Al Gore is Not the Only Nobel Winner!

With an Emmy, Grammy, and one presidential race under his belt, Al Gore has now won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on environmental issues. Gore, however, was not the only Nobel Prize winner for 2007. Aside from the Nobel Peace Prize, five other awards were awarded. These prizes recognize the worlds most esteemed contributors in their fields.

The Nobel Prize, founded in 1895, is named after Alfred Nobel. Nobel left a large sum of his estate to the foundation. His wish was to honor the achievements of men and women in the six main categories. Physics, Medicine, Chemistry, Literature, Economics, and Peace are the Nobel Prize categories. The last category, Economics, was first handed out in 1968 by Sweden's Central Bank. Alfred Nobel was a writer, scientist, philanthropist, entrepreneurr, and inventor. He appreciated the drive and continuous dedication needed to prevail in these areas of study. The Nobel Prize is given internationally every year. The award is administered by the Nobel Foundation, which is located in Stockholm Sweden. The prizes, given yearly, marks the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death. The prizes are awarded in Sweden, except for the Peace Prize, which is awarded in Oslo Norway. The 2007 Nobel Winners, awarded in October, gave tribute to the world's greatest achievers.

For their findings of principles for specific gene modifications in mice, by use of stem cell research, three men received the prize in the Medical Category. Mario R Capecchi, Sir Martin J. Evans, and Oliver Smithies won The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Capecchi and Smithies are from the United States, while Evans is from the United Kingdom. Each shared 1/3 of the prize. Capecchi did not attend school until nine years of age and was not able to neither read nor write until he was ten years old. Capecchi is a Howard Hughes University Investigator. He is also a Professor of Biology Sir Evan, when coming together with the other two men to begin their research, actually had the cells for the experiment in his pant pocket. Sir Martin Evans FRS, DSc, resides at the School of Biosciences in Cardiff University. Oliver Smithies is the DPhil in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The three men were announced as winners on October 8 2007. and Human Genetics at Utah University.

Gerhard Ertl received The Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Ertl, a citizen of Germany, received the award for his studies of chemical processes on solid surfaces. The day Ertl won the Nobel Prize, October 11 2007, he also turned seventy-one years of age. He is a Professor Emeritus at Berlin's Fritz Haber Institute. His research is considered high risk, because of the laboratories need for the utmost cleanliness and perfection. One molecule of bacteria can contaminate an entire study. Ertl is one of two Germans winning a Nobel Prize this year.

Albert Fert of France and Peter Grunberg of Germany share The Nobel Prize in Physics. The two were each awarded ½ of the prize for their discovery of Giant Magnetoresistance (Magneto-Resistance). The two were announced as winners on October 9 2007. Fert is a physicist whose work has brought about great development and change in the giga-byte construction in hard drives. He is a Professor at University Paris-Sud in Orsay. Grunberg is a physicist as well and along with Fert researched and developed the Magnetoresistance. He is leading researcher in the field of thin film and multilayer magnetism. He conducts his research at The Institute for Solid State Physics in the Jülich Research Centre. Both men expect to continue and further their research in their award winning area, as well as new physics endeavors.

Doris Lessing of the United Kingdom was awarded The Nobel Prize in Literature. Lessing never finished high school and found education in reading books. She is now the eleventh woman who has won the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Swedish Academy described 88-year-old Lessing and her writing as "that epicist of the female experience, who with skepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilization to scrutiny." Lessing has written numerous books of fiction, two volumes of autobiographical books, plays, and nonfiction. Lessing lives and continues to write in her London home. She was announced as the winner on October 11 2007.

For his role in the awareness of environmental issues and Global Warming, the most known winner of the Nobel Prize this year is Alfred Gore. Al Gore was the Vice President under the Clinton Administration and producer of the award-winning movie "An Inconvenient Truth." Gore shared his award by ½ with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Together they won The Nobel Peace Prize. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was instituted in 1988. Refereed to as the IPCC, they are located in Geneva Switzerland. The prize was announced on October 12 2007.

The award for Economics is announced and awarded on a different date then the other five. October 15^th 2007 will be the announcement date for the Nobel Prize in Economics. Edmund S. Phelps was the 2006 winner of the prize.

The awards can be won by several individuals under one category. If there is more than one winner in any category, the committee will divide the money two ways. If there are three winners, the money may be divided three ways, or the committee may decide to give 50% to 1 winner and 25% to each of the other 3.
The winners will come together in December to receive their actual prizes.
Once the ceremony in December is over, the Committee begins researching nominations for the next year.

The Nobel Peace Prize will be handed out separately by the Norwegian Nobel Committee. When the prize is handed down in Oslo Norway this December, a Peace Prize concert will follow.

Facts:
740 Prizes have been awarded to men, while 34 have been awarded to women.
Jean-Paul Sarte was one of two people who declined the Nobel Prize. Sarte's was in 1964 for Literature. The other was Le Duc Tho, who declined the award for The Nobel Peace Prize in 1973.
The youngest winner was 25 year old Lawrence Bragg. He received the prize along with is father. The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to them both in 1915.
The oldes winner was 88 year old Raymond Davis Jr. He won the The Nobel Prize in 2002 for Physics.