреаты и официальные лица, а также о работе общества "Мемориал" слушайте в нашем подкасте.
The winners of this year's Nobel Peace Prize are recognized, the Nobel Committee said, for years of protecting the fundamental rights of citizens in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
Our US Analyst and Writer friend, Charles Ortel, warns people to be cautious about believing everything the Western media and politicians feed you, on a number of issues. Winter is coming, and with hardly any independent and unbiased reporters in the MSM, he urges us to hold our bets. Nevertheless, prepare for a tough winter! We pass quickly on the Nobel Peace Prize of this year, but both Charles Ortel and Geir Furuseth are happy the Nobel Committee didn't award it to a sitting president, as in 2009… Neither Russia, Ukraine or the US have yet reached the levels of IS, but we still remember the words of Dwight D. Eisenhower from January 17th, 1961. As we peer into society's future, we – you and I, and our government – must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow. Don't forget Charles Ortel's own shows on YouTube. Every Wednesday and Sunday! www.youtube.com/channel/UCHAfFKucq9GNLp0_5G18rIg Doc-TV International also upload international content on Odysee. Please follow us on Odysee, select and follow our DocTV international channel, and share these broadcasts so we can reach an even broader audience!
Who will win this year's Nobel Prize in literature? And what—beyond literary excellence—does the award stand for? On episode 54 of The Politics of Everything, hosts Laura Marsh and Alex Pareene talk with Alex Shephard, a staff writer at The New Republic and an inveterate Nobel watcher, about the enigmatic politics of the oldest and most distinguished literary prize in the world. Will the Nobel Committee salute freedom of speech by honoring Salman Rushdie, who was brutally attacked onstage in August? Will it recognize the French memoirist Annie Ernaux, who has written movingly about illegal abortion? How apparent have the Nobel's politics been over the years—and who definitely won't win? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
My conversation with Elie Wiesel -- Holocaust survivor, author, and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize -- was recorded in 2013 for the 20th anniversary of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial and Museum. Our wide-ranging conversation includes memories of his childhood village in Hungary, his experience in the Nazi death camps, and his reflections on humor and friendship. The Nobel Committee, when awarding Wiesel the Peace Prize, stated: "Wiesel is a messenger to mankind: his message is one of peace, atonement and human dignity . . . ." The Committee cited Wiesel's "belief that the forces fighting evil in the world can be victorious . . . ." I like to think Wavemaker Conversations is where curiosity meets hope. And I believe that this conversation with Elie Wiesel takes us to that place.
My conversation with Elie Wiesel -- Holocaust survivor, author, and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize -- was recorded in 2013 for the 20th anniversary of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial and Museum. Our wide-ranging conversation includes memories of his childhood village in Hungary, his experience in the Nazi death camps, and his reflections on humor and friendship. The Nobel Committee, when awarding Wiesel the Peace Prize, stated: "Wiesel is a messenger to mankind: his message is one of peace, atonement and human dignity . . . ." The Committee cited Wiesel's "belief that the forces fighting evil in the world can be victorious . . . ." I like to think Wavemaker Conversations is where curiosity meets hope. And I believe that this conversation with Elie Wiesel takes us to that place.
