1 . It is that time of the year, when a handful of world’s leading scholars, social activists and researchers are rewarded with what is often cited as the most prestigious acknowledgement of human effort-the Nobel Prize. Here’s a look at who has won the prize and for what.

Physiology or Medicine

Swedish geneticist Svante Peabo won the first Nobel of the year, for starting the field of ancient DNA studies. He is well-known for extracting, sequencing, and analyzing ancient DNA from Neanderthal bones.

Physics

Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger’s work in quantum (量子) technology landed them the second Nobel Prize announced in 2022. Although Aspect is from France, Clauser from the U.S, and Zeilinger from Austria, the three separately performed “groundbreaking experiments” as one team. “Their results have cleared the way for new technology,” the committee stated.

Chemistry

The Nobel Prize for chemistry went to another trio, Carolyn R. Bertozzi from the U.S., Morten Meldal from Denmark and K. Barry Sharpless from the U.S. “for the development of click chemistry and biorthogonal chemistry,” the committee stated. Dr. Bertozzi is the eighth woman chemist to be awarded the prize, while Dr. Sharpless is the fifth scientist to be awarded two Nobel Prizes.

Economics

The Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded to three American economists, Ben S. Bernanke, Douglas W. Diamond and Philip H. Dybvig “for research on banks and financial crises,” the Nobel Prize committee announced on Monday. By studying the history of American economics, particularly the Great Depression of the 1930s,they improved how we understand the role of banks during times of hardship and the bank’s impact on societal functions.

2 . Experts often tell students to center their efforts on a narrow field to get a job after school.     1    

One of the winners of this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry was Danish scientist Morten Meldal, who is 68 years old and works at the University of Copenhagen. When describing his career, Meldal said he started out as an engineer but changed to chemistry because he “wanted to understand the world.”

    2     They might believe they have to center their work and school lives in one field to be successful. But a study from professors at Michigan State University shows that is not always the case. The researchers looked into past Nobel Prize winners and their students.     3     some of what they learned from their teachers is how to live a life with many interests. They are, in a way, learning how to be creative.

Nobel winners are nine times more likely to have experience in working with wood, metal or in the arts than most scientists. The researchers also found that the Nobel winners have an open mind about their life experiences. Unlike many people who spend long hours at work and give up their outside interests,     4    

The researchers say that, even among people who do not win big prizes, those with many interests are often successful. They pointed to a 2022 report about students who study two major fields in college.     5     Double majors are often more creative and more interested in starting their own businesses than those who centered on only one study area.

3 . At 1:43 a.m. October 5, 2022, Stanford chemist Carolyn R. Bertozzi was awakened by a phone call from a Nobel committee representative who told her, “You have 50 minutes to collect yourself and wait until your life changes.” Instructed not to share the announcement outside of her tightest inner circle, the first person Bertozzi called was her father, a retired physics professor from MIT. “He’s 91 and, of course, he was just overjoyed,” said Bertozzi.

Carolyn Bertozzi, born October 10, 1966, Boston, was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for her development of bioorthogonal reactions, which allow scientists to explore cells and track biological processes without disturbing the normal chemistry of the cell. She shares the $10 million Swedish kronor (about $1 million USD) prize equally with Morten Meldal, professor at University of Copenhagen and K. Barry Sharpless, professor at Scripps Research “for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry.”

Carolyn received a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Harvard University in 1988 and a doctorate in the same subject from the University of California, Berkeley in 1993. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, San Francisco, from 1993 to 1995. She became an assistant professor at Berkeley in 1996 and a full professor of chemistry and molecular and cell biology in 2002. She also held an appointment as a professor of molecular and cellular pharmacology from 2000 to 2002 at the University of California, San Francisco. In 2015 she became a professor of chemistry at Stanford University.

“I could not be more delighted that Carolyn Bertozzi has won the Nobel Prize in chemistry,” said Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne. “In pioneering the field of bioorthogonal chemistry, Carolyn invented a new way of studying biomolecular processes, one that has helped scientists around the world gain a deeper understanding of chemical reactions in living systems. Her work has had remarkable real-world impact, providing new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to treat disease. Carolyn is so deserving of this honor, and all of us at Stanford are too proud to call her one of our own.”

