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Articles on Nobel Prize 2014

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Powering into the night. The Drax plant in Yorkshire. Gareth Davies

Time for a celebrity regulator as Britain faces winter power cuts

Winter is coming. And the UK has a real chance of [brownouts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownout_(electricity) or even blackouts from lack of power. The long predicted capacity crunch in electric power…
Responsible reading involves the simultaneous interaction with the text and with so-called real life. AAP Image/Daniel Munoz

The Man Booker and Nobel judges are right: novels can do us good

October is the biggest month of the year for those in the literary world. This year, the Nobel Prize for Literature awarded to Patrick Modiano and the Man Booker Prize, to Richard Flanagan for The Narrow…
Kindness, humility - and a new approach to regulating monopolies: Nobel Prize for Economic Science, Jean Tirole. AAP/EPA/Studio Tchiz/

Nobel economics prize winner an economist and a gentleman

The winner of this year’s Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, Jean Tirole, is one of the most prolific, respected and admired economic theorists of the last 30 years and has had significant influence…
This year’s Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Patrick Modiano, a worthy - and noble - winner. EPA/IAN LANGSDON

The Nobel Prize rewards noble writers over literary merit

There is a tendency in academic job applications to refer to the “prestigious x prize (or fellowship)” that a candidate has been awarded. It’s a phrase that turns out to be self-contradictory, since all…
People celebrate Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai in her home town Mingora in Pakistan’s Swat valley. But history suggests the prize, shared with Kailash Satyarthi of India, is unlikely to reconcile their nations. EPA/Bilawal Arbab

Admirable Nobel decision unlikely to spur India-Pakistan peace

The awarding of a shared Nobel Peace Prize award to a 17-year-old Pakistani girl, Malala Yousafzai, and a 60-year-old Indian man, Kailash Satyarthi, is historic and aimed at conveying multiple messages…
Secretary to the Swedish Academy Peter Englund emerges to announce the 2014 Nobel Prize winner. EPA/ANDERS WIKLUND

Fierce battles underly judging for the Nobel Prize in Literature

Yesterday’s decision to confer the Nobel Prize for Literature on revered French novelist Patrick Modiano has sent even the most widely-read English speaking critics scurrying to find copies of his books…
Patrick Modiano has won the Nobel Prize for Literature – with what must be the right kind of transgression. EPA/IAN LANGSDON

Shocking ideas and safe jobs: what makes a Nobel author?

When something is wrong in the world of literature, who better to blame than the writers? Nobel Prize for Literature judge Horace Engdahl said this week, only days before the award was given to French…
Winners of the Nobel Prize in chemistry: Eric Betzig, Stefan Hell and William Moerner. Matt Staley, HHMI / Bernd Schuller, Max-Planck-Institut / K. Lowder

Nobel Prize in chemistry: beating nature’s limits to build super-microscopes

Robert Hooke was a pioneer of microscopy, when back in the 17th century he drew stunning images of insects, plant cells and fossils. Since then microscopes that use light to magnify things we can’t see…
Laser quest: Shuji Nakamura, one of the three prize winners. UCSB/EPA

Your phone screen just won the Nobel Prize in physics

You’ve probably got the fruits of this year’s Nobel laureates’ handiwork in your pocket. In fact, if you’re reading this on your phone or a relatively recent flat-screen monitor, you’re more than likely…
The literary laurels are no longer so lasting. Miguel Garcia Saavedra/Shutterstock

The Nobel limelight: literary fame wasn’t always so fleeting

Every October, some unsuspecting writer gets a phone call from the secretary of the Nobel Prize committee. And overnight, an averagely respected author is turned into a global literary celebrity. Quite…
The hippocampus has been object of scrutiny since the days of Gray’s Anatomy.

Explainer: what happens in the hippocampus?

This year’s Nobel Prize in medicine recognises work on “cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain.” Those cells are found in the hippocampus. It is just one tiny part of the brain, but this…
John O'Keefe , left, and Edvard and May-Britt Moser. David Bishop, UCL and NTNU

Nobel Prize in medicine: decades of work on ‘the brain’s GPS’ recognised

The 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded with one half to John O'Keefe and the other half jointly to May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser “for their discoveries of cells that constitute a…

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