Breaking! Nobel laureate Steinman died last Friday — and posthumous awards are not allowed.

October 3, 2011

UPDATE 2! Steinman will keep his award. 

 The Nobel foundation said in a statement:

The decision to award the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to the late Ralph Steinman shall remain unchanged, in keeping with the earlier announcement from the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet.

As announced earlier, Ralph Steinman – one of this year’s three Nobel Laureates in Physiology or Medicine – died on September 30. This information reached the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet via the president of Rockefeller University, where Steinman worked, at 14.30 CET on October 3, 2011. Earlier the same day, at 11.30 CET, the Nobel Assembly had announced the 2011 Nobel Laureates in Physiology or Medicine without knowing of Ralph Steinman’s death. 

The events that have occurred are unique and, to the best of our knowledge, are unprecedented in the history of the Nobel Prize. In light of this, the Board of the Nobel Foundation has held a meeting this afternoon. According to the statutes of the Nobel Foundation, work produced by a person since deceased shall not be given an award. However, the statutes specify that if a person has been awarded a prize and has died before receiving it, the prize may be presented.

An interpretation of the purpose of this rule leads to the conclusion that Ralph Steinman shall be awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The purpose of the above-mentioned rule is to make it clear that the Nobel Prize shall not deliberately be awarded posthumously. However, the decision to award the Nobel Prize to Ralph Steinman was made in good faith, based on the assumption that the Nobel Laureate was alive. This was true – though not at the time of the decision – only a day or so previously. The Nobel Foundation thus believes that what has occurred is more reminiscent of the example in the statutes concerning a person who has been named as a Nobel Laureate and has died before the actual Nobel Prize Award Ceremony.

The decision made by the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet thus remains unchanged.

UPDATE!

Press release: It is with deep sadness and regret that the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has learned that Professor Ralph Steinman, one of this year´s three Nobel Laureates in Physiology or Medicine, passed away on September 30. This message was conveyed by The President of The Rockefeller University, where Professor Steinman worked, at 2.30 pm (CET), Monday October 3, 2011, after the decision and announcement about this year´s Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine. Our thoughts are with Ralph Steinman´s family and colleagues.

The Nobel Assembly, consisting of 50 professors at Karolinska Institutet, awards the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Its Nobel Committee evaluates the nominations. Since 1901 the Nobel Prize has been awarded to scientists who have made the most important discoveries for the benefit of mankind.

BBC reports: In 1931, Erik Axel Karlfeldt was posthumously awarded the Nobel prize for literature, but the rules were changed in 1974. The Nobel Foundation states: “Work produced by a person since deceased shall not be considered for an award. If, however, a prizewinner dies before he has received the prize, then the prize may be presented.” This happened in 1996 when William Vickrey died between the announcement and the prize ceremony.

The issue is being discussed at the moment and a decision should be made by Tuesday.

=======================================

This morning Ralph M. Steinman was one of 3 scientists awarded the Nobel prize for medicine ”for his discovery of the dendritic cell and its role in adaptive immunity“.

Swedish Radio has just announced that Prof. Steinman apparently passed away last Friday and the Nobel Awards committee was not aware of this when they announced the awards today. He died of cancer which he had been suffering from for the last 4 years. He passed away without knowing he had been awarded the prize.

The Nobel rules do not allow for posthumous awards and there is now some confusion as to whether Steinman will be a Nobel laureate or not.

Ralph M. Steinman was born in 1943 in Montreal, Canada, where he studied biology and chemistry at McGill University. After studying medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA, USA, he received his MD in 1968. He has been affiliated with Rockefeller University in New York since 1970, has been professor of immunology at this institution since 1988, and is also director of its Center for Immunology and Immune Diseases.

Portrait of Professor Ralph M. Steinman

Professor Ralph M. Steinman 1943 - 2011

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Posted in Medicine, Nobel Prize, Sweden | 1 Comment »

Acquired, hereditary epignetic codes could evolve faster than genetic mutations

October 3, 2011

Lamarckism  – after the French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829) – is the idea that an organism can pass on characteristics that it has acquired during its lifetime to its offspring (soft inheritance). Publication of Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection, and Mendelian genetics led to the general abandonment of the Lamarckian theory of evolution in biology. Despite this abandonment, interest in Lamarckism has recently increased, as several studies in the field of epigenetics have highlighted the possible inheritance of behavioral traits acquired by the previous generation.

