Briton, two Americans win 2018 Nobel Chemistry Prize

Agencies
October 3, 2018

Stockholm, Oct 3: Scientists Frances Arnold, George Smith and Gregory Winter won the 2018 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for research using directed evolution to produce enzymes and antibodies for new chemicals and pharmaceuticals, the award-giving body said on Wednesday.

Arnold, only the fifth woman to win a chemistry Nobel, was awarded half of the 9 million Swedish crown ($1 million) prize while fellow American Smith and Winter of Britain shared the other half.

"This year's Nobel Laureates in Chemistry have been inspired by the power of evolution and used the same principles – genetic change and selection – to develop proteins that solve mankind's chemical problems," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in a statement.

Arnold is the second woman to win a Nobel prize this year after Canada's Donna Strickland shared the physics award on Tuesday.

The uses of enzymes, developed by her, include more environmentally-friendly manufacturing of chemical substances, such as pharmaceuticals, and the production of renewable fuels for a greener transport sector.

Smith developed a method using a virus that infects bacteria to produce new proteins while Winter used the same method for the directed evolution of antibodies, with the aim of producing new pharmaceuticals.

The prizes for achievements in science, literature and peace were created and funded in the will of Swedish dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel and have been awarded since 1901.

For the first time in decades, the Nobel line-up will not feature a literature award this year after a rift within the Swedish Academy over a rape scandal involving the husband of a board member left it unable to select a winner.

The science and peace prizes are selected by other bodies. Chemistry is the third of this year's Nobel Prizes after the winners of the medicine and physics awards were announced earlier this week.

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News Network
May 23,2020

Karachi, May 23: Ninety-seven people were killed and two survived when a passenger plane crashed into homes in Pakistan's southern city of Karachi, health officials said Saturday.

The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) plane had made multiple approaches to land at the city's airport when it came down in a residential area, damaging buildings and sparking a rescue operation that lasted into the night.

All passengers and crew had been accounted for and the bodies of those killed had been recovered from the crash site, the Sindh Health Ministry said, adding that 19 had been identified.

A local hospital earlier reported it had received the bodies of people killed on the ground.

The site remained cordoned off on Saturday morning.

The crash sent plumes of smoke were into the air as rescue workers and residents searched the debris for people and as firefighters tried to extinguish the flames.

An AFP reporter witnessed charred bodies being loaded into ambulances.

PIA said the plane lost contact with air traffic control just after 2:30 pm (0930 GMT) travelling from Lahore to Karachi.

The disaster comes as Pakistanis prepare to celebrate the end of Ramadan and the beginning of Eid al-Fitr, with many travelling back to their homes in cities and villages.

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News Network
February 29,2020

New Delhi, Feb 29: Amid the raging communal violence in the entire north-east Delhi earlier this week, there were people who were trying to save persons and families from the "other community" from the fury of the mobs of their own community.

Naeem Ali Pradhan, 34, from Shiv Vihar, helped at least 7-8 Hindus on the night of February 24 -- when the violence was at its peak-- escape to safer locations. Shiv Vihar is one of the worst affected areas in the violence.

According to Naeem Ali, that night mobs attacked dozens of shops on the road and later tried to enter inside the residential areas.

Suddenly, he spotted a group of youth who were looking hassled and frantically asking for directions.

"I saw them. Thye were Hindus who were trying to escape a mob looking to target them. They had lost their way inside the streets of our colony. I along with other Muslim men escorted them to the nearby Hindu locality," Naeem, who is also a member of the Aman Committee constituted by the Delhi police, told ANI.

"Several shops which were on the roads including some showrooms were attacked by a group. These Hindus were worried as a mob which was on the main road was attacking people. They asked me the address of a colony as they were unable to find their way," Naeem said.

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News Network
February 5,2020

New Delhi, Feb 5: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday announced that the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teertha Kshetra, set up by the government for construction of a temple in Ayodhya, will have 15 trustees and one of them will be from the Dalit community.

The statement comes a little over an hour after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced in Lok Sabha about the constitution of the trust.

"There will be 15 trustees in the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teertha Kshetra Trust out of which one trustee will always be from the Dalit society," he tweeted.

Shah congratulated Modi "for such an unprecedented decision" that strengthens social harmony.

The home minister said the trust will be independent to take every decision related to the temple and 67 acres of land will be transferred to it.

"I fully believe that the waiting of millions of people for centuries will be over soon and they will be able to pay obeisance to Lord Shri Ram in his grand temple at his birthplace," he said.

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