Quite amazing, isn't it? How many more would it have had, had UK not had an arbitrary retirement age of 65 for its scientists?
Here's the list
14. Venkataraman Ramakrishnan 2009 Chemistry
American. Awarded joint prize for elucidating the structure of ribosomes.
13. Sir John Sulston 2002 Medicine/Physiology
British. Awarded joint prize for genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death.
12. Robert Horvitz 2002 Medicine/Physiology
American. Awarded joint prize for genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death.
11. Sydney Brenner 2002 Medicine/Physiology
South African born. Joint prize for genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death.
10. John Walker 1997 Chemistry
British. Gained prize for explaining "the enzymatic mechanism underlying the synthesis of adenosine triphosphate".
8&9. Fred Sanger 1958 and 1980 Chemistry
British. Awarded first prize for work on structure of proteins and a joint prize for base sequences in nucleic acids.
7. Georges Köhler 1984 Physiology/Medicine
German. Awarded joint prize for work on immune system theories and developing monoclonal antibodies.
6. Jim Watson 1962 Physiology/Medicine
American. Awarded prize for joint discovery concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids.
5. Cesar Milstein 1984 Physiology/Medicine
Argentinian born. Awarded joint prize for work on immune system theories and developing monoclonal antibodies.
4. Francis Crick 1962 Physiology/Medicine
British. Awarded prize for joint discovery concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids.
3. John Kendrew 1962 Chemistry
British. Awarded joint prize with Max Perutz for their studies of structures of globular proteins.
2. Max Perutz 1962 Chemistry
Austrian born. Awarded joint prize with John Kendrew for their studies of structures of globular proteins.
1. Sir Aaron Klug 1982 Chemistry
Lithuanian born. Awarded prize for work on crystallographic electron microscopy and nucleic acid-protein complexes.
Saturday 10 October 2009
Friday 8 May 2009
A British goodbye for TATA?
Jamshedpur boy- born and schooled. Of course I'd be a fan of TATA. The greatest Indian company that ever was. Not because of the immense profits they boast of, but because of the ethical bedrock on which those profits were made.
You run a poll here of the most respected Indians- and see who comes out on top- it'll be Ratan Tata- industrialist extraordinaire- Tata Sons chairman, and arguably india's greatest philanthroph. Who else would set up an entire plant to manufacture $2000 cars for the masses?
The Tatas are massive anglophiles. The love story dates back to 1907 when Jamshedji Nuseerwanji Tata set up TISCO in a remote village called Kalimati with the blessings of then British viceroy, the Earl of Minto. JRD Tata, the founder of India's first commercial airline, which later became Air India, was spawned of a French mother, and his first language was French. Yet, he studied engineering at Cambridge, and remained a lifelong anglophile despite his close ties to France.
Ratan Tata has simply carried on with that tradition. With india's growing prosperity, the Tatas became one of India's biggest overseas investors. First came Tetley, followed by high profile Anglo-Dutch steel company Corus and finally the jewel in the crown- Jaguar- Land Rover, formerly owned by Ford. All are, of course, British companies.
Yet, with the economic downturn, Britain has treated the Tatas very shabbily. When Tata asked for a £340 million loan to tide them over the difficulties at Jaguar Land Rover, the British government proposed such harsh terms and extreme oversight, that even the normally accomodating Ratan Tata balked. This despite the fact that TATA have bent over backwards to minimise job losses, choosing to cut hours and freeze pay instead.
Today, Tata's investment in Britain has run into further trouble. A Corus steel plant in Teesside faces closure because four long-term steel buyers, including companies in Italy and South Korea, are about to renege on a ten year business agreement.
This is catastrophic for the Tatas. Buffeted by the world downturn, hit by falling car sales and plunging steel prices, they have been losing money in their biggest markets. They need help from the UK government, where their principal investments lie.... and it's not forthcoming.
The reason it's not forthcoming is because the UK authorities have been bitten badly by the almost total collapse of their banks, particularly Royal Bank of Scotland and the Lloyds-HBOS group, which are now majority public owned. Former bank bosses have walked away with millions of pounds in severance and pensions and left behind smoking ruins, requiring massive taxpayer bailouts. The British government has watched impotently and vowed that they won't be taken for suckers ever again. More oversight, greater regulation, more big brotherhood.
