Perseverance, important problems, fellowship and dreams: Take-home lessons

Kategorie: Englische Postings·Geschichte / History·Kultur·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009·ScienceBlogs Kategorien

Marie Curie once said that "Science is about things, and not people". While this statement is true and profound, the fruits of science are unmistakably linked to their human origins, postmodernist relativism notwithstanding. The scientists who make discoveries are human beings, and they shoulder their share of foibles and successes, petty rivalries and forthcoming generosity, despair and triumph. Their life displays cycles that any young researcher will go through in his or her future career.

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Autor: Ashutosh Jogalekar· 08.07.09 · 13:00 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

Martin Chalfie im Interview: And the animal is transparent

Kategorie: Deutsche Postings·Englische Postings·Naturwissenschaften·Video-Interviews

Martin Chalfie erhielt im Jahr 2008 (gemeinsam mit Osamu Shimomura und Roger Tsien) den Nobelpreis für Chemie. Das Trio wurde für seine Entdeckung und Entwicklung des grün fluoreszierenden Proteins (GFP) ausgezeichnet, das heute aus den Biowissenschaften nicht mehr wegzudenken ist. In Lindau gab es Vorträge von allen drei Preisträgern zu hören.

Im Interview erinnert sich Chalfie an die Anfänge seiner Studien zu den GFPs, seine Arbeit am Fadenwurm C. elegans und die Forschungen zur Genexpression. Er erzählt, wie seine Mitarbeiterin Ghia (Marie) Euskirchen ab 1992 die Arbeiten entscheidend voranbrachte, wie wichtig die Auswahl des richtigen Mikroskops war und beendet das Gespräch mit einem Plädoyer für die Grundlagenforschung.

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Autor: ScienceBlogs-Redaktion· 07.07.09 · 12:30 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

Wo ist der Witz? Greek tragedy or preventable catastrophe?

Kategorie: Englische Postings·Kultur·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009·Politik·ScienceBlogs Kategorien·Umwelt  ·  Kommentare: 5

When the controversial and talented physicist Edward Teller was doing a PhD. with the great Werner Heisenberg at the University of Leipzig, the question asked at the end of every group meeting that focused on a complex sequence of problems was "Wo ist der Witz?", supposed to be translated as "What is the point"? but more correctly translated as "What is the joke?". The joke part of it consisted of turning a wry eye at the world, donning the hat of the court jester who laughs even as the fire that he predicted would engulf the world rages on. The question about global warming that we ask is also "Wo ist der Witz"? and we only hope that the joke is not upon us and we can actually still get the last laugh. Whether we might was the topic of discussion of a panel on global warming on the final day of the 59th Meeting of Nobel Laureates at Lindau.

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Autor: Ashutosh Jogalekar· 07.07.09 · 00:26 Uhr· 5 Kommentare

Peter Agre im Interview: Channel-Mediated Water Permeability?

Kategorie: Deutsche Postings·Englische Postings·Naturwissenschaften·Video-Interviews

Der Biochemiker Peter Agre erhielt 2003 den Chemie-Nobelpreis (gemeinsam mit Roderick MacKinnon) für die Erforschung von Kanälen in Zellmembranen, wobei er explizit für die Entdeckung von Wasserkanälen ausgezeichnet wurde.

Im Interview am Rand der Lindauer Tagung sprach der "nette Laureat" über seine schwierige Forschungsarbeit, die am Ende die Mechanismen des Wassertransports in Zellen aufklärte. Er rekapituliert die verschiedensten Gedankengänge und Überlegungen zur damaligen Zeit und erinnert sich daran, wie er zum ersten Mal von den "Wasserkanälen" hörte und erklärt die Rolle von Aquaporinen. Und am Ende des Gesprächs erzählt er, wie der Nobelpreis sein (Forscher-)Leben veränderte und spricht über sein Engagement im Kampf gegen Malaria.

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The biochemist Peter Agre was awarded with the 2003 Nobel Prize for chemistry (along with Roderick MacKinnon) for the research on channels in cell membranes. He was explicitly allocated for the discovery of water channels.

