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How the winners of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry have transformed research and saved lives
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2018 has been awarded to three researchers for their work on “harnessing the power of evolution” to create compounds that are of benefit to humanity. One half of the nine million Swedish kronor (£770,686) prize will go to the American Frances Arnold from the California Institute of Technology, US. The other half will go jointly to the American George Smith from the University of Missouri, US, and the Brit Gregory Winter from the MRC lab in Cambridge, UK.
Emissions inequality: there is a gulf between global rich and poor
American congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently shook up environmental politics by releasing a broad outline of a Green New Deal – a plan to make the US a carbon-neutral economy in the next ten years, while reducing both poverty and inequality. Lauded by many as a radical and necessary step, president Trump responded in typical style:
Seawater on tap- disseminating the reality of drinking water
The ancient Greeks understood that boiling seawater produces a drinkable vapor; 18th century sailors experimented with catching this vapor in sponges to facilitate their thirst on long voyages. Contemporary desalination began similarly: boiling seawater (by burning petroleum or natural gas)…
Algorithms have already taken over human decision making
Dionysios Demetis, University of Hull I can still recall my surprise when a book by evolutionary biologist Peter Lawrence entitled “The making of a fly” came to be priced on Amazon at $23,698,655.93 (plus $3.99 shipping). While my colleagues around…