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Swedish journalist claims Obama Nobel jackpot

While the decision to award US President Barack Obama the Nobel Peace Prize has been received by widespread surprise, one Swedish journalist is toasting the Norwegians after winning 50,000 kronor ($7,177) betting on the outcome.

Published: 9 October 2009 17:06 CEST

Peter Lindholm, a journalist working on the free Swedish newspaper Metro, tipped Obama for the prize after reading the line up of artists booked to perform at the gala concert in the Oslo Spektrum arena on December 11th.

“As soon as I saw the artists, a penny dropped,” Lindholm told the Resumé newspaper.

The line up, which includes a slew of Obama favourites, and is set to be hosted by close ally Will Smith and his wife Jada Pinkett Smith, was all that Lindholm needed to write up an article for the paper predicting the US president to emerge as the winner.

The enterprising hack decided to back up his hunch with hard cash and wagered 1,000 kronor on the Nobel committee plumping for Obama, despite the fact that when nominations closed for the prestigious prize the former Illinois senator had only been in office for a number of weeks.

Barack Obama’s status as a rank outsider, with names such as Bill Clinton, Afghanistan’s Ghazi din Muhammad and Colombian freedom fighter Piedad Córdoba tipped for the prize, was reflected in the odds of 50-1 given to Lindholm.

“50,000 kronor. A pretty good commission,” Lindholm said to the newspaper.

While Lindholm enjoys the fruits of his labour, the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee chairperson Thorbjørn Jagland was left to explain the surprise choice.

“Obama receives the Nobel Peace Prize for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples…The Committee endorses Obama’s appeal that ‘Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges.'”

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US duo win Nobel for work on how heat and touch spark signals to the brain

Thomas Perlmann (right), the Secretary of the Nobel Committee, stands next to a screen showing David Julius (L) and Ardem Patapoutian, winners of the 2021 Nobel Prize for Medicine. Photo: Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP

“The groundbreaking discoveries… by this year’s Nobel Prize laureates have allowed us to understand how heat, cold and mechanical force can initiate the nerve impulses that allow us to perceive and adapt to the world,” the Nobel jury said.

The pair’s research is being used to develop treatments for a wide range of diseases and conditions, including chronic pain. Julius, who in 2019 won the $3-million Breakthrough Prize in life sciences, said he was stunned to receive the call from the Nobel committee early Monday.

“One never really expects that to happen …I thought it was a prank,” he told Swedish Radio.

The Nobel Foundation meanwhile posted a picture of Patapoutian next to his son Luca after hearing the happy news.

Our ability to sense heat, cold and touch is essential for survival, the Nobel Committee explained, and underpins our interaction with the world around us.

“In our daily lives we take these sensations for granted, but how are nerve impulses initiated so that temperature and pressure can be perceived? This question has been solved by this year’s Nobel Prize laureates.”

Prior to their discoveries, “our understanding of how the nervous system senses and interprets our environment still contained a fundamental unsolved question: how are temperature and mechanical stimuli converted into electrical impulses in the nervous system.”

Grocery store research

Julius, 65, was recognised for his research using capsaicin — a compound from chili peppers that induces a burning sensation — to identify which nerve sensors in the skin respond to heat.

He told Scientific American in 2019 that he got the idea to study chili peppers after a visit to the grocery store. “I was looking at these shelves and shelves of basically chili peppers and extracts (hot sauce) and thinking, ‘This is such an important and such a fun problem to look at. I’ve really got to get serious about this’,” he said.

Patapoutian’s pioneering discovery was identifying the class of nerve sensors that respond to touch.

Julius, a professor at the University of California in San Francisco and the 12-year-younger Patapoutian, a professor at Scripps Research in California, will share the Nobel Prize cheque for 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.1 million, one million euros).

The pair were not among the frontrunners mentioned in the speculation ahead of the announcement.

Pioneers of messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, which paved the way for mRNA Covid vaccines, and immune system researchers had been widely tipped as favourites.

While the 2020 award was handed out in the midst of the pandemic, this is the first time the entire selection process has taken place under the shadow of Covid-19.

Last year, the award went to three virologists for the discovery of the Hepatitis C virus.

Media, Belarus opposition for Peace Prize?

The Nobel season continues on Tuesday with the award for physics and Wednesday with chemistry, followed by the much-anticipated prizes for literature on Thursday and peace on Friday before the economics prize winds things up on Monday, October 11.

For the Peace Prize on Friday, media watchdogs such as Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists have been mentioned as possible winners, as has the Belarusian opposition spearheaded by Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. Also mentioned are climate campaigners such as Sweden’s Greta Thunberg and her Fridays for Future movement.

Meanwhile, for the Literature Prize on Thursday, Stockholm’s literary circles have been buzzing with the names of dozens of usual suspects.

The Swedish Academy has only chosen laureates from Europe and North America since 2012 when China’s Mo Yan won, raising speculation that it could choose to rectify that imbalance this year. A total of 95 of 117 literature laureates have come from Europe and North America.

While the names of the Nobel laureates are kept secret until the last minute, the Nobel Foundation has already announced that the glittering prize ceremony and banquet held in Stockholm in December for the science and literature laureates will not happen this year due to the pandemic.

Like last year, laureates will receive their awards in their home countries. A decision has yet to be made about the lavish Peace Prize ceremony held in Oslo on the same day.

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