Ratan Tata though, is not Sir Fred Goodwin. What Britain does not know is that TATA has an ethical CV that would put the greatest of well run companies to shame. They look after their employees, put welfare before profits, development before short term gain. I know. I was a beneficiary.
How do I tell Gordon Brown or Peter Mandelson though? If the Tatas go down in flames, Britain would have lost one of its most benevolent and caring investors and it'd be an absolute, crying shame.
You run a poll here of the most respected Indians- and see who comes out on top- it'll be Ratan Tata- industrialist extraordinaire- Tata Sons chairman, and arguably india's greatest philanthroph. Who else would set up an entire plant to manufacture $2000 cars for the masses?
The Tatas are massive anglophiles. The love story dates back to 1907 when Jamshedji Nuseerwanji Tata set up TISCO in a remote village called Kalimati with the blessings of then British viceroy, the Earl of Minto. JRD Tata, the founder of India's first commercial airline, which later became Air India, was spawned of a French mother, and his first language was French. Yet, he studied engineering at Cambridge, and remained a lifelong anglophile despite his close ties to France.
Ratan Tata has simply carried on with that tradition. With india's growing prosperity, the Tatas became one of India's biggest overseas investors. First came Tetley, followed by high profile Anglo-Dutch steel company Corus and finally the jewel in the crown- Jaguar- Land Rover, formerly owned by Ford. All are, of course, British companies.
Yet, with the economic downturn, Britain has treated the Tatas very shabbily. When Tata asked for a £340 million loan to tide them over the difficulties at Jaguar Land Rover, the British government proposed such harsh terms and extreme oversight, that even the normally accomodating Ratan Tata balked. This despite the fact that TATA have bent over backwards to minimise job losses, choosing to cut hours and freeze pay instead.
Today, Tata's investment in Britain has run into further trouble. A Corus steel plant in Teesside faces closure because four long-term steel buyers, including companies in Italy and South Korea, are about to renege on a ten year business agreement.
This is catastrophic for the Tatas. Buffeted by the world downturn, hit by falling car sales and plunging steel prices, they have been losing money in their biggest markets. They need help from the UK government, where their principal investments lie.... and it's not forthcoming.
The reason it's not forthcoming is because the UK authorities have been bitten badly by the almost total collapse of their banks, particularly Royal Bank of Scotland and the Lloyds-HBOS group, which are now majority public owned. Former bank bosses have walked away with millions of pounds in severance and pensions and left behind smoking ruins, requiring massive taxpayer bailouts. The British government has watched impotently and vowed that they won't be taken for suckers ever again. More oversight, greater regulation, more big brotherhood.
Ratan Tata though, is not Sir Fred Goodwin. What Britain does not know is that TATA has an ethical CV that would put the greatest of well run companies to shame. They look after their employees, put welfare before profits, development before short term gain. I know. I was a beneficiary.
How do I tell Gordon Brown or Peter Mandelson though? If the Tatas go down in flames, Britain would have lost one of its most benevolent and caring investors and it'd be an absolute, crying shame.
Friday 1 May 2009
Applications of Calculus in Medicine....continued
Here's a second example, courtesy mathhelpforum. I recommend this site to anybody who has the remotest interest in Maths. It has some of the best contributors I've seen on math blogs on www, always ready to help out, and with some amazing problem solving skills.
Applications of Calculus in Medicine
I'll be using this part of the blog to illustrate some applications of calculus in Medicine. Here's the first one. To enlarge, please click on the image.
Sunday 12 April 2009
Race Matters
Nope, this is not going to be a rant on the evils of racism, ethnicism, or any other ~ism. This is simply an attempt at pointing out why your ethnic origins define who you are...medically.
Indians immigrate all over the world. Just like I did. We assimilate into the local populace, pick up their diet and habits, and in due course become creatures moulded in the image of the indigenous population, a process that is known as acculturation.
Yet, at the very core, we remain very different beings- and I am not refering to our undying affinity for cricket and almost ungovernable vice of wasting time on this game.