Hard inheritance is the passing down of the constant nucleotide sequence of DNA which only changes by rare random mutation. The very slowness of this rate of mutation – and since mutations are usually not beneficial – has been a problem in explaining the variation and diversity observed in particular species. The variations observed in modern humans and which have presumably been generated within just the last 50,000 to 100, 000 years are difficult to explain by natural selection alone especially since there have only been some 5,000 generations available for this diversity to have been established.

A mechanism has long been sought for soft inheritance where environmental influences can be brought into play. Epigenetic mechanisms leave DNA sequence unaltered but can affect DNA by preventing the expression of genes.

A new paper in Science provides some further evidence that the epigenome may well be the hereditary “carrier” of environmental effects but may also cause much more rapid change than genetic mutations.

Science Daily: A “hidden” code linked to the DNA of plants allows them to develop and pass down new biological traits far more rapidly than previously thought, according to the findings of a groundbreaking study by researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. The study, published September 16 in the journal Science, provides the first evidence that an organism’s “epigenetic” code — an extra layer of biochemical instructions in DNA — can evolve more quickly than the genetic code and can strongly influence biological traits. ……..

…. Now that they have shown the extent to which spontaneous epigenetic mutations occur, the Salk researchers plan to unravel the biochemical mechanisms that allow these changes to arise and get passed from one generation to the next.

They also hope to explore how different environmental conditions, such as differences in temperature, might drive epigenetic change in the plants, or, conversely, whether epigenetic traits provide the plants with more flexibility in coping with environmental change.

“We think these epigenetic events might silence genes when they aren’t needed, then turned them back on when external conditions warrant,” Ecker said. “We won’t know how important these epimutations are until we measure the effect on plant traits, and we’re just now to the point where we can do these experiments. It’s very exciting.”

Read Article

R. J. Schmitz, M. D. Schultz, M. G. Lewsey, R. C. O’Malley, M. A. Urich, O. Libiger, N. J. Schork, J. R. Ecker.Transgenerational Epigenetic Instability Is a Source of Novel Methylation Variants. Science, 2011; DOI:10.1126/science.1212959

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Posted in Evolution, Science | Comments Off on Acquired, hereditary epignetic codes could evolve faster than genetic mutations

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine awarded – half to Beutler and Hoffman and half to Steinman

October 3, 2011

The 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded today and the 3 winners are in the field of immunology.

The prize was divided, one half jointly to Bruce A. Beutler and Jules A. Hoffmann “for their discoveries concerning the activation of innate immunity” and the other half to Ralph M. Steinman “for his discovery of the dendritic cell and its role in adaptive immunity“.

The Thomson Reuter predictions – this time – missed the mark.

Official press release here. 

Summary

This year’s Nobel Laureates have revolutionized our understanding of the immune system by discovering key principles for its activation.

Scientists have long been searching for the gatekeepers of the immune response by which man and other animals defend themselves against attack by bacteria and other microorganisms. Bruce Beutler and Jules Hoffmann discovered receptor proteins that can recognize such microorganisms and activate innate immunity, the first step in the body’s immune response. Ralph Steinman discovered the dendritic cells of the immune system and their unique capacity to activate and regulate adaptive immunity, the later stage of the immune response during which microorganisms are cleared from the body.

The discoveries of the three Nobel Laureates have revealed how the innate and adaptive phases of the immune response are activated and thereby provided novel insights into disease mechanisms. Their work has opened up new avenues for the development of prevention and therapy against infections, cancer, and inflammatory diseases.

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Posted in Medicine, Nobel Prize, Science, Sweden | 3 Comments »

Time for the 2011 Nobel prize announcements: Medicine today

October 3, 2011

UPDATE!

The Literature Nobel will be announced on Thursday 6th October.

Starting today with the prize for physiology or medicine the Nobel prize winners for 2011 will be announced over the next 10 days.

