From the cells in our bodies and the cell phones in our pockets, to
the structure of the entire universe, the research honored by this
year’s Nobel Prizes covers a lot of ground.
But, as is always the case at the University of Delaware’s annual
Nobel Symposium, faculty members were able to use their own expertise to
share insights into the prize-winning work with an audience of UD and
community members.
As a bonus, the audience at this year’s event also learned about two scandals involving the prize for literature.
The symposium on Tuesday, Nov. 19, hosted by the College of Arts and Sciences
in Harker Lab, featured seven short talks about this year’s laureates
and their work, as well as a special tribute to novelist Toni Morrison,
who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993 and died in August.
The following are the prizes highlighted at the symposium.
Physiology or Medicine
“Just as a candle needs oxygen to burn cleanly, cells need oxygen,”
to convert food into energy, Ramona Neunuebel, assistant professor of
biological sciences, said at the symposium. “But too much oxygen is
deadly, and too little is deadly.”
Neunuebel explained the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which
was awarded to William G. Kaelin Jr., Sir Peter J. Ratcliffe and Gregg
L. Semenza for discovering how cells are able to sense and then adjust
their oxygen levels. Oxygen levels can vary, depending on elevation or
injury, for example, and scientists have long been puzzled by how cells
are able to adapt.
The three laureates put the puzzle together by looking at different
aspects of the molecular process that regulates the activity of genes.
“Together, they found the pathway,” Neunuebel said.
She noted that, based on these discoveries, drugs are being developed
to target anemia, kidney disease, cancer and other serious conditions.
Economics
Jim Berry, associate professor of economics, began his talk by
pointing out that, despite billions of dollars spent each year on aid to
developing countries, the question, “Does this aid actually work?” has
been complex and difficult to answer.
But, he said, thanks to the work by this year’s winners of the Nobel
Prize in economic sciences, a much more reliable, experimental approach
has been developed. The laureates — Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and
Michael Kremer — are all relatively young, and Duflo is only the second
woman to win the economics prize, Berry said.
Their approach, which Berry termed, “Start small, then go big,”
breaks down the factors involved in each aspect of aid. In seeking to
improve education, for example, a researcher might start with the
question of whether providing more textbooks to an impoverished school
would make a difference in the students’ achievements and then randomly
assign schools in the area being studied to receive or not receive more
books.
(The answer? Using teaching methods that are responsive to students’
needs, not the quantity of textbooks, is what makes a real difference.)
“This is an approach that’s similar to a medical trial,” Berry said.
By doing more and larger randomized experiments of this type,
researchers can much more accurately identify strategies that are
effective, and donors can then target aid to those initiatives.
“The research conducted by this year’s laureates has considerably
improved our ability to fight global poverty,” the Nobel Prize
organization said in announcing the award.
Physics
Sarah Dodson-Robinson, associate professor of physics and astronomy,
discussed this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics, awarded to three
scientists, one whose work led to a new understanding of the universe’s
history and two who discovered the first exoplanet orbiting a solar-type
star.
“This is all about looking for other worlds and understanding the universe,” Dodson-Robinson told the audience.
James Peebles won his share of the prize for 50 years of work that is
now the basis for our understanding of the universe, the Nobel
organization said. His work “moved cosmology [the study of the origin of
the universe] from pencil and paper” to science, Dodson-Robinson said.
The other recipients, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz, made the first
discovery of an exoplanet, a planet outside our Solar System, that is
orbiting a solar-type star. They made the discovery in 1995, and since
then, Dodson-Robinson said, “We’ve gone from one planet to thousands.
It’s been a real revolution in astronomy.”
Peace
When Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali was awarded the 2019
Nobel Peace Prize, the announcement also specifically recognized “all
the stakeholders working for peace and reconciliation in Ethiopia and in
the East and Northeast African regions.”
At UD’s Nobel Symposium, Wunyabari Maloba, professor and department
chair of Africana studies and professor of history, noted that the Peace
Prize is intended to honor the recipient but also to encourage other
leaders to undertake reforms.
Abiy took office in April 2018 and worked with Eritrean President
Isaias Afwerki to resume peace talks between the two nations in their
long-running border conflict. The two leaders worked out the principles
of an agreement, warfare ended and the border between the two countries
was reopened.