Consider this, if you are an Asian, you are almost twice as likely to get type II diabetes mellitus than the Caucasian neighbour who lives next door. Despite similar diets and body mass index, you are more likely to suffer from hypertension, and are at a greater risk of suffering from a heart attack. Your neighbour the Scotsman may be drinking 28 units of alcohol a week, at the upper limit of recommendation by the Chief Medical Officer, and getting away with it, except for the odd occasion when he gets pulled over on A66 for deviating off straight lines once too often, and suffers incrimination via a breath test. If you, dear fellow Indian, indulged in similar levels of alcohol consumption, you'd almost certainly suffer meltdown of your liver, or cirrhosis, as it's better known.
The unfairness of genetic wiring doesn't end there. If you put on a stone in weight- 6.3 kg to those uninitiated to the almost insane intricacies of British measures, you'd almost certainly develop osteoarthritis, your knee joints reduced to a slit, hobbling with pain while McBloke next door creaks downstairs with his 15 stone frame on his way to the pub. He'll get his comeuppance too- a decade later. Poor you. As if you didn't have enough to reckon with, with your higher odds of dying from liver, cervical or gallbladder cancer.
If you felt that was bad enough, wait till you hear this. Your skin was designed to make vitamin D, the increasingly important ingredient that ensures bone and muscle health, protects you from various cancers and for Mrs McWife next door, provides a shield against such debilitating conditions such as multiple sclerosis. The problem is, having immigrated to 47 degrees north, your access to sunshine has dwindled to nothing for four months through the winter months, and you develop debilitating aching in your muscles and joints all over. You struggle to get off a low chair. If you came to a jointo-logist like me, I'd measure your vitamin D levels and tell you that they are undetectable because you are simply not making enough big D in your skin. You'd look at me in that aggrieved way, raise your eyebrow and want to know why McNeighbour doesn't have the same problem. Well, two things- firstly, his lighter skin tone lets in more ultraviolet light to maximise the benefits of what little natural illumination there is- but he would, wouldn't he, he was born to this gloom, and this is evolution at work, and secondly, he eats loads of oily fish- salmon, tuna, mackarel and sardines, which you abhor, because they don't remind you of chicken bhuna and lamb karahi.
Have I driven you to the point of despair? Wait, there is some retribution. There are ailments which these annoyingly healthy caucasians suffer, which you, Jo Ahmad, almost have an insurance policy against. Multiple sclerosis, coeliac disease, pernicious anaemia, giant cell arteritis, polymyalgia rheumatica, cancers of breast, endometrium, lung and prostate...the list rolls on and on like a who's who of big bad baddies.
If that makes you feel slightly better about being brown (hey, didn't I warn you this was all about race?) you might be further buoyed to find out if you have a major surgical operation, you are much less likely to die of a deep vein thrombosis lodging in your lung as a clot (pulmonary embolus) some 5 days after the operation. Similarly, you are less likely to get unsightly varicose veins, and despite having overall less bone mass, your mum is less likely to fracture her hip than a Caucasian woman of her age.
I do not intend to be the purveyor of gloom, so let me remind you that nurture is as important as nature. If you exercise regularly and run 30 or so miles a week, your risk of developing diabetes, high blood pressure, suffering a heart attack and ending up with debilitating osteoarthritis are substantially diminshed despite your genetic handicap, although not altogether eliminated. Your cheery white family next door might similarly consider cutting down on alcohol and red meat and thus substantially reducing the risk of colon, breast, and oesophageal cancers. You might even consider taking this acculturation thing one step further by resolving to consume those disgusting oily fish a couple of times a week and boosting your vitamin D stores.
Don't do it all too quickly please. You wouldn't want to put me out of business now, would you?
Indians immigrate all over the world. Just like I did. We assimilate into the local populace, pick up their diet and habits, and in due course become creatures moulded in the image of the indigenous population, a process that is known as acculturation.
Yet, at the very core, we remain very different beings- and I am not refering to our undying affinity for cricket and almost ungovernable vice of wasting time on this game.
