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Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize

from CNN --
President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize yesterday, a stunning decision that comes just eight months into his presidency. The Norwegian Nobel Committee said it honored Obama for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." The decision appeared to catch most observers by surprise.

The president had not been mentioned as among front-runners for the prize, and the roomful of reporters gasped when Thorbjorn Jagland, chairman of the Nobel committee, uttered Obama's name.

Nominations for the prize had to be postmarked by February 1 -- only 12 days after Obama took office. The committee sent out its solicitation for nominations last September -- two months before Obama was elected president.

The president, who was awakened to be told he had won, said he was humbled to be selected, according to an administration official.

The Nobel committee recognized Obama's efforts to solve complex global problems including working toward a world free of nuclear weapons. "Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the committee said.

Jagland said the decision was "unanimous" and came with ease.

He rejected the notion that Obama had been recognized prematurely for his efforts and said the committee wanted to promote the president just as it had Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 in his efforts to open up the Soviet Union.

"His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population," it said.

Obama's recognition comes less than a year after he became the first African-American to win the White House. He is the fourth U.S. president to win the prestigious prize and the third sitting president to do so.
 

Look Into My Eyes: The Power of Hypnosis

from New Scientist --
I am about to have my left leg paralyzed, my arm taken over by an alien force and, quite possibly, be made blind. I confess I'm a bit nervous. But also, strangely, I hope it all works.

These insults to my body will not be inflicted with a scalpel, but instead induced using hypnosis. The effects, if they occur, will only be temporary, my hypnotist, David Oakley, reassures me.

It's all being done in the interest of science. Oakley is an emeritus professor at University College, London. He is one of a handful of researchers who hope that by taking hypnosis seriously, they will help to dispel its quackery-tainted image (see What is hypnosis?). "I think hypnosis is underaccepted and undervalued," says psychologist Irving Kirsch at the University of Hull, UK. "Partly because of lurid tales published in books and movies, which lead to views of hypnosis as a strange and unbelievable state. Still many people scoff."

Aside from improving the reputation of hypnosis, Oakley also aims to better understand some of the strangest neurological conditions out there. The idea is to use hypnosis to induce symptoms in otherwise healthy people. This creates "virtual patients" with symptoms that can literally be switched on and off with a snap of the fingers, making it easier to study the abnormal brain activity that causes them. "It's like reverse engineering," says Peter Halligan, a neuropsychologist at Cardiff University, UK, who works with Oakley. "It's only when things break down that you appreciate the mechanism involved."

81 Year Old Finishes Marathon
After Catheter Inserted

from the La Crosse Tribune --
Hosts of the Twin Cities Marathon in Minneapolis, MN said they won't disqualify an 81-year-old runner who won his age group after using a borrowed catheter. Jerry Johncock of Shelbyville, Michigan, stopped at an aid station about 21 miles into the race because a blood clot prevented him from urinating. The aid station had no catheter, but a spectator stepped forward to offer him a catheter he had in his car.

Aides helped insert the catheter and Johncock went on to finish in a little over 5 hours 22 minutes.

Race officials considered disqualifying him because of a rule against improper assistance. But executive director Virginia Brophy Achman said they decided Johncock didn't break the rule. She called Johncock "a great role model and example of what you can do as a runner."

Johncock's wife, Dorlene, said her husband was cheered by the ruling. She said he found the whole situation a little humorous

Beware of the Blob--This Time, It's For Real

from National Geographic --
As sea temperatures have risen in recent decades, enormous sheets of a mucus-like material have begun forming more often, oozing into new regions, and lasting longer, a new Mediterranean Sea study says (sea "mucus" blob pictures). These may be more than just unpleasant.

Up to 124 miles (200 kilometers) long, the mucilages appear naturally, usually near Mediterranean coasts in summer. The season's warm weather makes seawater more stable, which facilitates the bonding of the organic matter that makes up the blobs (Mediterranean map).

Now, due to warmer temperatures, the mucilages are forming in winter too—and lasting for months.

Until now, the light-brown "mucus" was seen as mostly a nuisance, clogging fishing nets and covering swimmers with a sticky gel—newspapers from the 1800s show beach-goers holding their noses, according to study leader Roberto Danovaro, director of the marine science department at the Polytechnic University of Marche in Italy.

But the new study found that Mediterranean mucilages harbor bacteria and viruses, including potentially deadly E. coli, Danovaro said. Those pathogens threaten human swimmers as well as fish and other sea creatures, according to the report, published in the journal PioSOne.

Mucilages aren't a concern for just the Mediterranean, Danovaro added. Recent studies tentatively suggest that mucus may be spreading throughout oceans from the North Sea to Australia, perhaps because of rising temperatures, he said.

"It's a good example [of what will happen if we don't do something to stop climate warming," Danovaro said. "There are consequences if we continue to deny the scientific evidence."

Beyond warm temperatures, it's still not exactly clear what drives the blobs' formation, said Farooq Azam, a marine microbiologist at the University of California's Scripps Institution of Oceanography. For instance, no one knows why the dead marine matter in the blobs doesn't decompose. "It's important we do find out" what's driving the rise of the blobs, Azam said, "for the sake of the rest of the worlds' oceans."

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