In this interview at the Nobel Laureates Meeting in Lindau the "friendly laureate" talks about his complicate research work that in the end helped to understand the mechanisms of water transports in cells.
He sums up the various streams of thought and considerations he had at that time and remembers how he first heard about "water channels". Furthermore he explains the role of aquaporines. By the end of the conversation he tells us how the Nobel Prize changes his (scientific) life and talks about his commitment in the battle against Malaria.

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Autor: ScienceBlogs-Redaktion· 06.07.09 · 09:15 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

Warming up for Copenhagen

Kategorie: Englische Postings·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009·Politik

Hotels in Lindau don't do air-con, although I'm pretty sure the Nobel laureates were keeping cool in theirs. So it has been a week of hot, sweaty nights for most of us here. How I longed for a dial with a minus sign on it. Had such technology been installed, I would have whacked that sucker on full every night.

It's micro-level decisions like this that makes it so difficult for humans to tackle climate change. What damage am I really doing by using a few joules to give me a better night's sleep, given that millions of hotels, homes and offices around the world probably were being chilled down by fans and fridges at that very moment? And while we're at it, what's the point in any European country cutting greenhouse gas emissions at all, when China is building tens of new coal-fired power stations per year?

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Autor: Matthew Chalmers· 04.07.09 · 14:05 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

A non debate

Kategorie: Englische Postings·Naturwissenschaften·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009  ·  Kommentare: 6

I am a science journalist. This is a blog. Does that make me an imposter, a moonlighter, a fraud?

Yesterday I took a day out from the Lindau meeting to discuss the relationship between science blogs and science journalism at the 6th World Conference of Science Journalists in London. I began by showing a slide on which I gave the audience a taste of the blogospheric wrath directed at science journalists in recent years. Here are some examples:

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Autor: Matthew Chalmers· 03.07.09 · 15:30 Uhr· 6 Kommentare

Sir Harold Kroto im Interview: Competition and Motives

Kategorie: Deutsche Postings·Englische Postings·Kultur·Video-Interviews

Sir Harold Kroto wurde 1996 zusammen mit Robert F. Curl und Richard E. Smalley mit dem Chemie-Nobelpreis ausgezeichnet. Damit wurde die Entdeckung der Fullerene durch die drei Forscher gewürdigt.

In Lindau hielt Kroto einen fulminanten Vortrag, der die Zuhörer begeisterte. Wissenschaftskommunikation ist für Sir Harry, der u.a. Mitbegründer des Vega Science Trust ist, eine Herzensangelegenheit. Seine Sympathien für Open Access wurden beim Mediengespräch zu Open Access deutlich.

Im Interview spricht er über die Unvermeidlichkeit von Wettbewerb innerhalb der Wissenschaft, obwohl für ihn selbst der Konkurrenzgedanke nicht wesentlich ist. Er erzählt, dass der Nobelpreis auch negative Aspekte für ihn hatte und empört sich über Lehrer und Bildungspolitiker, die dem Kreationismus nur zögerlich entgegentreten.

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Harold Kroto shared the Nobel Prize in 1996 together with Robert Curl and Richard Smalley for discovering the fullerenes. In Lindau he participated in a media talk about Open Access and held a wonderfully entertaining talk on wednesday.

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Autor: ScienceBlogs-Redaktion· 03.07.09 · 07:30 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

Young researchers on science and faith

Kategorie: Englische Postings·Kultur·ScienceBlogs Kategorien

In some ways Harry Kroto's talk at Lindau was the most provocative of all because of its emphasis on a rejection, or at least transparent criticism, of religious faith. To get an idea of what students thought about it I buttonholed three graduate students, two from Germany and one from Russia, during lunch on Thursday. Florian and Annalena are students at the University of Frankfurt and Aachen respectively and Peter is a student at the University of St. Petersburg. In an interactive dialogue I found that Florian and Annalena differed a little in their views of Kroto's talk and the whole science-religion issue. This was a good thing since disagreement always offers one a chance to truly learn.