Consider this, if you are an Asian, you are almost twice as likely to get type II diabetes mellitus than the Caucasian neighbour who lives next door. Despite similar diets and body mass index, you are more likely to suffer from hypertension, and are at a greater risk of suffering from a heart attack. Your neighbour the Scotsman may be drinking 28 units of alcohol a week, at the upper limit of recommendation by the Chief Medical Officer, and getting away with it, except for the odd occasion when he gets pulled over on A66 for deviating off straight lines once too often, and suffers incrimination via a breath test. If you, dear fellow Indian, indulged in similar levels of alcohol consumption, you'd almost certainly suffer meltdown of your liver, or cirrhosis, as it's better known.
The unfairness of genetic wiring doesn't end there. If you put on a stone in weight- 6.3 kg to those uninitiated to the almost insane intricacies of British measures, you'd almost certainly develop osteoarthritis, your knee joints reduced to a slit, hobbling with pain while McBloke next door creaks downstairs with his 15 stone frame on his way to the pub. He'll get his comeuppance too- a decade later. Poor you. As if you didn't have enough to reckon with, with your higher odds of dying from liver, cervical or gallbladder cancer.
If you felt that was bad enough, wait till you hear this. Your skin was designed to make vitamin D, the increasingly important ingredient that ensures bone and muscle health, protects you from various cancers and for Mrs McWife next door, provides a shield against such debilitating conditions such as multiple sclerosis. The problem is, having immigrated to 47 degrees north, your access to sunshine has dwindled to nothing for four months through the winter months, and you develop debilitating aching in your muscles and joints all over. You struggle to get off a low chair. If you came to a jointo-logist like me, I'd measure your vitamin D levels and tell you that they are undetectable because you are simply not making enough big D in your skin. You'd look at me in that aggrieved way, raise your eyebrow and want to know why McNeighbour doesn't have the same problem. Well, two things- firstly, his lighter skin tone lets in more ultraviolet light to maximise the benefits of what little natural illumination there is- but he would, wouldn't he, he was born to this gloom, and this is evolution at work, and secondly, he eats loads of oily fish- salmon, tuna, mackarel and sardines, which you abhor, because they don't remind you of chicken bhuna and lamb karahi.
Have I driven you to the point of despair? Wait, there is some retribution. There are ailments which these annoyingly healthy caucasians suffer, which you, Jo Ahmad, almost have an insurance policy against. Multiple sclerosis, coeliac disease, pernicious anaemia, giant cell arteritis, polymyalgia rheumatica, cancers of breast, endometrium, lung and prostate...the list rolls on and on like a who's who of big bad baddies.
If that makes you feel slightly better about being brown (hey, didn't I warn you this was all about race?) you might be further buoyed to find out if you have a major surgical operation, you are much less likely to die of a deep vein thrombosis lodging in your lung as a clot (pulmonary embolus) some 5 days after the operation. Similarly, you are less likely to get unsightly varicose veins, and despite having overall less bone mass, your mum is less likely to fracture her hip than a Caucasian woman of her age.
I do not intend to be the purveyor of gloom, so let me remind you that nurture is as important as nature. If you exercise regularly and run 30 or so miles a week, your risk of developing diabetes, high blood pressure, suffering a heart attack and ending up with debilitating osteoarthritis are substantially diminshed despite your genetic handicap, although not altogether eliminated. Your cheery white family next door might similarly consider cutting down on alcohol and red meat and thus substantially reducing the risk of colon, breast, and oesophageal cancers. You might even consider taking this acculturation thing one step further by resolving to consume those disgusting oily fish a couple of times a week and boosting your vitamin D stores.
Don't do it all too quickly please. You wouldn't want to put me out of business now, would you?
Saturday 21 February 2009
Back To Basics
The financial crisis around the world has touched many of us. People who thought they would never be affected, have felt the cold tendrils of dread as a colleague has been laid off, as a neighbour has been repossessed, as another horror story in the media has filtered through.
Yet, this comes on the back of an era of almost breath-taking prosperity. The current generation is far more prosperous than any previous one, and individuals have reaped the benefits of rising educational standards, burgeoning employment, particularly among women, undepinned by an explosion in technology uninterrupted by major worldwide conflict.
