New Scientist - USA (2019-10-12)

12 October 2019 | New Scientist | 5

NOBEL prizes in medicine and in

physics were announced this week

for advances in our understanding

of how cells sense oxygen and the

first discovery of an exoplanet

around a sun-like star.

On Monday, the Nobel prize

in physiology or medicine was

announced (pictured). It went to

William Kaelin at Harvard, Gregg

Semenza at Johns Hopkins,

Maryland, and Peter Ratcliffe at

the University of Oxford.

Semenza identified a protein

that appears in the blood when

oxygen levels are low, and Ratcliffe

and Kaelin identified a protein

that destroys it when oxygen

levels are high. Together, these

proteins form a molecular switch

that controls how cells respond to

varying levels of oxygen. This

not only helps explain how the

body responds to change, but

has implications for treating a

range of disorders, from anaemia

to heart attack and cancer.

On Tuesday, the physics prize

honoured two advances. James

Peebles at Princeton University

and the astronomers Michel

Mayor at the University of Geneva

in Switzerland and Didier Queloz

at Geneva and the University of

Cambridge were the recipients.

Peebles’s research formed the

basis for our understanding of the

universe’s history after the big

bang. He made predictions about

the shape of the universe and the

matter and energy it contains,

later validated by experiments. 

In October 1995, Mayor and

Queloz were the first to discover

a planet orbiting a sun-like star

outside our system: the exoplanet

51 Pegasi b. This kick-started a

revolution: since then more than

4000 exoplanets have been

discovered, including worlds

with the potential to host life.

Several more Nobel prizes,

including for chemistry, were due

to be announced as New Scientist

went to print. ❚

Discoveries of an alien world orbiting a sun-like star and how cells

detect oxygen are hailed. Jessica Hamzelou and Donna Lu report

Environment

Vote hinders action

on airline emissions

THE UN agency tasked

with limiting aviation

emissions has effectively

voted to block meaningful

action. Although the vote

has no legal force itself,

it could make it harder to

cap emissions from flights.

Few effective measures

are in place to stop aviation

emissions rising. Jet fuel on

international flights isn’t

taxed. And there are doubts

over the international

CORSIA scheme, which

requires nations to offset

growth in aviation emissions

after 2020 – for instance,

by paying for tree planting.

This is widely seen as

ineffective, as we can’t be

sure the trees wouldn’t

have been planted anyway

or will still be growing and

absorbing CO₂ for decades.

Delegates at the UN’s

International Civil Aviation

Organization discussed a

range of issues related to

reducing emissions. They

also voted that CORSIA

“should be the only

market-based measure

applied to international

flights”. That threatens other

measures, such as a scheme

that requires airlines to buy

carbon allowances to cover

emissions of flights within

the European Union.

The UN vote won’t

immediately affect the EU

scheme. But it could lead to

airlines suing the EU over

their inclusion in it, says

Andrew Murphy at the

campaign group Transport

& Environment. If the EU lost,

it would be a green light for

airline business as usual, he

says. ❚ Michael Le Page

The Nobel prize goes to...

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