Wangari Maathai, Wangari Muta Maathai wurde am 01. April 1940 in Nyeri (Kenia) geboren und verstarb am 25. September 2011 in Nairobi. Sie wuchs in bescheidenen Verhältnissen auf dem Land auf. Ihr Vater lebte polygam und hatte zehn Kinder. Wangaris Glück war, dass Missionarsschwestern ihr Talent und Ehrzeig erkannten und förderten sie.Kurze Fakten zu Wangari Maathai:Wangari Maathai ist die erste Afrikanerin, die den Friedens-Nobelpreis erhält, der damit auch erstmals zweimal hintereinander einer Frau verliehen wurde. Aber damit allein nicht genug: Sie ist...die erste promovierte Frau in Ostafrikaersten Dekanin eines Universitäts-FachbereichsPräsidentin von Kenias Nationalem Frauenratstellvertretende Ministerin für Umweltschutz.Ihr gegen das autoritäre Regime des kenianischen Präsidenten Daniel arap Moi geführte Kampf für mehr Frauenrechte, Umweltschutz und Demokratie kostete sie mehrere Inhaftierungen und Misshandlungen.Aus den USA und Norwegen erhielt sie drei Ehrendoktor-Titelist Mutter dreier Kinder (Waweru, Wanjira und Muta). Ihr Mann ließ sich von ihr scheiden – mit der Begründung, sie sei “zu gebildet, zu erfolgreich, und zu schwer zu kontrollieren.”Mehr erfahrt ihr in dieser Episode.Genannte Links:http://www.greenbeltmovement.org/http://www.greenbeltmovement.org/wangari-maathai/biographyhttps://www.fembio.org/biographie.php/frau/biographie/wangari-maathai/***************#starkefrauen #frauen #podcast #podcasts #podcastdeutsch #frauenstärkenfrauen #starkefrauenunterstützenfrauen #afrika #greenbeltmovement #naturschutz #umweltschutz #keniaFoto Credit: Kenyan environmental activist Wangai Maathai holding up her 2004 Nobel Peace Prize commendation. Date: 6 December 2004; Source: https://thinkafrica.net/wangari-maathai-a-professor-an-environmentalist-and-an-inspiration/Author: Nobel Committee Möchtest Du Cathrin oder Kim auf einen Kaffee einladen und dafür die Episoden werbefrei hören? Dann klicke auf den folgenden Link: https://plus.acast.com/s/starke-frauen. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In the 1970s a new method of helping the poorest people in the world emerged: microlending. The idea is to give the very poorest people, those who live on less than two dollars per day, very small loans they can use to start businesses and serve their community. Thanks to the power of success stories and anecdotes of those helped by microlending, the idea caught on with philanthropists and governments in the west. The concept enjoyed the full throated endorsement of the Clintons, The Nobel Committee, the United Nations, and experts working in global development. But a dark side of microlending quickly emerged. Some loans came with unreasonably high interest rates. Certain microlending institutions harassed and threatened those who couldn't pay. Some of those who received small loans found themselves trapped in a debt spiral. The indebted even committed suicide to escape the loan. While this was going on, some owners of microfinance ventures profited to the tune of millions of dollars. In the 2010s, multiple studies began to discover that the benefits of microlending as a poverty cure were vastly oversold. Microloans could in fact improve a community's economic base in certain situations. But they cannot and will not end poverty entirely, as its advocates claimed decades earlier. How did the most powerful, wealthy, and influential people in the world buy into the exaggerated promises of microlending? This is a 10-part series brought to you by the QAA podcast. To get access to all upcoming episodes of Trickle Down as well as a new premium QAA episode every week, go sign up for $5 a month at patreon.com/qanonanonymous Written by Travis View. Theme by Nick Sena (https://nicksenamusic.com). Additional music by Pontus Berghe & Nick Sena. Editing by Corey Klotz. REFERENCES Banerjee, Abhijit and Duflo, Esther (2011) Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty Bateman, Milford (2010) Why Doesn't Microfinance Work: The Destructive Rise of Local Neoliberalism Edited by Bateman, Milford and Maclean, Kate (2017) Seduced and Betrayed: Exposing the Contemporary Microfinance Phenomenon Collina, Daryl et al (2009) Portfolios of the Poor: How The World's Poor Live on $2 a Day Meyerowitz, Joanne (2021) A War on Global Poverty: The Lost Promise of Redistribution and the Rise of Microcredit Rahman, Aminur (1999) Micro-credit Initiatives for Equitable and Sustainable Development: Who Pays? http://users.nber.org/~rdehejia/!@$devo/Lecture%2006%20Microcredit/extra/RAHMAN,%20A.%20Micro-credit%20initiatives%20for%20equitable%20and%20sustainable%20development%20who%20pays.pdf
In 2021, Dr. David Julius and Dr. Ardem Patapoutian won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for their discoveries related to temperature and touch receptors. In this episode, Dr. Rose Hill and Dr. Robert Bonin introduce us to this topic of sensory perception, specifically touch and pain. Dr. Bonin describes how we experience pain, delving into acute vs chronic pain, thresholds to pain, and the distinction between nociception and pain. Dr. Hill also shares about her experience being in Dr. Patapoutian's Nobel winning lab, and her work on the perception of itch. Additionally, we get a deeper look into the inner workings of the Nobel Prize, as Dr. Abdel El Manira shares about his time on the Nobel Committee and the inner workings of the Nobel. Join us on this episode, as we unravel touch and the Nobel Prize. Written by: Veena Sanmugananthan Links Discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch Bonin Lab UofT Centre for the Study of Pain Dr. Hill profile A trio of ion channels takes the heat Profile of 2021 Nobel Prize winners
Episode 7 of Mixtape: the Podcast. I interview Josh Angrist, winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in economics, Ford professor of economics at MIT, and director of the MIT Blueprint Labs. In this interview, we discuss a range of topics such as being bored and aimless as a young man, his time in the Israeli army as a paratrooper, his time at the 1980s Princeton Industrial Labor Relations group, his collaborations with fellow Nobel laureate Guido Imbens and the late Alan Krueger, as well as the econometric contributions he made to our understanding of causal inference and instrumental variables for which the Nobel Committee awarded him the prize. A pioneer in many ways who through his scholarship, mentoring, and proselytizing of causal inference and applied methodology, Josh Angrist is arguably one of the most important figures in empirical microeconomics of the last 50 years and a delightful person to interview.
