Nobel prize winners 2008

Medicine prize goes to virus researchers; physics prize given for symmetry-breaking work.

Two French virologists who discovered HIV share this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with a German oncovirologist who showed that human papilloma virus (HPV) causes cervical cancer. The Nobel Prize in Physics went to two Japanese researchers and a Japanese-born American for their work on symmetry breaking in subatomic physics.

Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier identified the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS in 1983, while working at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. They originally called it lymphadenopathy associated virus (LAV).

Harald zur Hausen, former director of the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg, Germany, was honoured for going against the prevailing dogma to discover that it was not a herpes simplex virus that causes cervical cancer, but in fact HPV.

The physics prize went to Japan's Makoto Kobayashi of the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) in Tsukuba and Toshihide Maskawa of Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics at Kyoto University for discovering the origin of the 'broken symmetry' that contributed to a preponderance of matter over antimatter in the Universe. They share the prize with Yoichiro Nambu of the Enrico Fermi Institute at the University of Chicago in Illinois, who discovered the mechanism by which spontaneous broken symmetry occurs in particle physics.

Symmetry breaking describes how symmetrical systems can suddenly show a preference for one direction over another. As a simple example, imagine balancing a pencil on its tip. Viewed from the top, the balanced pencil appears symmetrical, but after a time it will fall and point in a single direction.

The above information was adopted from Nature Published online 8 October 2008 Nature 455, 712-713 (2008)

OMG, discovering the HIV virus seems to be one of the biggest discoveries on EARTH, after all the disease plague the whole world , and without its initial discovery of the virus.....no development of diagnostic tools, blood screening agents and drugs would have happened!!! I wondered why they honour these 2 virologist so late??

I DUN GET THE PENCIL THINGY.....if you dun hold it firm/tight, and put it on its tip, definitely it will drop, wont it??? i really ponder how tis theory apply to particle phsyic? It definitely look puzzling to me!!!! HAHA, but i'm lazy to read it out, as if my stuff to read is not enuf. Somebody who understand the theory please sumarize and comment it for me please. TQTQ

FAIRNESS???: A SAD SCENARIO

JPA提供獎學金深造‧土著比非土著多逾萬人

2008-05-09 12:19

（吉隆坡）在過去4年，共有2萬3038名學生獲得公共服務局獎學金，攻讀國內學士課程；不過，有關獎學金得主──土著與非土著人數卻出現天淵之別。

在這兩萬多名學生中，土著佔了2萬零96人，非土著只有區區2942人。

在同一時期內，6084人獲得該局的海外留學獎學金，其中4540人是土著，非土著只有1544人。

首相拿督斯里阿都拉說，在過去4年，獲得公共服務局獎學金出國攻讀學士課程的學生共有6084人，其中土著佔了4540人。

根據首相拿督斯里阿都拉提供給行動黨馬六甲市區議員沈同欽的書面答案，在國內深造的獎學金得主主要是攻讀理工科（1萬1679人），其次依序為醫藥（包括藥劑與牙科，4968人）和文學與社會科學（6391人）。

在國外留學的得主主要是攻讀醫藥（包括藥劑與牙科，2,836人）、理工科（2644人）和文學與社會科學（604人）。

星洲日報‧2008.05.09

IT was very sad and disappointing to see this statistics. Is this fair?? I'm glad the opposition party is fighting for transparency. Indeed there are unfairness everywhere, but somehow in my own opinion, education is something where it should as transparent as it should have, no special care should be given to any race, there surely have to be a standard regulation to all these scholarships, education creates the next generation of Malaysia successors.........there really shouldn't be any bias or unfairness in giving out the scholarship, scholarship should be given to the best of the best, no quota. I'm a victim myself to this unfairness of Malaysia higher education during STPM 2004.........SOMEONE must take the role change this statistic.

Tatty Teddy story....

The Me To You range is produced by Carte Blanche Greetings & has a huge following appealing to young & not so young. The range covers nearly every possible item you can imagine from plush cuddly bears, greeting cards, clothing, jewellery, resin & ceramic figures, stationary & the list goes on.

The blue nosed bear was created in 1987 by an artist working under the name of Miranda (Alias Mike Payne), he chose the name Miranda as he spent an enjoyable holiday with his family on a houseboat bearing this name. This can take a few people by surprise when introduced to Mike as he is a big man sporting a beard & Miranda somehow does not quite fit. Tatty Teddy is just one of many animals in the Miranda range to be sold in nearly 60 countries across the world.

Those of you who are already collectors will know the Tatty Teddy story which can be found in booklet form on some of the bears, for any others here is a shortened version.