The schedule for the announcements is:

  • October 3rd: Physiology or medicine
  • October 4th: Physics
  • October 5th: Chemistry
  • ??October 13th??  October 6th : Literature (According to tradition, the Swedish Academy has not yet set the date for its announcement of the Nobel Prize in Literature)
  • October 7th: Peace
  • October 10th: Economic sciences (Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel
The Thomson-Reuters predictions for the possible winners of the medicine /physiology prize to be announced today are:
  • Robert L. Coffman Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer, Dynavax Technologies, Berkeley, CA USA 
    WHY: with Timothy R. Mosmann, for their discovery of two types of T lymphocytes, TH1 and TH2, and their role in regulating host immune response
  • Brian J. Druker JELD-WEN Chair of Leukemia Research, and Director, OHSU Knight Cancer Institute, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland OR USA 
    WHY: with Nicholas B. Lydon and Charles L. Sawyers for their development of imatinib and dasatinib, revolutionary, targeted treatments for chronic myeloid leukemia
  • Robert S. Langer David H. Koch Institute Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA USA 
    WHY: with Joseph P. Vacanti, for their pioneering research in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine
  • Nicholas B. Lydon Founder, Granite Biopharma, LLC, Jackson Hole, WY USA; Co-founder and Director, AnaptysBio, San Diego, CA USA; and Co-founder and Director, Blueprint Medicines, Cambridge, MA USA 
    WHY: with Brian J. Druker and Charles L. Sawyers for their development of imatinib and dasatinib, revolutionary, targeted treatments for chronic myeloid leukemia
  • Jacques F. A. P. Miller Emeritus Professor, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research and the University of Melbourne, Parkville, Melbourne, Australia 
    WHY: for his discovery of the function of the thymus and the identification of T cells and B cells in mammalian species
  • Timothy R. Mosmann Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, and Michael and Angela Pichichero Director in the David H. Smith Center for Vaccine Biology and Immunology, University of Rochester Medical Center, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY USA 
    WHY: with Robert L. Coffman, for their discovery of two types of T lymphocytes, TH1 and TH2, and their role in regulating host immune response
  • Charles L. Sawyers Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Chair in Human Oncology and Pathogenesis, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY USA. Also, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator 
    WHY: with Brian J. Druker and Nicholas B. Lydon Charles L. Sawyers for their development of imatinib and dasatinib, revolutionary, targeted treatments for chronic myeloid leukemia
  • Joseph P. Vacanti John Homans Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School; Surgeon-in-Chief and Chief of the Department of Pediatric Surgery and Director of the Laboratory for Tissue Engineering and Organ Fabrication, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA USA 
    WHY: with Robert S. Langer, for their pioneering research in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine

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Posted in Science, Sweden | 1 Comment »

Wikileaks cable reveals the fraud that is the Kyoto protocol

October 1, 2011

Prof. Dr. Ottmar Edenhofer is the Co-Chair of Working Group III of the IPCC – deputy director and chief economist of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Researck (PIK). PIK is somewhat notorious for being a scientific institution where all their results are governed and constrained by political correctness. Only results which support global warming dogma are ever published by PIK. It is also the institution which is home for the sea level alarmist Stefan Rahmstorf.

But last year even a high priest such as Ottmar Edenhoffer was forced to admit:

“But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy.  Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this.  One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy.  This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.”

It becomes increasingly apparent that climate policy has very little to do with science and everything to do with creating and tapping into vast flows of money. And now courtesy of the Wikileaks cable releases we learn:

Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Fraud, India, Natural Phenomena, Scientific Fraud | 1 Comment »

Another case of misconduct at a private Indian college: Plagiarism at Nagpur College of Engineering

October 1, 2011

(link updated)

K. S. Jayaraman of Nature India reports on a blatant case of plagiarism at the G. H. Raisoni College of Engineering in Nagpur. Not only did a doctoral student, Parag Puranik, copy material from an American scientist but the Director of the institute, Preeti Bajaj, added her name as a co-author but she denies any knowledge of the admitted plagiarism nor does she take any responsibility.