Although there have been setbacks since then, the prize should be
seen as an encouragement for the reforms Abiy has implemented, Maloba
said. “Something to celebrate here is that half of his cabinet is
composed of women,” Maloba added.
The hope, he said, is that the Peace Prize will inspire other leaders
to demonstrate “the courage and daring to bring about peace and
stability.”
Chemistry
Lithium-ion batteries play a role in every part of our lives,
“including the battery that’s in your pocket right now” powering your
mobile phone, said Eric Bloch, assistant professor of chemistry and
biochemistry.
He explained this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry, which recognized
the research conducted by John Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham and
Akira Yoshino. The three worked separately on different aspects of
building a better battery, with the result being the lightweight,
rechargeable and powerful lithium-ion battery that’s now used in phones,
laptops and electric vehicles.
Calling the recognition “overdue,” Bloch said the battery will
continue to play a key role in the future, especially as a means to
store energy generated by wind and solar power.
“If we’re going to transition away from fossil fuel … lithium-ion
batteries are how we’re going to do it,” Bloch said. “And we have these
three [laureates] to thank.”
Literature (2018 and 2019)
No prize was awarded last year in the literature category, after a
sexual assault and financial scandal disrupted the Swedish Academy’s
awards committee. The organization regrouped after several resignations
and this year awarded two prizes.
Viet Dinh, assistant professor of English, discussed both writers who
were honored — Olga Tokarczuk, a Polish author who won the delayed 2018
prize, and Peter Handke of Austria, who was awarded the 2019 Nobel.
The two authors, Dinh said, provide interesting counterpoints to each
other, with different styles and bodies of work.
Not all of Tokarczuk’s books have been translated into English, and
Dinh focused on those that have. He described her 2007 work, Flights, as
“a fascinating book composed of 116 vignettes.” The extremely short
stories, he said, mix fiction and fact, jump forward and back in time
and can each stand alone, but together they form a “constellation” of
themes focused on the concept of travel.
Dinh also spoke about Tokarczuk’s Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of
the Dead, which he said has a narrower focus than the expansive Flights.
The author takes a story that could be a classic whodunit mystery and
transforms it into a kind of fable, he said.
While Tokarczuk’s body of work is smaller and has an outward focus,
Handke’s is much larger and more diverse, Dinh said. He’s written
novels, essays, dramatic works and screenplays over more than 50 years,
including The Goalkeeper’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick, Offending the
Audience and Wings of Desire.
The Nobel organization called him one of the most influential writers
in Europe since World War II, but his controversial selection for this
year’s prize has created another scandal. His 1996 book A Journey to the
Rivers: Justice for Serbia, depicted Serbia as the victim of the 1990s
Yugoslav conflict, and in 2006 he spoke at the funeral of Serbian
nationalist leader Slobodan Milosevic, who died while on trial for war
crimes.
The dilemma, Dinh said, is, “How do you approach a work of art when
the artist is known to hold [offensive or controversial] views?” He
suggested that, instead of ignoring the views or refusing to engage with
the artist’s work, readers should consider also reading works by other
writers that offer context and different points of view.
Special presentation honoring Toni Morrison
A. Timothy Spaulding, associate professor of English and of Africana
studies, gave a tribute to 1993 laureate Toni Morrison, who is the only
black woman to have won the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Calling her prose “luminous and poetic,” Spaulding said, “It is
impossible to read a Toni Morrison novel without deep feeling or
contemplation.”
He praised the vitality of Morrison’s language and the way in which
her work speaks so clearly and unflinchingly about the horrors of
slavery and the legacy of racism. Even while writing about such topics,
Spaulding said, Morrison’s beautiful and eloquent use of language
creates “compelling contradictions and paradoxes.”
Her work, he said, is intensely rooted in the black experience but also has a broad reach that speaks to all readers.
Morrison published her first novel, The Bluest Eye, in 1970, and went
on to publish 10 other acclaimed works of fiction, including Sula, Song
of Solomon and Beloved, which won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize.
Article by Ann Manser, with information from the Nobel Prize organization. Photo by Evan Krape.
Published Nov. 25, 2019
