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The Nobel Prizes

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    26th Dec, 2020

Background of Nobel Prizes

The Nobel Prize award is given in the name of Alfred Nobel who was a Swedish inventor. The Nobel Prize is awarded yearly to the individuals or organizations that do an extraordinary job in the field of Physics, chemistry, literature, peace, physiology or medicine and Economics. All the Nobel Prizes are given at Stockholm, Sweden except for the Nobel Peace Prize which is awarded at Oslo, Norway.Three people at maximum can share a Nobel Prize. The Nobel Prize was first conferred in 1901(the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was first given in 1969).

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine field is awarded by the Karolinska Institute. While in Physics, Chemistry and economics the prize is awarded by Royal Swedish academy of science. The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded by Norwegian Nobel Committee. In Literature, the Swedish Academy grants the Nobel Prize while the Sveriges Riksbank prize is given in the field of Economic Sciences.

Rabindranath Tagore was the first Indian to receive the Nobel Prize. He got the prize for literature in 1913 for his collection Gitanjaliand was the first Asian to be awarded the Nobel Prize. C. V. Raman received the Nobel Prize in Physicsin 1930 for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the effect named after him. Mother Theresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prizein 1979 for her humanitarian work with the poor.

Amartya Sen was honoured with Nobel Prize in Economicsin 1998 for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory and for his interest in the problems of society's poorest members. Venkatraman Ramakrishnan received Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2009 for studies on the structure and function of the ribosome, the large complexes in all cells that use the information in our genes to make the thousands of proteins needed for life.Har Gobind Khorana received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1968 for their interpretation of the genetic code and its role in protein synthesis.

Nobel Prize in Physics 2020

The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to three Laureates forcontributing to our understanding of one of the most enigmatic and tantalizing phenomena in the Universe- the Black hole. Roger Penrose devised mathematical models that showed how the General theory of relativity leads to the formation of Black holes. Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez discovered that an invisible and extremely heavy object, i.e. a supermassive Black Hole, governs the orbits of stars at the centre of our Galaxy.

Black holes are super dense objects with a phenomenal gravitational field from which not even light can escape and as a result appears dark. However, matter in the neighbourhood can form an accretion disc around it emitting X-rays in the process.Black holes are the foundation for all the galaxies in the Universe.The concept of Black hole sprung up after Albert Einstein published his General Theory of Relativity in the year 1915.Its boundary is defined by an event horizon. Nothing within the event horizon can escape.When stars, ten times bigger than Sun, run out of fuel, they first explode as supernovas and then collapse into extremely densely packed remnants, so heavy that gravity pulls everything inside, including light.A black hole always hides a singularity, a boundary where time and space end and its density is infinite.Its colossal gravity directs the motions of the surrounding stars. Supermassive black holes might be found inside most large galaxies, including the Milky Way.The Black hole at the centre of our galaxy could be equivalent to around 4 million solar masses, packed into a region the size of our solar system.

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2020

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to the scientists who discovered the liver-ravaging hepatitis C virus,a breakthrough that led to cures for the deadly disease and tests to keep the scourge out of the blood supply. The scientists are - Harvey J. Alter and Charles M. Rice from United States of America and Michael Houghton from Britain.In the midst of the current pandemic, their work reminds us viral diseases could be challenging to eradicateand knowledge of basic biologicalmechanisms of the disease could be critical in designing the treatment. The prevalence of hepatitis C virus infectionin India is estimated at between 0.5% and1.5%.

Hepatitis A virus is transmitted by polluted water or food and generally has little long-term impact on the patient. Hepatitis B virus is transmitted through blood and bodily fluids and represents a much more serious threat since it can lead to a chronic condition, with the development of cirrhosis and liver cancer.Baruch Blumbergwas awarded the Nobel Prize inPhysiology or Medicine in 1976 for discovery of Hepatitis B virus.

Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020

The Nobel Prize in Chemistrywas awarded to scientistsEmmanuelle Charpentierfor the Science of Pathogens and Jennifer A. Doudna for development of a method for genomeeditingknown asCRISPR-Cas9.

