Celebrating Asian American, Native Hawai'ian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month: Samuel Ting, first Asian-American recipient of Nobel Prize in Physics

Samuel Chao Chung Ting, born January 27, 1936 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is the first U.S.-born Asian American to win the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1976.  Ting, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, shared the prize with Burton Ricther of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center for the discover of the J/psi nuclear particle. 

In 1995, Ting proposed the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a cosmic ray detector and has been working on its development ever since. A prototype was flown on Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-91) in 1998.  The main mission was scrubbed after the Columbia disaster in 2003.  Dr. Ting successfully lobbied the US Congress to secure a space shuttle flight to carry the AMS-02.  It was launched on Space Shuttle Endeavour (STS-134) and installed on the International Space Station in May 2011.

COVID-19 vaccine researchers Kariko and Weissman win Nobel Prize for Medicine 2023

Katalin Kariko, a Hungarian scientist, and her US colleague Drew Weissman won the 2023 Nobel Prize for Medicine today.  Their work on mRNA or messenger RNA contributed to an unprecedented rate of vaccine development during the covid pandemic.  Their research contributed to a vaccine that helps stop the immune system from launching an inflammatory attack against lab-made mRNA, which has been a major hurdle in vaccination creation.  Usually, a vaccine is made from a dormant version of the disease, but this works in a totally different manner.  It could pave the way for treatments against other viruses or diseases.

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/kariko-weissman-win-medicine-nobel-covid-19-vaccine-work-2023-10-02/

Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month: Gabriela Mistral, first Latina to win the Nobel Prize in Literature

Lucila Godoy Alcayaga, born April 7, 1889 in Chile, is best known by her pseudonym Gabriela Mistral, and is the first Latin-American to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.  When she was 15, she published her first poems in a local newspaper.  

Following several personal tragedies, Mistral channeled her grief into her writing and she produced her first literary work, which was placed first in a national literary contest in Santiago, Chile.  

She released her first book, Desolacion, with aid from Frederico de Onis, the Director of Hispanic Institute of New York in 1922. 

In November 1945, she became the first Latin American and fifth woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Gabriela passed away from pancreatic cancer in New York City in January 1957.

Celebrating Asian-American Heritage Month: Roger Tsien, awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2008

Dr. Roger Tsien, born February 1, 1952 in New York City, New York, was awarded the Nobel prize in Chemistry in 2008.  A Chinese-American, Tsien suffered from asthma growing up and spent much time indoors, conducting chemistry experiments in his family's basement.

He won the Westinghouse Talent Search at 16.  He received his PhD in physiology in 1977 from Churchill College in Cambridge, England.

He shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Osamu Shimomura and Martin Chalfie in 2008 for their wok for "the green fluorescent protein; discovery, expression and development".

He passed away in August 2016.

Celebrating Asian-American Heritage Month: Charles Pedersen, first Korean to win a Nobel Prize

Charles Pedersen, born October 3, 1904 in Busan, Korea, is the first Korean to be awarded a Nobel Prize.  He shared the prize for chemistry with Donald J. Cram and Jean-Marie Lehn in 1987.  

While a chemist at DuPont, he developed a method for synthesizing crown ethers.

He passed away in October 1989.

Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month: Santiago Ramón y Cajal, first person of Spanish origin to win a scientific Nobel Prize

Santiago Ramon y Cajal, born May 1, 1852 in Navarre, Spain, is the first person of Spanish origin to win a scientific Nobel Prize.  His work with Italian scientist Camillo Golgi on the structure of the nervous system was recognized in 1906 when they were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

He won many awards, prizes and distinctions throughout his career.  He passed away in October 1934.  

An asteroid 117413 Ramonycajal has been named in his honor.

Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month: Luis Alvarez, awarded Novel Prize in Physics

Luis Alvarez, born June 13, 1911 in San Francisco, California, was an inventor, professor and a physicist, who won the Novel Prize in Physics in 1968.  He worked on the Manhattan Project with Robert Oppenheimer in Los Alamos on the atomic bomb.

With his son Walter in the 1980s, Alvarez developed the theory that a huge comet is what made the dinosaurs extinct. 

Alvarez passed away in September 1988 from complications from esophageal cancer.

Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month: Bernardo Houssay, First Latin-American to win Nobel Prize in Physiology

Bernardo Houssay, born April 10, 1887 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, is the first Latin-American to win the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1947.  He was a co-recipient of the award for the discovery of the role played by the pituitary hormones in regulating the amount of blood sugar (glucose) in animals.

He published more than 600 scientific papers and several specialized books. 

He passed away in September 1971. 

Celebrating Black History Month: Toni Morrison, first African-American woman to win Nobel Prize

Toni Morrison, born February 18, 1931 in Lorain, Ohio, is the first African-American woman to win a Nobel Prize.  She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993 for her Beloved trilogy.  The first novel Beloved, released in 1988 and she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. 

The second novel in the trilogy, Jazz, was released in 1992 and the following year she won the Nobel Prize in Literature even before the third novel was released.

In 2008, she was nominated for a Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album for Children.

Celebrating Black History Month - Ralph Bunche, first African-American to receive the Nobel Peace Prize

Ralph Bunche, born August 7, 1904, is the first African-American to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.  He was awarded the honor for his mediation in Israel during the late 1940s.  John F. Kennedy awarded him the Presidential Medal of Honor  in 1963.

