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Editor's note
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This week the Nobel Prizes in Physiology and Medicine went to discoveries about biological clocks. The Chemistry award went to a technology that freezes and images biomolecules, while novelist Kazuo Ishiguro won for literature.
But we also explore some potential flaws in the pageantry and the process. Does the Nobel Peace Prize even matter? And does it make sense that just three people won an award for research completed by thousands?
Turning from real life scientific breakthroughs to science fiction, “Blade Runner 2049” opens in theaters this weekend. North Carolina State University film studies professor Marsha Gordon looks back at the original dystopian classic – a movie she calls a “chillingly prescient” vision of our current technological moment.
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Nick Lehr
Editor, Arts and Culture
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The Nobel Prizes
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Cynthia F. Wong, University of Colorado Denver
After learning of Ishiguro's Nobel win, a literature professor recalls her 2006 interview with the writer in a London cafe.
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Ronald R. Krebs, University of Minnesota
A scholar analyzes the history of the Nobel Peace Prize to ask: What difference has it made?
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Melanie Ohi, University of Michigan; Michael Cianfrocco, University of Michigan
The 2017 Nobel Prize in chemistry goes to three scientists who revolutionized biochemistry by inventing a technology that can image the molecules of life without destroying them.
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Carrie L. Partch, University of California, Santa Cruz
Americans Jeffrey Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael Young share the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for work that explained how our cells keep track of time.
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Arts + Culture
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Marsha Gordon, North Carolina State University
The relationship between corporations, machines and humans defines modern life in ways that Ridley Scott – even in his wildest dreams – couldn't have imagined.
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Elizabeth Heineman, University of Iowa
Just as Playboy was emerging as a cultural phenomenon in the United States, a German entrepreneur named Beate Uhse was building a sex business of her own – centered on the pleasure of women.
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Economy + Business
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Dale O. Cloninger, University of Houston-Clear Lake
President Trump recently released his tax plan, but he's also said he wants to stimulate the economy with infrastructure spending. Is one more effective than the other at boosting growth?
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Education
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Patricia A. Alexander, University of Maryland; Lauren M. Singer, University of Maryland
Digital textbooks might be less cumbersome. But a new series of studies finds that reading from screens can hamper our ability to process and retain information.
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Environment + Energy
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Gregory J. Carbone, University of South Carolina
Europeans are, on average, more likely than Americans to say they fear climate change. What explains the gap?
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Alexandra Rosati, University of Michigan
Puerto Rico's Cayo Santiago Research Station has been a world-famous site for primate studies since 1938. Now scientists are working to save its staff and rhesus monkey colony after Hurricane Maria.
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Joan A. Casey, University of California, Berkeley; Peter James, Harvard Medical School ; Rachel Morello-Frosch, University of California, Berkeley
New research shows that noise pollution in US cities is concentrated in poor and minority communities. Beyond regulating airplane noise, the US has done relatively little to curb noise pollution.
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Ethics + Religion
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Carrie Pitzulo, Colorado State University
Hefner's iconic Playmates, a scholar argues, need to be understood within their historical context, when men and especially women were expected to uphold strict standards of sexual propriety.
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Health + Medicine
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Margie Skeer, Tufts University
While talking about drugs with young people isn't always comfortable, research has shown that it's critical for prevention.
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Andrew Kolodny, Brandeis University
Your guide to a public health crisis that's likely to get worse.
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Politics + Society
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Jason von Meding, University of Newcastle
The use of Agent Orange in Vietnam had deep impacts, including a poisoned water supply, birth defects and cancer. Despite decades of attempted litigation, justice for spraying victims seems unlikely.
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William Francis Keegan, University of Florida
An anthropologist tells the story of how Columbus actually came close to falling into historical obscurity, until American hubris got in the way.
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Julia Brooks, Harvard University; David Polatty, US Naval War College
The military can make a big difference right away but humanitarian deployments should generally be rare and brief.
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Science + Technology
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Caroline Wagner, The Ohio State University
Today's scientific research is characterized by interdisciplinary, international collaboration. Awards like the Nobel Prizes haven't caught up.
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Timothy Brennan, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
As the issue of an open and free internet again comes up for public debate, Congress could participate – and help regulators devise a workable set of policies.
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Dorothy Denning, Naval Postgraduate School
The cyberthreat from China is one more of espionage than destruction. And it's changing – perhaps even lessening.
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Andrew Maynard, Arizona State University
Musk’s audacious plan to blast people to Mars by 2024 glosses over some important social and political challenges that SpaceX will need to successfully navigate to get off the ground.
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