Genes regulateevery function in our body and determinethe basic characteristics like height,weight, skin colour, intelligence, etc. This complete set of instructions known asgenome is present in the form of 24 pairsof chromosomes in every cell of our body,while the germ cells, i.e., the sperms and eggs, have one chromosome of each pair.Any change in these genes, known as mutation, generally alters their functions and many a times causes diseases. Ifsuch changes are produced in the germcells, they are passed on to our offspringas inherited diseases. The only possibleway to handle these problems is to edit suchgenes via gene therapy(inactivate or replace themwith unmodified ones).

Scientists discovered that bacteriacontain in their genetic materialrepeat sequences. These sequences were interspersedwith unique, non-repetitive nucleotidesequences that differ from each other.They called this Clustered Regularly Interspersed Short Palindromic Repeats(CRISPR). Later, another group of genes adjacentto the CRISPR region in the bacterialgenome, called CRISPR associated genes (Cas genes) was identified.These genescode for proteins called nucleases, whichspecialize in unwinding and cutting DNAstrand.

The CRISPR-Cas9 system protects bacteria from the invadingviruses (Cas9 protein cleaves viral DNA).Each infection which the bacteriasurvive is like a vaccine shot for futureprotection. The discovery led to the development of the molecular genetic scissor, a simple two componentsystem that could be easily programmedfor sequence specific cleavage of targetDNA in any type of cell.There aregene editing tools like Zinc finger and TELENE which have been in usefor some years now but are highly cumbersome to program, timeconsuming and expensive.

CRISPR-Cas9 system helps in editing genes in plants, insects, animals and humans.It has revolutionised agriculture by producing drought resistant, salt resistant, nutrition rich crops. It has modified insects like mosquitoes from spreading malaria, and dengue. Animal breeders have adopted this system to breed animals with desirable characteristics.COVID-19 pandemic researchers have adapted the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing tool for rapid coronavirus diagnostic tests, including the Feluda test by The Council of Scientific and IndustrialResearch in India. The system could help in curing inherited diseases such as sickle cell anaemia and thalassemia.The tool can alsobe used to edit germ cellsin the earlyembryo to fix disease-causing mutations. Further, it is also possibleto attempt to createthe “Designer babies”, wherein selectedcharacteristics such as sight, skin colour,intelligence, etc. can be introduced inbabies, butraise ethical considerations.The system may induce off-target cuts, at locations other than intended, leading to undesirableconsequences.Researchers are workingout to improve the system and make itsafer.

Nobel Prize for Peace 2020

The Nobel Peace Prize 2020 was awarded to the United Nation’s World Food Programme.The Nobel Peace Prizes isdedicated to the person who has done the most or the best work (1) For fraternity between nations, (2) For the abolition or reduction of standing armies and (3) For the holding and promotion of peace congresses.The Nobel Peace Prizes have been awarded since 1901.

The World Food Programme (WFP)was established in 1961 at the behest of the US president Dwight Eisenhower.It is the world’s largest humanitarian organisation committed towards its global goal of ending hunger by the year 2030.In 1960, Eisenhower proposed to the UN General Assembly that a scheme should be devised for providing food aid through the UN system.In 2015, eradication of world hunger became one of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).The WFP is the UN’s primary instrument in achieving that goal.WFP runs entirely on public donations and its donors include governments, corporations and individuals.

WFP was awarded the prize for its efforts to combat hunger and for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas.It was given the award for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict. It provides food assistance in two ways, either by way of providing food or by meeting people’s food-needs by providing cash-based transfers.The cash-based transfers were launched for the first time in 2005 in response to the tsunami in Sri Lanka. In 1989, WFP staged the largest humanitarian airdrop in history when it launched “Operation Lifeline Sudan” to provide assistance to people affected by the civil war. More recently, it has provided food aid to the victims of the earthquake in Nepal in 2015.

WFP estimates hunger by the prevalence of undernourishment.According to current estimates, about 8.9% of the world’s population or about 690 million people are hungry.As per the WFP, if the current trends continue, by 2030 there will be 840 million hungry people.Further, about 135 million suffer from acute hunger mainly as a result of man-made conflicts, climate change and economic downturns.