Expectations have risen as a result. What was, in our parents' days, merely an aspiration, is now a given. Unfortunately, those dizzying expectations have also created a very unhappy generation, buffeted by the vicissitudes of a rollercoaster financial system, driven by an ever increasing thirst for corporate profits and shareholder value. When things go wrong, as they recently did, the pervading gloom becomes endemic, a self fulfilling prophecy spreading by contagion, feeding on itself.
How do you stay above this? Is it even possible not be affected by the miasma of misery that seems to be everywhere?
I remember, as a teenager, paying a visit to our local mission, run by an organisation called the Bharat Sevashram Sangh. There was one monk in paricular who impressed me. He was young, very spare, and unfailingly cheerful, and I decided to find out what made him tick.
His dwelling quarters comprised a single room. There was a bed with the thinnest of mattresses to cushion his ramrod straight back, a spare pillow, a table, a cushionless chair for prayer and rumination, and a humble bookcase packed with books that told stories of God, knowledge and other aesthetic pleasures. That was it.
Sworn to celibacy for life, he woke every morning at 4 AM, exercised, and got down to the sacristy for morning prayers. Breakfast was as spartan and basic as his environs, followed by a session he spent with orphans from the local community, who lived at the Sangh and studied there.
During the myriad natural diasters that India seems to have more than her share of, the young ascetic would be called out at a moment's notice to travel hundreds of miles and serve the needy and dying, providing what little succour he could, armed only with a smile and very scarce resources garnered through donations.
Yet, despite that monastic existence, that life shorn of any vestige of material pleasure, job prospects, company pensions, and whatever it is that people take for granted these days, I can honestly say that he was one of the happiest persons I have ever known. The light of self-denial shone in his eyes, and he had a bearing that told of a man utterly at peace with himself.
I don't know where he is now, where destiny has taken him, but he strides my memories resplendently like a beacon of light on a dark night, exhorting me to simplify my life and go back to the basic tenets of austerity he epitomised.
Wednesday 18 February 2009
Decline in National GDPs in 2008
The data are in for fourth quarter GDP figures from the OECD for its member nations. The thirty nations making up the group, headquartered in Paris, shrunk by 1.5% (annualised 6%) in the 4th quarter of 2008. The decline was similar across the EU and the G7 countries, comprising the USA, Japan, Germany, the UK, France, Italy and Canada. The final figures for Canada are awaited, but here are the figures for the other six.
USA: -0.96%
Japan: -3.3%
Germany: -2.1%
UK: -1.5%
France: -1.2%
Italy: -1.8%
What's immediately noticeable is the plight of the manufacturing nations. Germany and Japan are manufacturing based economies, with a very high proportion of their GDPs derived from exports of machinery, tools and cars, and yet they appear to have borne the brunt of the recession far greater than service based (and largely indebted) economies such as the USA & UK. Nobody is immune in this downturn.
Over the course of 2008, the GDP of the top six nations have contracted as follows.
USA-0.21%
Japan- 4.55%
Germany- 1.62%
UK- 1.7%
France- 0.91%
Italy- 2.19%
Across the OECD30, the aggregated GDP fell by 1.21%.
USA: -0.96%
Japan: -3.3%
Germany: -2.1%
UK: -1.5%
France: -1.2%
Italy: -1.8%
What's immediately noticeable is the plight of the manufacturing nations. Germany and Japan are manufacturing based economies, with a very high proportion of their GDPs derived from exports of machinery, tools and cars, and yet they appear to have borne the brunt of the recession far greater than service based (and largely indebted) economies such as the USA & UK. Nobody is immune in this downturn.
Over the course of 2008, the GDP of the top six nations have contracted as follows.
USA-0.21%
Japan- 4.55%
Germany- 1.62%
UK- 1.7%
France- 0.91%
Italy- 2.19%
Across the OECD30, the aggregated GDP fell by 1.21%.
Sunday 15 February 2009
2008 Corporate Losses
Yesterday, the Lloyds HBOS group, Britain's biggest mortgage lender, warned the markets that for the year 2008, it was likely to make a 10 billion pound sterling loss. The loss was largely due to its subsidiary Halifax-Royal Bank of Scotland group, which had had its fingers badly burnt in the subprime market. Thus, Lloyds, a respectable, typically solid British bank, had actually made a profit of just over a billion pounds in profit, but had been dragged down by the massive 11 billion pound loss suffered by HBOS.
