“This is about using freedom of speech to stifle freedom of speech” As an investigative journalist has distinguished herself as a fearless defender of freedom of expression. She has shone a light on how social media is being used to spread fake news, harass opponents and manipulate public discourse, while at the same time herself…

Interview, September 2023 Interview with peace laureate Dmitry Muratov, September 2023 in Stockholm, Sweden. Dmitry Muratov answers the following questions (the links below lead to clips on YouTube): – What has the Nobel Peace Prize meant to you? – What is the purpose of journalism? – Who inspires you? – Why is freedom of speech…

For the past two decades, I have studied the molecules that convey our sense of touch. I entered this field pursuing the allure of basic biology research, never anticipating the many directions these findings would take. Indeed, my life has been full of directions I never imagined. As an 18-year-old refugee from Lebanon, I had…

B y now, I have lived in Northern California for more than half my life, but I remain a native New Yorker in temperament and humor. Born in 1955, I grew up in a seaside Brooklyn neighborhood − immortalized by Neil Simon’s play ‘Brighton Beach Memoirs’ – that’s been a landing pad for Eastern European…

Introduction In this biographical sketch I will discuss part of my personal and academic journey, how I originally got interested in econometrics, and how I continued in this area as it changed from a field where causal inference was almost non-existent to one where causality is now explicitly a major part. During the same time…

Syukuro (Suki) Manabe (真鍋 淑郎) S uki Manabe was born 21 September 1931. He is a Japanese-educated American meteorologist and climatologist who pioneered the use of computers to simulate global climate change and natural climate variations. Suki was born in Shingu Village, Uma District, Ehime Prefecture, Japan. He enjoyed his childhood growing up in the Shikoku…

I was born January 11th 1968 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. I am a chemist and currently one of the directors at the Max Planck Institut für Kohlenforschung in Mülheim an der Ruhr. I also serve as professor of organic chemistry at the Universities of Cologne and Hokkaido. I wanted to become a chemist since…

Nobel Prize Conversations  “The best thing was to come up with the experiment itself” In this podcast episode, conducted in May 2022, Ardem Patapoutian tells us about his shock and happiness after receiving the Nobel Prize, or as he puts it: “All of us in science know that the Nobel Prize is a big…

Nobel Prize Conversations  “I never stop thinking about my work” Joshua Angrist believes that to be a good labour economist, you should have had some real life job experience. In this podcast episode, conducted in May 2022, Angrist tells us about his disinterest in school and how as a teenager he was more interested in…

Nobel Prize Conversations  “If children are not curious they will not be able to work” Some people manage to retain the relentless curiosity of a child into adulthood, keeping them on a constant quest of exploration. In this podcast episode, conducted in May 2022, we meet Giorgio Parisi, who tells us about his journey…