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Autor: Ashutosh Jogalekar· 02.07.09 · 23:01 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

Making ends meet; Mr. Fantastic, hedgehogs and the dance of the bonds

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Englische Postings·Naturwissenschaften·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009·ScienceBlogs Kategorien·Vorträge / Lectures

Today's talk by MIT chemist Richard Schrock was about a discovery that was applied in part to a long-standing chemical problem. There was no efficient method for forming large molecular rings until Robert Grubbs from Caltech and Schrock arrived on the scene. The method that accomplished this was called olefin metathesis. For their achievement, Schrock and Grubbs shared the Nobel Prize in 2005 with French chemist Yves Chauvin. Just as the Nobel Prize for GFP was long anticipated in the community of biochemists, the Nobel Prize for metathesis had been long anticipated in the community of organic chemists. Nobody was surprised when Grubbs and Schrock received it.

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Autor: Ashutosh Jogalekar· 02.07.09 · 16:25 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

Erwin Neher im Interview: Proofing the Channel Concept

Kategorie: Deutsche Postings·Englische Postings·Naturwissenschaften·ScienceBlogs Kategorien·Video-Interviews

Für seine Entdeckungen zur Funktion von einzelnen Ionenkanälen in Zellen wurde Erwin Neher 1991 mit dem Nobelpreis für Medizin oder Physiologie ausgezeichnet. In seinem Vortrag am Dienstag sprach Neher über die molekularen Mechanismen der Signalübertragung zwischen Synapsen und erklärte welche Rolle die Freisetzung und Wiederaufnahme von Neurotransmittern hat.

Im Interview erinnert er sich an die Ausgangsbedingungen und technischen Schwierigkeiten seiner damaligen Arbeiten, die ihm am Ende den Nobelpreis einbrachten. Er erklärt die Vorgehensweise und den Forschungsprozess, der sich über viele Jahre erstreckte und spricht am Ende über seine derzeitigen Forschungsschwerpunkte.

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Erwin Neher was awarded the 1991 Nobel for Medicine or Physiology along with Bert Sakmann for their discoveries concerning the function of single ion channels in cells. His talk here in Lindau was about the molecular mechanisms at a synapse.

In the interview Neher goes back to the old days and talks about his first steps in his hot spot of science. Surely there have been certain kinds of technical difficulties in the beginning of his research, but finally he was honored with a Nobelprize. What have been the decisions and what was the research progress over several years? And last not least (!) Neher talks about his current research.

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Autor: ScienceBlogs-Redaktion· 02.07.09 · 15:45 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

Open Access: A media talk

Kategorie: Englische Postings·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009·Panorama·Politik·Technik

Kroto again. On Tuesday there was a press talk with Sir Harold Kroto, Bora Zivkovic from PLoS and Jason Wilde from Nature. Since all participants had a lot to say and the time schedule was very tight, the discussion could not immerse into the material properly.

Most of you might know that the Open Access Movement tries to solve the problem of misparity, that public research is published in magazines which the normal population does not read since it would be too expensive. The idea is that scientific results and articles written about such should be freely accessible. There are different approaches to that. Natures publishing policy allows authors to publish their articles on their own website or in academic archives after a period of six months. PLoS proceeds from there and is completely accessible.

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Autor: Jessica Riccò· 02.07.09 · 13:15 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

A many-colored glass; the glow of life and the joy of discovery

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Englische Postings·Naturwissenschaften·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009·ScienceBlogs Kategorien·Vorträge / Lectures

Last year's chemistry Nobel Prize was one of the most softball predictions ever made for the Nobel Prize. The Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) has become so widely used in chemistry, biology and medicine that it is easy to forget that someone had to discover it and develop the technology. Every year Roger Tsien's name used to be on everybody's favorite candidate list along with Martin Chalfie's and Osamu Shimomura's. Then last year, he along with Shimomura and Chalfie finally put the tortuous process and spilling of ink to rest.