Tatty Teddy's Heartwarming Story

Tatty Drawing

Official Story. Written by Miranda. Actual book illustrated by Steve Mort-Hill

The oldest, smallest house you can imagine was about to be knocked down.
All the things that once made the house nice and cosy had been thrown outside and piled up in the front garden, from the soft springy bed the owners slept in, to the old wooden floorboards they used to walk on...and even...surely by some mistake...a little brown teddy bear.

He was trapped amongst all the other unwanted things, and couldn't move.
Then, one day...a very, very cold day, something fell from the sky...
...a little snowflake.
It landed on the teddy bear's little nose and was then followed by many more.
He began to get cold, very cold indeed.

More and more snow fell, heavier and heavier.
The little bear was now so cold that his nose started turning blue...
...so cold that his brown fur started turning grey.

He was cold, unloved and all alone in the world, and felt very, very sad.
Winter finally passed and the weather got warmer, and, one beautiful spring day, a little girl was playing near the old house, when she spotted the grey bear in the pile of unwanted things.

He was like no other bear she had ever seen, and she pulled him out from where he was trapped.
She dusted him down and lifted him high in the sky to look at him.
"A grey bear...with a blue nose?"
She thought.
"How strange!"
The teddy bear wanted to cry. He thought she didn't like him and would throw him back with the other unwanted things.
"But he's lovely!" she continued and she fell completely in love with him.

She ran home as fast as her little legs would carry her to see if her Grandma could patch him up, as a lot of his stuffing had fallen out, and he was very much in need of repair.

She looked on has her Grandma replaced his stuffing and patched up his holes.
His stitches has started showing where his fur had worn away, but little girl thought he looked perfect.

It was all cosy and warm in the little girl's house and the bear now felt cosy and warm in his heart. However, his nose was still blue and his fur was still grey, and they would never return to brown. He was unique amongst teddy bears.

The little girl gave him a great big hug. She loved him more than anything else in the world...her little, grey, blue-nosed...tatty teddy.

Heard of the WORLD???

THE WORLD

For those of you who haven't heard of The World, it's an enormous project going on in Dubai. Where they will construct islands, that as a whole will resemble the different parts of our planet.

The World is a man-made archipelago of 300 islands in the shape of a world map currently being built off the coast of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The World is one of a series of artificial island projects in Dubai, along with the Palm Islands, and like the other islands The World is being built primarily using sand dredged from the sea. The World is the brainchild of ruler of Dubai.

Each island ranges from 23,000 m² to 84,000 m² (250,000–900,000 square feet or 5.7–21 acres) in size, with 50–100 m of water between each island. The development will cover an area of 9 km in length and 6 km in width, surrounded by an oval breakwater. The only means of transport between the islands will be by boat and helicopter. Prices for the islands will range from $15-45 million USD. The average price for an island will be around $25 million USD. Dredging started in 2004 and as of March of 2007 The World is around 90% complete.

It is owned and is being constructed by Nakheel Corp

Similar to the recently completely 'The Palms', The World Island Project involves the design of over 300 reclaimed islands just off the coast of Dubai in the shape of the globe that, when completed, will be visible from space

Info from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_(archipelago)

There have been news or rumours of David beckham (1.2 million bungalow), rod steward, micheal schumacer ....etc buying the island, but how true is it??

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Visit http://www.theworld.ae/ for more information :)

other major megastruture:

the palm islands

2007 nobel prize winners

just read someone's blog on nobel prize winners this year....

Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr. and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) won the nobel peace prize 2007, ----"for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change", the prize was shared between both.

read more on http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/

There were a lot of debate and discussion on the new nobel peace winner.......some said Al-gore deserve the prize, while some disagree to that.

In my point of view, i think the work that Al-gore is doing spreading and educating ppl around the world on the damage caused by excessive CO2 on the environment is a great effort, but it seems to me that maybe the nobel peace prize doesn't seem to be the right prize to be given for such effort, shouldn't it be for promoting peace, cease war, stopping terrorism...etc??? Mayb another new nobel prize should be make for those who contibute to the sustainale developement, protecting the environment and wildlife....etc?? Hmm....

WAT SAY U?? post ur comments............

other winners of 2007

"for their discoveries of principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells" ( Nobel prize in physiology and medicine 2007)

-Mario R. Capecchi, Sir Martin J. Evans & Oliver Smithies

"for the discovery of Giant Magnetoresistance" (Nobel prize in physics 2007)

-Albert Fert & Peter Grünberg

"for his studies of chemical processes on solid surfaces