Today in History (October 17^th, 1979)

On this day in 1979, Mother Teresa, founder of a Roman Catholic order of women dedicated to the poor and particularly to the destitute of India, was named the recipient of that year’s Nobel Prize for Peace.

Let’s Revise

Q.1) When was the Nobel Prize founded?

1. 1901
2. 1895
3. 1920
4. 1968

Answer: B)
Explanation: The Nobel Prize was founded in 1895 by Alfred Nobel.

Q.2) Who founded the Nobel Prize?

1. Albert Einstein
2. Alfred Nobel
3. Marie Curie
4. Thomas Edison

Answer: B)
Explanation: The prize was founded by Swedish scientist Alfred Nobel.

C) In which year was the first Nobel Prize awarded?

1. 1901
2. 1895
3. 1920
4. 1968

Answer: A)
Explanation: The first Nobel Prize was awarded in 1901.

D) How many fields were the Nobel Prizes originally awarded in?

1. 6
2. 4
3. 5
4. 3

Answer: C)
Explanation: Initially awarded in Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature, and Peace.

E) Where is the Nobel Prize administered?

1. Paris, France
2. New York, USA
3. Stockholm, Sweden
4. London, UK

Answer: C)
Explanation: The Nobel Prize is administered by the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden.

F) In which year was the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences established?

1. 1901
2. 1895
3. 1968
4. 1920

Answer: C)
Explanation: Established by Sveriges Riksbank in 1968 in memory of Alfred Nobel.

G) What does each Nobel Prize consist of?

1. A trophy and certificate
2. A medal, a diploma, and a cash award
3. A plaque and a medal
4. A certificate and cash award

Answer: B)
Explanation: Each prize includes a medal, a personal diploma, and a cash award.

H) What is the Nobel Prize amount for 2024?

1. 10.0 million SEK
2. 9.5 million SEK
3. 11.0 million SEK
4. 8.5 million SEK

Answer: C)
Explanation: The Nobel Prize amount for 2024 is set at 11.0 million SEK.

I) As of 2024, how many times have the Nobel Prizes been awarded?

1. 500 times
2. 627 times
3. 700 times
4. 1012 times

Answer: B)
Explanation: Nobel Prizes were awarded 627 times between 1901 and 2024.

J) What is a Nobel Prize laureate?

1. The person who presents the prize
2. The person or organization that is awarded the Nobel Prize
3. The founder of the Nobel Prize
4. A nominee for the Nobel Prize

Answer: B)
Explanation: A Nobel Prize laureate is a person or organization awarded the Nobel Prize.

K) Which Nobel Prize is awarded for groundbreaking contributions in various fields?

1. Nobel Peace Prize
2. Nobel Prize in Literature
3. Nobel Prize in Economics
4. All of the above

Answer: D)
Explanation: Nobel Prizes are awarded in multiple fields including Peace, Literature, and Economics.

L) Who is most famous for inventing dynamite?

1. Albert Einstein
2. Alfred Nobel
3. Thomas Edison
4. Marie Curie

Answer: B)
Explanation: Alfred Nobel, the founder of the Nobel Prize, is most famous for inventing dynamite.

M) What was Alfred Nobel’s nationality?

1. Norwegian
2. Danish
3. Swedish
4. Finnish

Answer: C)
Explanation: Alfred Nobel was a Swedish scientist and inventor.

N) Which article of the Nobel Foundation states that the prize is for the “greatest benefit to humankind”?

1. Article 1
2. Article 2
3. Article 3
4. Article 4

Answer: A)
Explanation: The Nobel Prize is awarded to those who confer the “greatest benefit to humankind.”

O)Which organization established the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences?

1. Nobel Foundation
2. Sveriges Riksbank
3. Swedish Academy
4. Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

Answer: B)
Explanation: Sveriges Riksbank established the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel.

Summary of Today’s News

India and the Nobel Prizes from 1901 to 2024-Part-2

Mother Teresa

• Mother Teresa received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 “for her work to bring help to suffering humanity”.
• Originally, Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, Mother Teressa, was born in Uskup, Ottoman Empire (now Skopje, North Macedonia), on August 26, 1910.
• She left home at the age of eighteen and enrolled in the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish nunnery with missions in India.
• Mother Teresa was a teacher at St. Mary’s High School in Calcutta from 1931 to 1948, but the suffering and poverty she saw outside the convent walls left such a lasting impression on her that in 1948 she received permission from her superiors to leave the convent school and focus on helping the most vulnerable people in the city’s slums.
• She founded “The Missionaries of Charity” on October 7, 1950, with the primary goal of loving and caring for those whom no one else was willing to take care of. In 1965, the Society was made an International Religious Family by Pope Paul VI.
• Mother Teresa has won numerous honours and awards for her efforts, including the Pope John XXIII Peace Prize (1971) and the Nehru Prize for advancing world peace and understanding (1972).
• Her work has been acknowledged and praised all over the world.
• She also received the Templeton and Magsaysay awards, as well as the Balzan Prize in 1979.
Har Gobind Khorana