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Autor: Ashutosh Jogalekar· 02.07.09 · 11:22 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

Aaron Ciechanover im Interview: Selectivity and Specificity in a Destructive Process

Kategorie: Deutsche Postings·Englische Postings·Kultur·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009·Video-Interviews

Aaron Ciechanover, Nobelpreisträger des Jahres 2004, skizzierte am Dienstagvormittag die Geschichte der pharmazeutischen Forschung des letzten Jahrhunderts und die Herausforderungen für die Arzneimittelentwicklung. Im Interview spricht der Biochemiker u.a. über Besonderheiten des Proteinabbaus, der Beziehung zu seinem Heimatland Israel und sein Verständnis eines gelungenen Forscherlebens.

Aaron Ciechanover is a biochemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2004. In his talk he focussed the history of pharmaceutical research in the twentieth century and the challenges of drug design. In this interview the biochemist also explains the peculiarities of protein decomposition.

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Autor: Marc Scheloske· 02.07.09 · 10:00 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

The dinner companion

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Englische Postings·Medizin·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009

When you first meet Aaron Ciechanover, he appears to have the distracted air of a man who feels slightly inconvenienced to be in whatever situation has been apparently imposed on him. But this preoccupied demeanor belies a mind which is ready to hold forth on a disparate variety of topics with infinite verve and enthusiasm and which is not reluctant to be politically incorrect, provocative and utterly honest. And it hides a broad smile which is very readily revealed at the mention of a favourite incident or fact.

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Autor: Ashutosh Jogalekar· 01.07.09 · 23:36 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

Ordering the best appetizer platter; Harry Kroto's many passions

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Englische Postings·Kultur·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009

When I visit my favourite restaurant for lunch or dinner, I usually order a legitimate food item from the main course. But once in a while, just to indulge, I order a sample platter of appetizers. The appetizers don't always provide the deep satisfaction that I get from eating a proper, expensive food item. But they provide me with a different kind of unique satisfaction; they give me a glimpse of what's new, what's possible. They provide a view of the diversity that can emerge in a plate of bite-sized chunks. And through their frequent novelty, they give me hope that there are new possibilities on the horizon. These appetizers constitute occasional but necessary fodder. Sir Harold Kroto's talk was one of the most satisfying platter of appetizers I have sampled, and I had not even ordered it.

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Autor: Ashutosh Jogalekar· 01.07.09 · 18:45 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

Real Nobel Laureates - second act: Aaron Ciechanover

Kategorie: Englische Postings·Kultur·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009·Randnotizen / Marginal Notes

The second Nobel afternoon on the Isle of Lindau offered the oppurtunity to participants to discuss with Ciechanover, Molina, Noyori, Neher and Rowland. Although this time five laureates (other than three on Monday) were available and the weather rather suggested a trip to the next swimming pool, I met at least 300 fellow young researchers who had the same idea as me. Some even didn't get a seat in the hall "Bavaria". He obviously managed to do some good advertisement for his own talk.

The discussion was different from Ertls in many ways. Before we were allowed to ask questions, Ciechanover held a short speech on aspects that he wasn't able to mention in the morning because of a lack of time. After he outlined his vision of a personalized, genom-based medicine, he made clear which ethical and moral consequences we have to face. How should we handle the gene-based "total information" about ourselves and others? What do you do, if you know about your 80 percent to come down with breast cancer? Would you even sire offspring if you knew they would carry the same risks? Without a doubt that was a very philosophical introduction.

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Autor: Jessica Riccò· 01.07.09 · 18:30 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

Burning questions

Kategorie: Englische Postings·Naturwissenschaften·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009  ·  Kommentare: 1

Three thoughts went through my mind as I listened to yesterday's panel discussion about the role and future of chemistry for renewable energy. The first was mild horror. The second was intrigue. And the third was disenchantment.

The horror
Previously, all three winners of the 1995 chemistry Nobel - Sherwood Rowland, Paul Crutzen and Mario Molina, whose work revealed how humans were destroying the ozone layer - had spoken about the impact of greenhouse gases on Earth's climate. Graphs showed scary recent rises in everything: carbon dioxide emissions, global population, Earth's temperature... Facts seeped into my bones like guilt: in just one year we use fossil fuels that took a million years to create, for instance.