Episode 7 of Mixtape: the Podcast. I interview Josh Angrist, winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in economics, Ford professor of economics at MIT, and director of the MIT Blueprint Labs. In this interview, we discuss a range of topics such as being bored and aimless as a young man, his time in the Israeli army as a paratrooper, his time at the 1980s Princeton Industrial Labor Relations group, his collaborations with fellow Nobel laureate Guido Imbens and the late Alan Krueger, as well as the econometric contributions he made to our understanding of causal inference and instrumental variables for which the Nobel Committee awarded him the prize. A pioneer in many ways who through his scholarship, mentoring, and proselytizing of causal inference and applied methodology, Josh Angrist is arguably one of the most important figures in empirical microeconomics of the last 50 years and a delightful person to interview. Get full access to Scott's Substack at causalinf.substack.com/subscribe
This week the Nobel Committee awarded Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov the Nobel peace prize for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression. Ressa and her attorney, international human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, join Fareed to discuss why fighting for a free press is essential in maintaining healthy functional democracies around the world. Then: on Wednesday, Taiwan's defense minister said that tensions with China are at their worst in 40 years, Fareed talks to former U.S. national security advisor Lt. General H.R. McMaster (Ret.) about the tense relationship between China and Taiwan and why the U.S. and its partners in the region need to aid Taiwan. As the northern hemisphere enters the winter months, the next energy crisis seems to be looming on the horizon. Tom Friedman, New York Times columnist, explains why there needs to be a global comprehensive energy plan that shifts to cleaner fuels. Plus, Fareed's book “10 Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World” comes out in paperback with a new afterword where he reflects on one more important lesson that he learned during the latter part of the pandemic: how individuals need to build inner resources of mind and spirit. GUESTS: Maria Ressa, Amal Clooney, H.R. McMaster, Tom Friedman To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy
Seamus Heaney called her "one of the great guerrillas of the imagination"; the Nobel Committee called her "a magnificent epic writer" and the Independent newspaper says she's "one of the world's greatest writers". Credits: Angie Kapelianis © SABC 2020. No unauthorised use, copying, adaptation or reproduction permitted without prior written consent of the SABC.