• Har Gobind Khorana shared his 1968 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Marshall W. Nirenberg and Robert W. Holley “for their interpretation of the genetic code and its function in protein synthesis”.
• Genetic information is transmitted from DNA to RNA to protein; it was discovered in the 1950s.
Sir CV Raman

• Sir CV Raman is renowned for his research on the Raman Effect, or the scattering of monochromatic light through a transparent medium.
• For this work, he was bestowed with the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930. He was the first Asian to receive such honours.
• Numerous applications of the Raman Effect (scattering) are based on its ability to reveal information about molecular vibration and rotational energy.
Rabindranath Tagore – First Nobel Prize Winner in India

• Rabindranath Tagore received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 “for his profoundly sensitive, fresh, and beautiful verse, by means of which, with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the West”.
• The first Indian Nobel laureate, Tagore, received the Nobel Prize for his book, Geetanjali.
• Both Indian and Western academic traditions are strongly represented in Rabindranath Tagore’s writing.
• It also includes literary criticism, philosophy, social issues, and portrayals of everyday people’s lives, in addition to fiction in the form of poetry, songs, stories, and plays.
• Although Tagore originally wrote in Bengali, he later translated his poetry into English and found a large following in the West. His poetry was thought to convey the peace of the soul in harmony with nature, in contrast to the frenetic life in the West.
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2024
• Physics was the prize area which Alfred Nobel mentioned first in his will from 1895.
• At the end of the nineteenth century, many people considered physics as the foremost of the sciences, and perhaps Nobel saw it this way as well.
• The Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden.
• The Nobel Prize in Physics 2024 was awarded to John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey E. Hinton “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks.”
• John Hopfield created an associative memory that can store and reconstruct images and other types of patterns in data.

• Geoffrey Hinton invented a method that can autonomously find properties in data, and so perform tasks such as identifying specific elements in pictures.

The 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for their groundbreaking discovery of microRNA and its crucial role in post-transcriptional gene regulation.

• Major Findings: microRNAs are a class of small molecules essential for gene regulation in cells. The research uncovered the complex relationship between specific genes and microRNAs.
o The microRNAs can bind to messenger RNA and influence the production of proteins critical for cellular functions. This way they have a significant regulatory role in cells.
o The research has uncovered how these microRNAs contribute to various health challenges, including cancer and heart disease by influencing cellular behavior and functions.
• Significance: As the understanding of these tiny regulators increases, the potential for innovative therapeutic approaches to complex medical conditions also increases.
o Their work is truly fundamental for physiology and will help development in most of its branches, helping breakthrough discoveries in the field of medicine.
o Their findings also opened new avenues for understanding genetic communication within cells.

Nobel Prize 2024 Chemistry
The 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded to David Baker, Demis Hassabis, and John M. Jumper for their groundbreaking contributions to protein science.

• Major Discoveries: One-half of the prize is given to David Baker ‘for computational protein design’ and the other half jointly to Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper ‘for protein structure prediction.’
• Significance: David Baker has achieved the extraordinary feat of designing entirely new proteins.
o Demis Hassabis and John Jumper developed an artificial intelligence (AI) model to address a 50-year-old challenge- predicting the complex 3-D structures of proteins.
o Baker’s group has since 2003 created a range of novel proteins from scratch that have found applications in pharmaceuticals, vaccines, nanomaterials, sensors, and other fields.
o Hassabis and Jumper AI-based model in 2020 named AlphaFold2. This can predict the structure of nearly all 200 million proteins identified to date.
o AlphaFold2 has been used extensively by millions of scientists around the globe to address issues like antibiotic resistance and plastic degradation.

Nobel Prize 2024 Literature
The 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to South Korean author Han Kang, recognized “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”

• Han Kang has a distinctive approach to exploring significant historical traumas and the unseen societal norms that shape human experiences.
• Her works delve into the delicate balance between life and death, body and soul, showcasing her unique insight into the human condition.
• Literary Works: Her literary journey began in 1993 with the publication of several poems in the magazine Literature and Society.
o Han Kang’s prose debut came in 1995 with the short story collection Love of Yeosu.
o She gained major international recognition with her novel The Vegetarian, published in 2007. This work, written in three parts, explores the tumultuous consequences faced by the protagonist, Yeong-hye, as she rejects societal norms surrounding food consumption.
• Notably, Han Kang is the first South Korean author to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, marking a significant milestone in the global recognition of Korean literature.