WFP has been working in India since 1963.It has transitioned from food distribution to providing technical assistance as India became self-sufficient in cereal production.One-fourth of the world’s undernourished population is in India.About 21% of the population live on less than $1.90 a day.Now, WFP is working to improve the government’s targeted public distribution system to ensure that food reaches those that need it the most.It is also working with the government to improve the nutritional value of the Midday Meal programme.It is using its own software called the Vulnerability and Analysis Mapping to identify the most food insecure groups in the country.

Nobel Prize in Economics 2020

U.S. economists Paul R. Milgrom and Robert B. Wilson won the Nobel Economics Prize “for improvements to auction theory and inventions of new auction formats”, i.e., for their work on commercial auctions, including for goods and services difficult to sell in traditional ways such as radio frequencies. The Nobel Prize in Economics is technically called as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciencesin Memory of Alfred Nobel.

Robert Wilson showed why rational bidders tend to place bids below their own best estimate of the common value: they are worried about the winner’s curse – that is, about paying too much and losing out.Laureate Paul Milgrom formulated a more general theory of auctions that not only allows common values, but also private values that vary from bidder to bidder.

Auction theory is a branch of economics that deals with, as the name suggests, auctions. Auctions are important to economists because they are the most widely used and also the most efficient mechanism to allocate scarce resources. In particular, auction theory deals with the various ways in which auctions can be designed to improve seller revenues, increase benefits to consumers, or even achieve both these goals at the same time.

Throughout history, countries have tried to allocate resources in various ways. Some have tried to do it through political markets, but this has often led to biased outcomes. For Ex: The rationing of essential goods worked in State-controlled economies. People who were close to the bureaucracy and the political class came out ahead of others. Lotteries are another way to allocate resources, but they do not ensure that scarce resources are allocated to people who value it the most.

Auctions, for a good reason, have been the most common tool for thousands of years used by societies to allocate scarce resources. When potential buyers compete to purchase goods in an auction, it helps sellers discover those buyers who value the goods the most. Further, selling goods to the highest bidder also helps the seller maximise his or her revenues. So, both buyers and sellers benefit from auctions.Whether it is the auction of spectrum waves or the sale of fruits and vegetables, auctions are at the core of allocation of scarce resources in a market economy.

The most common criticismis that auctions can lead buyers to overpay for resources whose value is uncertain to them. This criticism, popularly known as the ‘winner’s curse’, is based on a study that showed how buyers who overpaid for U.S. oil leases in the 1970s earned low returns. The rational bidders may decide to underpay for resources in order to avoid the ‘winner’s curse’, and sellers can get better bids for their goods if they share more information about it with potential buyers

Economists traditionally working on auction theory believed that all auctions are the same when it comes to the revenues that they managed to bring in for sellers. In other words,the auction format did not matter. This is known as the ‘revenue equivalence theorem’. But Dr. Milgrom showed that the auction format can actually have a huge impact on the revenues earned by sellers.

The most famous case of an auction gone wrong for the seller was the spectrum auction in New Zealand in 1990.In what is called a ‘Vickrey auction’, where the winner of the auction is mandated to pay only the second-best bid, a company that bid NZ$1,00,000 eventually paid just NZ$6. Dr. Milgrom showed how Dutch auctions, in which the auctioneer lowers the price of the product until a buyer bids for it, can help sellers earn more revenues than English auctions. In the case of English auctions, the price rises based on higher bids submitted by competing buyers. But as soon as some of the bidders drop out of the auction as the price rises, the remaining bidders become more cautious about bidding higher prices.

The contributions of Dr. Milgrom and Dr. Wilson have helped governments and private companies design their auctions better.This has, in turn, helped in the better allocation of scarce resources and offered more incentives for sellers to produce complex goods.

Nobel Prize in Literature 2020

American poet Louise Gluck won the 2020 Nobel Literature Prize, for themes of childhood and family life that draw inspiration from myths and classical motifs. She was honoured for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal. Prof. Gluck won the Pulitzer Prize in 1993 for her collection "The Wild Iris", the Bollingen Prize in 2001, and the National Book Award for her latest collection, "Faithful and Virtuous Night", in 2014.

Owing to a sexual harassment scandal, no prize was awardedin 2018. The Nobel Prize in Literature for both 2018 and 2019 was announced in 2019.It was awarded to the Polish author Olga Tokarczukand Austrian author Peter Handke for 2018 and 2019 respectively.

 

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