Nobel prize winners recieve their awards

Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, received the Nobel prize for peace in Oslo earlier on Saturday.

In his acceptance speech ElBaradei said, ‘‘If we hope to escape self-destruction, then I believe nuclear weapons should have no place in our collective conscience, and no role in our security….The hard part is: how do we create an environment in which all of us would look at nuclear weapons the way we look at slavery or genocide, as a taboo and a historical anomaly?’’

The 2005 laureates for medicine, physics, chemistry and economics were all present to receive their prize from Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf.

The winners included Barry Marshall, who shared the 2005 medicine award with fellow Australian Robin Warren. Marshall became one of the most memorable Nobel prize winners for acting as his own human guinea pig to prove his theory that a bacterium caused stomach ulcers rather than stress, in the face of a disbelieving medical establishment.

The Nobels, regarded as the world’s most prestigious accolades in science and literature, have been awarded since 1901. The 2005 prizes are worth $1.25 million) each. —Reuters