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Autor: Matthew Chalmers· 01.07.09 · 13:10 Uhr· 1 Kommentar

The friendly laureate

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Englische Postings·Medizin

Image source

Peter Agre has got to be one of the nicest scientists I have ever met. Until now I had only one data point to support this conclusion; a very enjoyable chat with him along with some other students last year at Emory University. Now I have two. Today in an informal, entertaining, witty and informative 40-minute exchange I "interviewed" the man who discovered one of the fundamental determinants of fluid homeostasis in mammals; the water channels or aquaporins. The word 'interview' is really a misnomer since the interview was much more of an informal conversation with a very friendly and witty person.

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Autor: Ashutosh Jogalekar· 30.06.09 · 22:55 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

School's out at Lindau

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Englische Postings·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009·Politik

In three weeks' time, 280 high-school chemistry students from all over the world will meet in Cambridge in the UK for their most gruelling academic experience to date: the 41st International Chemistry Olympiad.

Founded in eastern Europe in the late 1960s, in part to increase contact with other countries, the Olympiad competitions are held every year in chemistry, physics, biology, maths and, more recently, informatics. Standards are high. Those 280 students have come through tough selection procedures in their home nations, each country putting just four entrants forward. In the UK, for instance, 2000 chemistry students were whittled down to about 20 via a two-hour exam, and the final four were those who came top in a subsequent three hour theory and three hour practical exam.

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Autor: Matthew Chalmers· 30.06.09 · 18:51 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

But is it chemistry? The curious case of Roger Kornberg

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Englische Postings·Geschichte / History·Kultur

Image source: Nobel Foundation

Every year as Nobel Prize winning season approaches, one sees a flurry of predictions about prizewinners materializing on blogs. I have played the prediction game myself for a couple of years. When I was in graduate school one of my professors offered to give extra points to anyone in the class who could predict that year's winner. I had a gut feeling that the structure of the ribosome might get it (I think they still might get it). The prize did indeed go to the determination of a biological structure, but it went to Peter Agre and Roderick McKinnon for their work on water and potassium channels respectively.

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Autor: Ashutosh Jogalekar· 30.06.09 · 16:44 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

The other Walter Kohn

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Englische Postings·Geschichte / History·Technik

Image source

Since Walter Kohn's talk in this year's meeting is about a topic completely unrelated to his Nobel Prize winning research, it is worth contemplating briefly on the great impact of his major contribution to chemistry and physics.

Kohn was originally trained as a physicist under the tutelage of Julian Schwinger at Harvard University. Schwinger had been a child prodigy and was known in the world of physics in the same way that a supremely talented virtuoso violinist might be known in the world of music. He was always impeccably dressed and drove a fancy Cadillac. His talks and papers were densely mathematical and used to leave listeners and readers flabbergasted. There were few people who could keep up with him when he gave a talk, frequently lasting for three or fours hours. However, as brilliant as he was, one physicist noted that his talks were like a virtuoso violinist's highly polished performances, more technique than physical insight. Nevertheless Schwinger essentially fathered the field of quantum electrodynamics along with Richard Feynman, Sin-Itiro Tomonaga and Freeman Dyson. Schwinger, Tomonaga and Feynman were awarded the Nobel Prize for their efforts in 1965.

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Autor: Ashutosh Jogalekar· 30.06.09 · 13:30 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

Valuable links for todays Open Access panel

Kategorie: Englische Postings·Kultur·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009  ·  Kommentare: 2

Today I am very pleased to have the chance to moderate a press panel about Open Access at 4 p.m. Nobel Laureate Sir Harald Kroto will tell us about his efforts to improve science education with different online projects. Dr. Jason Wild, publisher of Nature Physics, will tell us, what Nature Publishing Group does for Open Access. And Bora Zivkovic, community manager at PLoS may give us some insights in the OA movement.