Carolyn’s bioorthogonal reactions have been used to study how cells build proteins and other molecules, to develop new cancer medicines, and to produce new materials for energy storage, among many other applications.

5 . According to Michael Gelb, the author of ‘Think Like Da Vinci’, any living person can bring out their inner Da Vinci by committing themselves to several ‘Da Vincian’ principles.

According to Gelb, although not everyone is born with the gifts and the abilities of Leonardo Da Vinci, it is possible for any person to use the fundamentals of Da Vinci’s approach to learning to guide us to toward the realization of our own full potential.     1    

Leonardo possessed an intense curiosity about the world around him. It was this undiscouraged curiosity that began in childhood and continued throughout his life that drove Leonardo into becoming one of the greatest thinker’s humanity.     2     Quite the contrary, Leonardo was a man of action, possessing an unstoppable determination in pursuit of knowledge.

The young Leonardo loved nature. Leonardo would wonder around the Tuscany countryside asking questions he did not himself yet understand. Questions such as: Why shells exist on the tops of mountains alongside seaweed usually found in the sea. Why lightning is visible whereas thunder is not and takes a longer time to travel.     3     His questions took him under the water (he designed a snorkel as well as diving equipment and even a submarine) and into the sky (he also invented flying machines and a parachute).     4     Gelb recommends a series of exercises which include:

Keeping a journal or notebook – Leonardo always carried a notebook with him so that he could jot down ideas, thoughts, impressions and observations as they occurred.

Asking questions - Making a list of a hundred questions in your notebook on any given topic that comes into your head.

Be willing to make lots of mistakes – Leonardo was not afraid to make mistakes and appear foolish.

    5    

Walk in the halls of an academic earth science department, and you’ll likely find     1    (show) on a wall somewhere a strikingly beautiful map of the world’s ocean floor.     2     map was completed in 1977, being the first complete world map of the ocean floor and     3    (represent) the highest point of Marie Tharp’s career. It gives scientists and the public alike their first sight of     4    the sea floor looks like.

In the middle of the 20th century, when continental drift (大陆漂移) met with strong     5     (oppose) from many American scientists, Tharp’s groundbreaking maps made it possible     6    the theory of plate tectonics (板块构造学) to appear.

Tharp began her career at a time when few women     7     (become) scientists, but she was able to take advantage of doors opened by historical circumstances, becoming     8     (unique) qualified to make significant contributions to both science and cartography (地图绘制).

In 1997, the Library of Congress named her as one of the four     9     (great) cartographers of the 20th century. She died in 2006, but countless women scientists     10     (motivate) by her spirit since then.

7 . Nearly a week after Stephen Hawking passed away, people even in remote parts of the globe showed up in memory of this great British scientist. Mr. Hawking, best known for his study of black holes, is respected for not allowing a physical disability to limit his mental brilliance. Yet in a sign of the state of humanity, he is also being held up as a hero for humble and intense curiosity, not just for the truth about the physical universe but for universal truths.

In 2017, a Texas-based data company called Global Language Monitor found “truth” to be the “word of the year” among English-speakers. A debate over the nature of truth “is currently quite fashionable,” the company’s analysis found. Besides, two runner-up words were “narrative” and “post-truth.” And in a January report about “truth decay (衰败)”, the RAND Corporation, a research organization, found the loss of trust in key institutions has left “people searching for new sources of credible and objective information.”

In countries with a free press, journalists have gathered to fact-check comments by politicians. Harvard University now offers a free one-hour online course to help people “better distinguish good information from bad” in hopes that they will not “share the bad.” Tech giants such as Facebook are being forced to fix truth filters (过滤器) on their online platforms. A report this month for the European Commission says that the online sites “are becoming increasingly important as both enablers and gatekeepers of information.” They should reveal how their algorithms (计算程序) select news items, the report stated.

Many nations have come to see honest information as strategic wealth. “Truth matters”, says Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State. “Relying on Twitter feeds and news reports will prove totally insufficient when policymakers have to make some of the most difficult decisions they face.”

Giants of scientific discovery such as Hawking have long been role models for seeking truth beyond their profession. “In recent years I realized that Hawking has become a symbol for mankind,” says physicist Bobby Acharya. “People looked to him for reason and truth.” The tribute rolling in for the man is actually a widespread desire for light over darkness, for truth over all the “black holes” of misinformation campaigns.