controversy

Nobel Prize Committee Members Not Always Noble

Wednesday, October 8th, 2008

October marks the advent of autumn* and the approach of Halloween. But since 1901, it’s also heralded the annual announcement of Nobel Prize winners.

The five categories under the prize umbrella are those of peace, chemistry, physics, physiology and medicine and literature.

This year, Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday, the Nobel committee awarded the prize for physiology and medicine to French researchers Luc Montagnier, Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and German scientist Harold zur Hausen.

The former are credited with discovering the human strain of the AIDS virus, the latter with proving the “papilloma virus causes cervical cancer.”

Controversy has often surrounded the Nobel Prize and its originator, Swedish dynamite creator Alfred Nobel, and this year’s share centers around two of the aforementioned physiology and medicine winners.

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New York Times Does a Story about Female Bloggers (Again)

Monday, August 18th, 2008

Hot on the heels of last month’s story about the BlogHer conference, which generated much controversy, not so much because of the content in the well-done story, but because of its placement in the Style section, there’s another story about female bloggers. This time the piece lands in the Technology section.

Interestingly, it almost has an opposite thesis of the Style section article. This piece says that the female-centric, so-called “mommy blogs,” are becoming major money makers. The sites are a huge draw for big retailers like JC Penney and Macy’s because women are the prime shoppers in the family and make the decision when it comes to buying goods.