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Autor: Beatrice Lugger· 30.06.09 · 11:55 Uhr· 2 Kommentare

Lindau, day two: Drugs, Warming and Calcium

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Englische Postings·Medizin·Naturwissenschaften·ScienceBlogs Kategorien

Waste is not usually a popular topic for polite conversation. Biochemists also avoided it for many years, thinking of protein degradation as a general process that simply gets rid of unwanted biological waste. It was not until Aaron Ciechanover, Avram Hershko and Irwin Rose discovered the ubiquitin-based protein degradation system that the specificity and centrality of this process in life was recognized. Ubiquitin, as the name indicates, is a small protein that is ubiquitously expressed in eukaryotes. It binds to unwanted and broken down proteins and peptides and labels them for recognition by the proteasome, where they are broken down. Both ubiquitin and the proteasome have emerged as key features of living systems. They underscore the notion that death is as important as life. Not only have both of these become important in the study of biological processes but the proteasome has also emerged as a possible target for drugs.

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Autor: Ashutosh Jogalekar· 30.06.09 · 11:15 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

Pictures from the Get Together Monday night

Kategorie: Englische Postings·Kultur·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009  ·  Kommentare: 2

I like this type of blogposts. Three lines of text and lots of pictures. Below impressions from the Get Together on Monday night. The event was hosted by S.E. Chavan, the Indian Minister for Science and Technology.

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Autor: Tobias· 30.06.09 · 08:28 Uhr· 2 Kommentare

So what did you do after you won a Nobel Prize?

Kategorie: Englische Postings·Geschichte / History·Kultur

There have been people who resented winning the Nobel Prize. And I don't mean they actually looked down upon it with disrespect. I simply mean that they were terrified of the rock-star status and the public celebrity aura that accompanies the receipt of the prize. When the famously taciturn English physicist Paul Dirac won the prize, a reporter called him up to ask him what he felt. Dirac asked the reporter whether there was a way he could actually decline the prize and avoid publicity. The reporter, who was probably a little more worldly-wise than Dirac, replied that Dirac risked facing much more publicity if he declined the prize; it was probably best to boldly face the resulting mobbing.

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Autor: Ashutosh Jogalekar· 30.06.09 · 00:26 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

Chemist or physicist?

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Englische Postings·Naturwissenschaften·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009

Walter Kohn shared the 1998 Nobel prize for chemistry, but in his 86 years he has never taken a university course in the subject. That was not by choice, as Kohn described to me when I caught up with him earlier today: it was due to the Second World War.

Although born an Austrian, Kohn automatically became a German citizen in 1938 when his country was taken over. He had just turned 15 and was angry that events had forced him to cancel his birthday party. Four years later, having fled Austria (initially for the UK), Kohn wound up in Toronto where the family that eventually took him in introduced him to a professor who advised Kohn to enrol in a demanding maths and physics programme at Toronto University.

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Autor: Matthew Chalmers· 29.06.09 · 22:53 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

Surface success

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Englische Postings·Naturwissenschaften·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009·ScienceBlogs Kategorien

Last night, I was lulled to sleep by the sound of 2007 chemistry laureate Gerhard Ertl's gentle voice. Ertl wasn't in my hotel room, I hasten to add. I had switched on my television and there he was on local network giving an interview... in German, naturally.

I managed to identify a few words, such as "electron", "atom", "positive" and "negative" and so assumed he was discussing his prizewinning work in surface chemistry, which explained how fundamental molecular processes at the gas-solid interface take place. I thought to myself that it would be highly unlikely to come across such a good, old-fashioned technical interview on a UK television channel. Then I fell asleep.

This morning, from the window of a bus, I spotted Ertl in the middle of a roundabout -- this time in the form of a giant black and white portrait in a gallery erected to publicize the 59th Lindau meeting.
Finally, there he was in the flesh - kicking off the meeting with a half hour talk about, you guessed it, surface chemistry.