Here are the corporate losses by some of the leading banks and automotives in 2008. The sums are dollar equivalents.
Bank Losses
Royal Bank of Scotland- 41 billion
UBS-22 billion
Citigroup- 19 billion
Merrill Lynch-15 billion
Lloyds-HBOS- 14 billion
Credit Suisse- 7 billion
Deutsche Bank- 5 billion
ING- 1.3 billion
Automotive Losses
Ford- 14.6 billion
Toyota- 1.6 billion
Pugeuot-Citroen-0.44 billlion
Ford made a loss of 11.8 billion and 12.6 billion dollars in 2006 and 2007, and has thus lost 39 billion dollars in the last 3 years.GM and Chrysler are yet to declare their full year results but losses will be substantial. GM lost over 4 billion in the third quarter alone, while Chrysler lost over 5 billion in the first 6 months of 2008.
Some companies did make a profit. Barclays, despite huge writedowns and its acquisition of Lehmanns, made a profit of 10 billion dollars in 2008, While French banks BNP Paribas, Socgen and Credit Agricole made profits of 4 billion, 2.6 billion, and 1.3 billion respectively. British banks HSBC and StanChart, which have large operations in the East, are likely to make sustantial profits.
Similarly, Honda is likely to be in the black despite fourth quarter losses, and VW made 4.8 billion in profits in the first 9 months of the year.
Senior bank executives have once again demonstrated what a sucker's game finance is. They have claimed millions in bonuses, walked off with multi million dollar pensions, but offered no accountability for their follies. During a recent grilling by British MPs, the current Lloyd's chief described his annual pay of a million pounds as "relatively modest". It is well known that between 1993 and 2007, Dick Fuld of Lehmann Brothers, earned half a billion dollars in compensation.
How did we land up in this situation, where such utter mediocrity is rewarded with unimaginable riches? Those of us who slog our butts off to make ends meet, struggle with our mortgages and childrens' education, having worked diligently throughout our lives at Medicine, Engineering or IT, will never understand.
Here are the corporate losses by some of the leading banks and automotives in 2008. The sums are dollar equivalents.
Bank Losses
Royal Bank of Scotland- 41 billion
UBS-22 billion
Citigroup- 19 billion
Merrill Lynch-15 billion
Lloyds-HBOS- 14 billion
Credit Suisse- 7 billion
Deutsche Bank- 5 billion
ING- 1.3 billion
Automotive Losses
Ford- 14.6 billion
Toyota- 1.6 billion
Pugeuot-Citroen-0.44 billlion
Ford made a loss of 11.8 billion and 12.6 billion dollars in 2006 and 2007, and has thus lost 39 billion dollars in the last 3 years.GM and Chrysler are yet to declare their full year results but losses will be substantial. GM lost over 4 billion in the third quarter alone, while Chrysler lost over 5 billion in the first 6 months of 2008.
Some companies did make a profit. Barclays, despite huge writedowns and its acquisition of Lehmanns, made a profit of 10 billion dollars in 2008, While French banks BNP Paribas, Socgen and Credit Agricole made profits of 4 billion, 2.6 billion, and 1.3 billion respectively. British banks HSBC and StanChart, which have large operations in the East, are likely to make sustantial profits.
Similarly, Honda is likely to be in the black despite fourth quarter losses, and VW made 4.8 billion in profits in the first 9 months of the year.
Senior bank executives have once again demonstrated what a sucker's game finance is. They have claimed millions in bonuses, walked off with multi million dollar pensions, but offered no accountability for their follies. During a recent grilling by British MPs, the current Lloyd's chief described his annual pay of a million pounds as "relatively modest". It is well known that between 1993 and 2007, Dick Fuld of Lehmann Brothers, earned half a billion dollars in compensation.
How did we land up in this situation, where such utter mediocrity is rewarded with unimaginable riches? Those of us who slog our butts off to make ends meet, struggle with our mortgages and childrens' education, having worked diligently throughout our lives at Medicine, Engineering or IT, will never understand.
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