Director Dr. Preeti Bajaj

Unfortunately the habit of senior academic staff merely adding their names onto papers written by their juniors seems to be quite prevalent. And – as in this case – where they provide no guidance, exercise no quality asssurance and probably do not even read what has been written by their students but are quite happy to add another publication to their list, they exhibit the worst kind of parasitic behaviour.

In yet another case of misconduct, scientists of a large PhD-granting research university in India have confessed having plagiarised a paper from an American scientist. The institute G. H. Raisoni College of Engineering in Nagpur, Maharashtra has named one of its doctoral students Parag Puranik for copying material from a paper by Lior Shamir, assistant professor of computer science, at the Lawrence Technological University in Southfield, Michigan. The co-authors of the paper, which include the director of the institute, say they had no knowledge of this blatant copying.

American computer scientist Shamir was shocked to notice that an important paper he published in 2006 was recycled and copied not once but thrice by a group of researchers at the Nagpur institute. “I became aware of it recently after I received an anonymous e-mail,” Shamir told Nature India.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted in Academic misconduct, Behaviour, Education, scientific misconduct | 2 Comments »

Even subsidies fail to stimulate electric vehicle sales in Europe

September 30, 2011

The fundamental problem with using subsidies for political purposes is that something that is fundamentally unsound and not viable is supported by tax-payer money in the hope that it will become viable. I take it for granted however that subsidies are nearly always misplaced, subject to and induce gross misuse and are generally counter-productive for the political objectives they have. In my experience subsidies tend to hinder rather than help the development of new technologies. They particularly reduce the pressure on the developers to reduce costs for new technologies and are too easily misused. The emphasis always becomes the maximisation of the subsidies that can be extorted rather than the proper commercialisation and deployment of the new technology.

Subsidies for electric vehicles are equally misplaced and sales in Europe demonstrate that these incentives are particularly ineffective.  It is probably time to dismantle all such subsidies which only distort the market and to let the development and commercialisation of electric vehicles follow a more healthy course.

Incentives fail to stimulate European electric vehicle sales

New research from JATO Dynamics finds that despite a variety of subsidy programs, electric vehicle (EV) sales in Europe remain stubbornly unresponsive to financialincentives during the first six months of 2011.

Europe has a wide range of incentives in place, but they do not appear to correlate closely with sales of electric vehicles.  For example, Spain (€6,500) and Great Britain (€6,400) have almost identical subsidies, but Great Britain registered almost five times the volume of EVs (599 versus 122) during the first half of 2011. Sweden registers an almost identical volume as Spain (111) but subsidizes each vehicle by only €470.

Denmark offers tax breaks that can potentially amount to €20,588 per vehicle, but there were only 283 registrations in the first half of 2011.

“The discrepancies highlight the apparent low influence of price on purchase decisions across the region,” says Gareth Hession, vice-president for Research at JATO. “It’s reasonable to conclude that sales are more affected by other factors such as the degree of urban geography, market maturity and charging infrastructure than was previously thought.”

Total registrations were only 5,222 in the first half of 2011.

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Posted in Automobiles, Behaviour, Business, Politics | 1 Comment »

Spotify undone

September 30, 2011
Image representing Spotify as depicted in Crun...

Image via CrunchBase

I have just returned after a weeks travel on an assignment and was disappointed to find the Spotify decision that new users must have an account with Facebook in order to sign up at all.

My son had introduced me to Spotify 6 months ago and I found it interesting and a channel for music that I used from time to time. I had always expected to increase my usage of Spotify. But I find their Facebook connection coercive and manipulative and – in my opinion – unethical.

I am much too old and much too old-fashioned to be in their target audience and my actions will not have any impact on them or their success or failure. But then I do not find the use of Facebook or Twitter to be a vital or a valuable or a necessary part of my daily life. No doubt their main target audience do not find Facebook intrusive and voyeuristic and manipulative as I do.

And since I find their actions unacceptable I have cancelled my account and uninstalled Spotify.

I shall have to get around to closing my Facebook account and clearing my computer of all their intrusive cookies.

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Posted in Behaviour, Business, Ethics | 4 Comments »

How many years of global cooling are needed to disprove AGW?

September 26, 2011

I am travelling this week.