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Autor: Matthew Chalmers· 29.06.09 · 16:00 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

Lindau: Day one, Session one

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Englische Postings·Naturwissenschaften·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009  ·  Kommentare: 1

9.00 A.M. We bicycle down the scenic streets to the Bodensee where the sessions is going to be held in the Inselhalle. The meeting begins in front of a packed audience in the Inselhalle. The region is known for apples and these grace the tables outside. Students and scholars from all nationalities are seen, eager to open their minds. Gerhard Ertl (Chemistry, 2007) begins his talk. Ertl received the Nobel Prize for his pioneering studies of reactions on surfaces.

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Autor: Ashutosh Jogalekar· 29.06.09 · 13:47 Uhr· 1 Kommentar

Surfaces, ammonia, ozone and scientific destiny

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Englische Postings·Geschichte / History·Naturwissenschaften

Ask an informed layman what he or she thinks is the greatest science-based industrial discovery or invention of all time and the person will likely name the computer, the transistor, the telephone, the incandescent light or perhaps even the blast furnace. But key as all these inventions were to humanity's progress, there is perhaps one industrial discovery that surpasses them in the sheer earth-shattering and fundamental change it brought about not only in the struggles of human survival but in the bedrock of our very existence on this planet. That discovery is the discovery of the means to artificially fix nitrogen to produce ammonia; the Haber-Bosch process that takes atmospheric nitrogen and turns it into ammonia by combining it with hydrogen, usually obtained from methane. The machine that would make this discovery possible was invented by two men who, akin to the fantastic prophets of biblical lore, literally succeeded in turning air into bread.

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Autor: Ashutosh Jogalekar· 28.06.09 · 23:44 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

Colourful Lindau: The mysterious conference keychains

Kategorie: Englische Postings·Kultur·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009·Randnotizen / Marginal Notes

Every year Lindau is the meeting point of highly motivated and talented young researchers. An entire week they pause with their work in the lab. Instead they have discussions with other researchers and Nobel laureates on their agenda until friday.

Nevertheless the Lindau comittee seems to fear that the participants, for whom solving problems is everyday work, might get underburdened. Therefore the conference always holds tiny opportunities to puzzle and work meticulously. Mysteries at the Lindau conference are the accreditation and release of the keychains.

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Autor: Jessica Riccò· 28.06.09 · 19:00 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

Beware! German Gastfreundschaft ends if you are not on time

Kategorie: Englische Postings·Kultur·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009  ·  Kommentare: 2

Pünktlichkeit, Gastfreundschaft, Gemütlichkeit. Three German expressions all 500 young researchers traveling to Lindau should keep in their active vocabulary. How are these 500 selected anyway?

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Autor: Tobias· 28.06.09 · 01:21 Uhr· 2 Kommentare

Let the mobbing commence!

Kategorie: Englische Postings·Geistes- & Sozialwissenschaften·Panorama

You're unlikely to find a larger congregation of Nobel-prize winners than on the island of Lindau in southern Germany. Each year, a couple of dozen laureates from one of the four Nobel disciplines descend on Lindau's 'Inselhalle' conference centre for a week of talks and discussions in the picturesque surrounds of Lake Constance. The 2009 meeting is devoted to chemistry, and next year's (marking the 60th anniversary of the Lindau meetings) is a mega event with prizewinners from all disciplines. Yet despite laureates being safely corralled on the island, tracking one down during breaks to ask a few questions is tougher than you might think.

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Autor: Jessica Riccò· 26.06.09 · 23:59 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

What's special about the Lindau Meeting

Kategorie: Englische Postings·Kultur·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009

Who once had the opportunity to join Lindau, will never forget it and ask itself at many other conferences and meetings, why one may not succeed in creating a similar atmosphere.

Most conferences are a dust-dry matter - except the evenings at the hotel bar or the special dinner. Lindau against it is a living swarm of bees and at the same time an oasis of the rest. How can this be?

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Autor: Beatrice Lugger· 26.06.09 · 09:45 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

Diversity of talks; diversity of science

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Englische Postings·Naturwissenschaften

A look at the program for the Lindau meetings this year indicates to me that the topics of the presentations and talks could be roughly split into three categories, by no means mutually exclusive. The kinds of topics that are covered also indicate the diversity of research that chemistry involves itself in.

