President Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. The first African-American to win the White House, Obama was praised by the Norweigan Nobel Committee for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." "Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the committee said. "His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead ...

It's Nobel Prize announcement week, and if you had Carol W. Greider, Elizabeth Blackburn, or Jack Szostak in your office pool, you're off to a good start (the trio will share this year's Nobel Prize in Medicine). As we await news of the rest of the winners, here are some stories about past Nobel laureates. 1. Robert Lucas, winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on the theory of "rational expectations," split his $1 million prize ...

Myanmar's military junta allowed pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi to meet Friday with three diplomats -- from the United States, Britain and Australia, according to her spokesman and a government official. "The meeting is a consequence of her letter she submitted to Senior General Than Shwe, she sent on September 25," said Nyan Win, Suu Kyi's lawyer and her political party's spokesman. A government official who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed the meeting. She requested the meeting with ...

A controversial Colombian senator who has obtained the release of 16 hostages held by Marxist guerrillas is the leading candidate to receive this year's Nobel Peace Prize, which will be announced Friday, said an independent research institute in Norway. Sen. Piedad Cordoba is the most likely recipient among three leading contenders, said the Oslo-based International Peace Research Institute. The others the institute named are Jordanian Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad, a philosophy professor in Islamic faith at Jordan University, and Afghan ...

German writer Herta Mueller, whose work has dealt with the hardships and humiliations of life in an oppressive dictatorship, was awarded the Nobel prize in literature Thursday. The Romanian-born Mueller, 56, was recognized by the Swedish Academy as a writer who "with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed." She became only the 12th woman to win the prize since its inception in 1901. Mueller made her writing debut at 29 after ...

British novelist Hilary Mantel snapped up the prestigious Man Booker Prize for Fiction on Oct. 6 for her novel Wolf Hall, a fictionalization of the life of Thomas Cromwell, adviser to Henry VIII, during the King's attempts to produce a male heir to his throne. Mantel's win was not a surprise; bookmakers considered Wolf Hall the heaviest favorite in years. Winning the Booker Prize carries with it a 50,000 prize and historically catapults the title to the top of ...

Two Americans and an Israeli were awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday for painstakingly mapping out the thousands of atoms that make up the ribosome -- work that paves the way for new antibiotics. Inside all animals, plants and bacteria are DNA molecules that contain the blueprint for life. Ribosomes are an organism's protein factories. They use the information in the DNA to make the tens of thousands of proteins that enable the organism to function properly. These ...

Three scientists won the Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for two breakthroughs that led to two major underpinnings of the digital age -- fiber optics and digital photography, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said. Charles K. Kao, a British and U.S. citizen, won for "groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication." Willard S. Boyle, a Canadian and U.S. citizen, and George E. Smith, a U.S. citizen, "invented the first successful imaging technology using ...

Chess legends Garry Kasparov and Anatoli Karpov faced off again in Spain on Tuesday, 25 years after their epic first world championship battle in Moscow, in what organizers are calling a "historic revenge match." Revenge or not, the past chess champs will receive undisclosed sums for playing the three-day, 12-game match in the eastern port city of Valencia. There will be no additional cash prize for the winner of the exhibition event, which the regional Valencia government is organizing under ...

Should Roger Federer win the French Open title on Sunday his prize will be worth less in U.S. dollars than that of Rafael Nadal's in 2008. Although organizers increased the winner's prize at Roland Garros by €60,000 this year, recession-driven fluctuations in the Euro - U.S. dollar exchange rate means the men's and women's winner's prizes in U.S. currency ($1.48 million) have actually shrunk by almost $100,000 compared to last year. Right across the four Grand Slam events -- the ...