Bunche served as assistant to the UN Special Committee  on Palestine, and then as the principal secretary of the committee.  He was the chief aide to Count Folke Bernadotte (of Sweden) who had been appointed by the UN to mediate the conflict. 

Bernadotte was assassinated in Jerusalem in September 1948.  Following the assassination, Bunche became the UN's chief mediator.  He achieved the Armistice Agreement in 1949 and received the Nobel Prize the following year.

Marie Curie awarded second Nobel Prize 1911

For over a century, the Nobel Prize committee has not only fallen for the greatest hoax of all time, science, but has continued to promulgate the lies and deceit from the evilest of evil people, scientists!  Just look at not one, but TWO incidents that happened on this day in history.  First of all, in 1911, Marie Curie was awarded her second(!) Nobel Prize, this time in chemistry.  A woman!  She is the only person, male or female, to win two prizes in different categories.  She won the first one with her husband in 1903 for Physics (but I'm sure he did most of the work). Don’t they know women don’t like or are not interested in math and science?  And just think of the dangers of radiation.  It would have been better if she had just left all that stuff alone.  If she had, we wouldn't be bothered with Godzilla or Spiderman!

Eleven years later, Neils Bohr was giving his acceptance speech for his Nobel Prize in Physics (just as liberal as chemistry, but at least it was a man this time!), when two of his contemporaries announced they had discovered the element hafnium.  What a stupid name. Supposedly it is the “Roman” name for Copenhagen.  Why couldn’t they have stayed with good ol' English name and called it Copenhagenium or Denmarkium? I have never even seen a hafnium?  Have you?

It’s all a conspiracy by the ultra-mega-platinum left-wing liberals to undermine our own education system with facts!  Conservatives don’t need no facts!

Marie Curie, 2 x Nobel prize winner, born 1867

Marie Curie, born November 7, 1867 in Warsaw, Poland, is still the first woman to win a Nobel prize, the first person (and only woman) to win TWO Nobel prizes and the ONLY person to win a Nobel prize in two different categories!

Although she studied and worked in France, she remained loyal to her home country of Poland and named the first chemical element she discovered 'polonium' after it.

She shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with her husband Pierre for their work in radiation research. 

Her husband died in a tragic road accident in 1906, which devastated her, but the University of Paris where Pierre taught decided to offer his chair to Marie.  She accepted and became the first woman to teach at the university.

In 1911, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her work in discovering and isolating the elements polonium and radium.

Due to her long exposure to radiation, Marie Curie contracted leukemia and passed away in 1934.

Celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month - Mario Molina, first Mexican recipient of Noble Prize in Chemistry

Mario Molina, born in Mexico City, Mexico, is the first Mexican-born winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  He was the co-recipient in 1995 with Paul J. Crutzen and F. Sherwood Rowland for their discovery of the role of CFCs in ozone depletion.  Rowland and Molina published their discovery that chlorine atoms contribute to the destruction of ozone in Nature June 28, 1974.  They announced their findings to policy makers and news outlets to be sure people were aware.

Molina received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama on August 8, 2013.

President Obama said, "Mario Molina is a visionary chemist and environmental scientist. Born in Mexico, Dr. Molina came to America to pursue his graduate degree. He later earned the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering how chlorofluorocarbons deplete the ozone layer. Dr. Molina is a professor at the University of California, San Diego; Director of the Mario Molina Center for Energy and Environment; and a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology."

Celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month - Dr. Luis Federico Leloir, first Argentinian to win Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Physician and biochemist Luis Federico Leloir was the first Argentinian to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  He was given the prestigious award in 1970.

Despite hardships such as lack of financial support and less-than-state-of-the-art equipment, his research into sugar nucleotides, carbohydrate metabolism and renal hypertension has led to significant progress in understanding, diagnosing and treating galactosemia, a rare genetic disorder that effects an individual's ability to metabolize the sugar galactose properly.

And This Year's Nobel Prize for Literature goes to...

Svetlana Alexievich, a non-fiction writer from Belarus, has won the 2015 Nobel Prize for Literature, only the 14th woman to do so.  Ms. Alexievich draws her works from historical facts and interviews from major events such as the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986.  Her most noted work, "War's Unwomanly Face", was based on interviews with hundreds of women who lived through World War II.

And this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to...

Paul Modrich (Duke University School of Medicine), Aziz Sancar (University of North Carolina) and Tomas Lindahl (Francis Crick Institute at Clare Hall Laboratory, Hertfordshire, UK)

They unlocked the secrets of DNA repair, which are molecular tools to ensure DNA is working properly.

Although it is the building block of life, DNA is rather unstable.  Part of the nucleotide cysteine, one of the bases that makes up DNA, tends to degrade over time.  Then it matches up with the wrong nucleotide when the DNA molecule replicates.  One would think why aren't we all dead yet, but Lindahl discovered base excision repair, a process in which the enzyme glycosylase spots the damage, which is then removed (excised) and replaced.  This process also minimizes mistakes when the DNA molecule 'unzips' to be copied.  People who have problems with this repair process might have a higher risk of colon cancer.

DNA can also be damaged by outside influences such as ultraviolet light or chemicals that cause mutation.  Another process, nucleotide excision repair, allows cells to fix those problems.  Sancar discovered enzymes that find UV-damaged DNA and excise the strand.  People who have problems with this repair process might have a higher risk of skin cancer. 

This new work has been relevant for new cancer therapies.


http://news.sciencemag.org/2015/10/cellular-secrets-dna-repair-win-nobel-prize-chemistry?rss=1