I had an interesting – if rather depressing – discussion with a fellow traveler (a patent lawyer) at the airport yesterday. The discussion turned to the manner in which science which happened to be “in fashion” became political movements and  the manner in which science itself took on politically correct dimensions.

Sometimes – as with eugenics – the political movement came first and the science followed to fit the movement.  In fact, his contention was that even where the science had come  first, the development of a political movement would always lead to subsequent science being constrained to support the imperatives of the movement.

I brought up the caase of AGW and how  an uncertain science – in my opinion – had been hijacked by a political movement such that one particular hypothesis – which has still to be proven – had become the only politically correct or allowable science. I suggested that real observations might change what was considered politically correct. Since global temperature – if such a thing can be defined – has been declining for the last decade even though carbon dioxide has been increasing,  I expected that new science would have to take these real observations into account in their mathematical modelling and that the strength of the dogma would eventually decrease.

My companion however disagreed. He suggested that all political movements had to be fundamentally and economically viable to survive. If the movement was lucrative – as AGW had become – then there would be a vested interest in maintaining the science it was based on  even if the facts said otherwise. This would be achieved, he argued, by the “Science” allowing or accounting for some deviations – as for example with explanations made up for why a decade or two of cooling could occur without disturbing the central thesis of the “Science”. He cited medical science and examples of purported treatments which were continued for long periods after they were discredited because of the revenues that they were generating. He suggested that the chemical industry was the prime driver for the banning of some refrigerants (based on now outdated ozone depletion science) just so that they could shift production to newer refrigerants having much higher margins. Similarly he felt that the environmental benefits of switching to low energy lamps was minuscule but the lighting industry much preferred the margins and revenues generated by these to those generated by incandescent light bulbs which were suffering from intense competition.

His conclusion was that since the AGW “industry” was generating large revenues whether through carbon trading schemes or by the extraction of subsidies from taxpayer money for so-called “green” energy or “green” fuels, then the vested interest in showing that any conflicting measurements were a temporary aberration would be very strong. Since the timescales of climate change were in the order of hundreds of years, he felt that a mere 20 or 30 years of inconvenient measurements would do little to dent the momentum of a successful revenue generating “science”!!!

He made some good points. I am afraid that even 3 decades of cooling or the start of a mini-ice age will probably not suffice to dampen the ardour of the global warming enthusiast as long as the revenues from growing bio-fuels or getting subsidies for “green” energy keep rolling in. The AGW religion and its corresponding “science” will stop only if the revenues stop.

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Posted in Alarmism, Business, Climate, Politics, Science | 2 Comments »

New Scientist blog: CEO of “Good” Energy complains that sceptics are resorting to emotion rather than science

September 23, 2011

Juliet Davenport, founder and CEO of something carrying the subjective and emotive name “Good” Energy writes in the New Scientist blog today bemoaning the fact that climate sceptics are winning the argument by the use of emotion rather than science!!

Scientists – she believes – are not doing enough to help her cause. But she might carry a little more credibility if she attempted to use science rather than dogma and consensus. And of course if she did not have a vested interest in extorting subsidies from taxpayers. Clearly Al Gore has failed her in being “charismatic and campaigning”- but then he is no scientist and perhaps he does not count.

A charismatic campaigning voice from the scientific community would make a huge difference in helping to combat the small but vocal minority of sceptics who tend to resort to emotion rather than science to make their arguments. …….. 

…. I can’t help but think it would be better to see all government departments arguing more loudly about the long term benefits of tackling climate change and the transition to a low carbon economy. To do that convincingly, however, they need to have information at their fingertips. Scientists have a huge role to play here, debating and responding to claims made through the media and simplifying messages for the public. They need to make the case that a low-carbon economy is not only necessary for tackling climate change, but also that it is technologically possible.

If we are going to act in time on climate change, it is vital that we keep up the pressure on the government to form a policy framework that we can then deliver.

The coming gas glut and the availability of shale gas – now even in the UK – must be giving her nightmares. Without climate change alarmism and the demonisation of carbon dioxide, the cost of wind and solar power would make them non-starters.

But the tide is turning.

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Posted in Alarmism, Climate, Energy, Renewable Energy | 1 Comment »

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