1. Personal talks: These involve personal research and other perspectives. Notable among these are NMR pioneer Richard Ernst's interesting perspective on pursuing interests other than science and aquaporin discoverer Peter Agre's accounts of investigating water distribution and storage in natural systems by kayaking in the Arctic.

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Autor: Ashutosh Jogalekar· 25.06.09 · 16:20 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

Catalysis: A classic for the future

Kategorie: Englische Postings·Lectures·Naturwissenschaften  ·  Kommentare: 1

Exactly one hundred years ago the chemist Wilhelm Ostwald received the Nobel prize for his work on the topic of catalysis. And as we see today his research work have really been pathbreaking: Without catalysts modern chemistry would not be possible. It is only logical, that catalysis also plays a major role in this year's Nobel Laureates Meeting.

Which basic meaning catalysis has for nowadays chemistry can already be seen on the fact, that in the last three years three Nobel Prizes in chemistry were given to scientists that worked in catalysis research.

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Autor: Jessica Riccò· 23.06.09 · 11:30 Uhr· 1 Kommentar

Exemplifying Apprenticeship: The Lindau Meetings

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Englische Postings·Geschichte / History·Naturwissenschaften

The tradition of apprenticeship has long and august roots. Through the millennia, young men and women wanting to acquire knowledge have traveled far and wide to learn at the feet of the masters of the trade. In China, India and Europe for instance, it was customary for students to travel hundreds or thousands of miles to take up residence in a city or university where the best practitioner in their field was to be found. The students hungrily lapped up the knowledge that the master had to offer. In return their existence was intimately intertwined with that of their teacher, with many of them living in the homes of their teachers and helping out in daily chores.

The apprenticeship tradition was a necessary one in ages where electronic communication was non-existent, relatively few books and papers were published, and actual physical contact was the only way for someone to learn. The tradition guaranteed the existence of "schools" of thought, perpetuated from one generation to another. We see this tradition blazing across the history of civilization, from the famous Aristotelian school to the more recent twentieth century school of Arnold Sommerfeld in Munich.

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Autor: Ashutosh Jogalekar· 21.06.09 · 15:54 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

Lindau - where Nobel Laureates meet

Kategorie: Englische Postings·Kultur·Panorama

A couple of weeks ago, I went on a bike trip. Starting at the Rhine Falls, Europes biggest waterfall, I rode from Switzerland towards Lake Constance. For lack of a digital camera I did unfortunately not constantly take pictures of the landscape. Nevertheless there are many, many, many users on flickr who did.

The lake is located between Germany, Austria and Switzerland, about two hours by car from either Munich or Zurich. I think it is not an exaggeration to say that the countryside around Lake Constance is one of the most picturesque in Europe. About 4.5 miles of the 170-mile-long coastline of Lake Constance are located in Lindau. Appertaining to the town is a small island of the same name in which Lindau's old town is resided. While today about 3,000 inhabitants live on the tiny island there used to live up to 6,000 people in the 1920's! Today 25.000 people in the city of Lindau that along with the island covers an area of 20 square miles.

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Autor: Jessica Riccò· 17.06.09 · 15:30 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

The 59th Nobel Laureates Meeting in Lindau: Chemistry as key to the future?

Kategorie: Englische Postings·Kultur·Randnotizen / Marginal Notes

Every year - always starting at the last weekend of June - the Nobel Laureates meet in Lindau at Lake Constance. This year's meeting is all about chemistry. ScienceBlogs accompanies the conference in this blog. With live reports directly from the island hall in Lindau and with many articles about this unique scientific event.

It is always sort of a „family reunion" of Nobel Laureates when by the end of June the "Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting" takes place. This year's focus lies on chemistry and the participants are looking forward to an interesting program with various talks and panels.

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Autor: Marc Scheloske· 12.06.09 · 08:30 Uhr· 0 Kommentare