当你老了是爱尔兰诗人威廉·巴特勒·叶芝 于1893年创作的诗歌William Butler Yeats (/ˈjeɪts/; 13 June 1865 – 28 January 1939) was an Irish poet and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. A pillar of both the Irish and British literary establishments, in his later years he served as an Irish Senator for two terms叶芝(/ˈje ' ts/;(1865年6月13日- 1939年1月28日)是爱尔兰诗人,也是20世纪文学史上最重要的人物之一。他是爱尔兰和英国文坛的中流砥柱,晚年曾担任两届爱尔兰参议员In 1923 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature as the first Irishman honored for what the Nobel Committee described as "inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation." 1923年,他作为第一位爱尔兰人获得诺贝尔文学奖,诺贝尔委员会称其为“富有灵感的诗歌,以一种高度艺术化的形式表达了整个民族的精神”。《When you are old》《当你老了》--- William Butler Yeats ——威廉·巴特勒·叶芝When you are old and grey and full of sleep当你老了,头发花白,睡思昏沉And nodding by the fire,take down this book倦坐在炉边,取下这本书来And slowly read,and dream of the soft look慢慢读着,追梦当年的眼神Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep你那柔美的神采与深幽的晕影How many loved your moments of glad grace多少人爱过你昙花一现的身影And loved your beauty with love false or true爱过你的美貌,以虚伪或真情But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you惟独一人曾爱你那朝圣者的心And loved the sorrows of your changing face爱你哀戚的脸上岁月的留痕And bending down beside the glowing bars在炉罩边低眉弯腰Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled忧戚沉思,喃喃而语And paced upon the mountains overhead爱情是怎样逝去,又怎样步上群山And hid his face amid a crowd of stars怎样在繁星之间藏住了脸重点词汇:Pilgrim 朝圣Pace 步伐Glow 发光Murmur 喃喃细语
“The main practical application of CPA so far has been in the eye surgery. It was the first one, and I think it is the one that is used by the most people for something practical.”Donna Strickland on the phone this morning with Göran Hansson of the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute, after learning that she had shared the Nobel Prize in Physics. CPA is chirped pulse amplification, a technique for producing incredibly short pulses of laser light of very high intensity.A few minutes before talking with Strickland, Hansson made the announcement:“This year's prize is about tools made from light. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has today decided to award the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics with one half to Arthur Ashkin for the optical tweezers and their application to biological systems and the other half jointly to Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland for their method of generating high-intensity, ultrashort optical pulses.“Arthur Ashkin was born in 1922 in New York City. He made his remarkable invention at the Bell Laboratories in New Jersey in the United States. Gérard Mourou was born in 1944 in Albertville in France. And he's currently at the École Polytechnique in Palaiseau in France, and also affiliated with the University of Michigan in the United States.“Donna Strickland was born in 1959 in Guelph, and she's currently at the University of Waterloo in Canada. Drs. Mourou and Strickland did much of their groundbreaking work together at the University of Rochester in the United States.”Physicist Olga Bottner, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, added:“Today we celebrate two inventions within the field of laser physics that have opened new scientific vistas. But what's more, have already led to applications of direct benefit to society. Optical tweezers allowing control of tiny living organisms. And an amplification technique enabling construction of high-intensity compact laser systems.”For an in-depth listen about the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics, look for the Scientific American Science Talk podcast later today.—Steve Mirsky[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
“The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institute has today decided to award the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, jointly to James P. Allison and Tasuku Honjo for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation.”Thomas Perlmann, secretary of the Nobel Assembly shortly after 5:30 this morning Eastern time.“James P. Allison was born in Alice, in Texas, in the United States. He performed his prize-winning studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He is now active at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Tasuku Honjo was born in Kyoto, in Japan. He performed his prize-winning studies at Kyoto University, where he is still active.”Karolinska Institute immunologist Klas Kärre, a member of the Nobel Committee, explained the significance of the work of the new Nobel laureates:“Allison's and Honjo's discoveries have added a new pillar in cancer therapy. It represents a completely new principle, because unlike the previous strategies it is not based on targeting the cancer cells, but rather the brakes, the checkpoints, of the host immune system. The seminal discoveries by the two laureates constitute a paradigmatic shift and a landmark in the fight against cancer.”For an in-depth listen about the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, look for the Scientific American Science Talk podcast later today.—Steve Mirsky[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
Hardtalk is in Oslo to speak to the winners of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize, ICAN (the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.) It comes as North Korea continues its testing of missiles capable of reaching the United States with a nuclear warhead. President Trump has threatened ‘fire and fury' against North Korea and talks of increasing America's nuclear weapons stockpile. Earlier this year ICAN helped to deliver the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons which was signed by 122 countries, although none of the nuclear armed powers signed. Stephen Sackur talks to ICAN's executive director, Beatrice Fihn. What use is this Nobel Peace Prize when the world's nuclear powers are not listening?(Photo: Setsuko Thurlow (C) and Beatrice Fihn (R) the Executive Director of ICAN, receive the Nobel Peace Prize 2017 award from Berit Reiss-Andersen head Nobel Committee of Norway. Credit: Nigel Waldron/Getty Images)
The way the Nobel Committee tells it, the story of this year's physics prize begins like a certain 1970s space opera. “Once upon a time, a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, two massive black holes engaged in a deadly dance,” said physicist and Nobel committee member Olga Botner at today's prize announcement. The pair spiraled toward each other, colliding to form an even bigger black hole with a mass 62 times that of Earth's sun.