Monday, October 24, 2022

The Jewel in the Crown: UK Get its Own Obama Moment

Congratulations to Rishi Sunak who is set to succeed Liz Truss at Britain's next Prime Minister. He becomes the 81st person to attain the position, going back to 1721. Significantly, he will be the first person of color to lead the country in the long history of Brittania. While Sunak was born and raised in Britain, his parents are of Indian origin. He is also the UK's first Hindu Prime Minister. That he becomes PM by leading the Conservative Party is even more remarkable and a truly historic moment for multiculturalism and racial equality.

Rishi Sunak was born in the port city of Southhampton in 1980. His parents are of Indian descent by way of East Africa. His father, Yashvir, a doctor, was born in Kenya and his mother, Usha, in Tanzania. They migrated to the UK in the 1960s. While Sunak maybe a second-generation Briton, his rise to first, among equals followed "one of the most traditional paths to power: prestigious Winchester College, one of the U.K.’s elite private boarding schools, before going on to study philosophy, politics, and economics—the quintessential degree for anyone aspiring to go into British politics—at Oxford University." After graduating in 2001, he pursued a career in finance; working first as an analyst with Goldman Sachs and then, after getting his MBA from Stanford University, joining Chris Hohn's hedge fund, the Children's Investment Fund ("TCI"). Sunak started his own fund, Theleme Partners, in 2010 before leaving to join politics in 2015. 

Rishi Rich 

Sunak's background isn't the only thing atypical about him. He is also the richest lawmaker in the House of Commons, ranking in at #222 on the Sunday Times Rich List of the wealthiest people in Britain in 2022. Sunak is worth an estimated £730mthanks to his finance past and marriage to Akshata Murty, his Stanford classmate and daughter of Indian billionaire and Infosys founder, N. R. Narayana Murthy. I guess it takes a billionaire to relate to kitchen table issues. Err, how much is a pint of milk Rishi?

Well, in any case, the new PM has his work cut out for him, having inherited an economy that is experiencing significant turmoil, not least due to the ill-conceived policies of his predecessor. But it is worth taking in the symbolism of the UK's "Barack Obama" moment. The British conquered India in 1742 and for the 200 years it was the jewel in the crown of an empire that stretched across a quarter of the earth. India was so valuable that General Charles Cornwallis, who lost the Colonies in the Revolutionary War, was feted at home as a hero because of his successes in the Subcontinent. America, what? Now, the new King of England will appoint a new Prime Minister that looks very different from everyone else before him. Interesting times!

Thursday, October 6, 2022

The Nobel Prize for Physics Goes to Messrs. Aspect, Clauser, and Zeilinger

Nobel Prize season continues and on Tuesday the Nobel Assembly announced they awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics to Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger “for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science.” Umm...in more layman terms, their independent works showed that tiny particles of light can be "entangled" and behave like a single unit, even when separated by large distances. The phenomenon was famously called "spooky action at a distance" by Albert Einstein, who dismissed the theory.

Their results have cleared the way for new technology based upon quantum information, including encrypted communication.


Alain Aspect is French and is associated with Université Paris-Saclay, Paris and École Polytechnique, Palaiseau, France. John Clauser is an American and is associated with the University of California, Berkeley and John F. Clauser and Associates. Anton Zeilinger is Austrian and is associated with the University of Vienna.

Monday, October 3, 2022

The Nobel Prize for Medicine Goes to Svante Pääbo

It's the start of the Nobel Prize season and today the Nobel Assembly announced they have awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Svante Pääbo for "his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution."

Svante is a Swedish geneticist specializing in the field of evolutionary genetics and has worked extensively on the Neanderthal genome. He is the founding director of the Department of Genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, since 1997 and is also professor at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Japan.

Pääbo, 67, has spent decades pioneering and perfecting the complex methods of extracting Neanderthal DNA, and successfully sequencing their genome. His decades of research have made it possible for scientists to study the differences between today’s modern humans and their ancient ancestors, giving insights into human physiology and possible future cures for disease.

Love Me Some Eminem

 President Obama living his best life ...at a rally for Harris. Lose yourself in cool.