Professor Hell, a Romanian-born German physicist, was awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his work on improving the resolution of microscopes. Read more

No doubt, Ishiguro's many Catholic fans, myself included, heartily applauded the news. In striking contrast to many modern novelists, his deeply moral stories go to the heart of the human condition with a spare narrative style that hints at deeper forces below the surface.

In each of his stories, mostly told in the first person, readers are faced with the same question: What leads fundamentally good people to make choices they will regret for the rest of their lives?

And in fits and starts, with the aid of their selective, aging memories, Ishiguro's characters come to terms with the pivotal moments of their lives.

Yes, this is the stuff of real tragedy. His characters' struggles for clarity and for hope are enormously absorbing and ring true for readers who have traveled down the same path. And that's why Ishiguro is one of the most popular and critically acclaimed English novelists writing today.

The Remains of the Day

In his best-known work, The Remains of the Day—later adapted into a film starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson—Stevens, a model butler, revisits the critical turning points of his long service to an English lord.

Stevens is clear about his own professional standard: "The great butlers are great by virtue of their ability to inhabit their professional role and inhabit it to the utmost; they will not be shaken out by external events, however surprising, alarming or vexing.

"They wear their professionalism as a decent gentleman will wear his suit: he will not let ruffians or circumstance tear it off him in the public gaze; he will discard it when, and only when, he wills to do so, and this will invariably be when he is entirely alone. It is, as I say, a matter of 'dignity.'" Continue reading

• Joan Frawley Desmond, is the National Catholic Register's senior editor.

Mussie Zerai was nominated for a Nobel prize in 2015 for his compassion to refugees.

For tens of thousands of desperate migrants, his cellphone number has meant the difference between life and death as their boats founder. He has been the lifeline who has relayed calls from refugees in distress to the Italian Coast Guard.

But as the public mood in Italy turns against migrants from Africa and the Mideast, he finds himself being investigated. Read more

The Nobel citation says he is honored "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition."

Commentators say he deserves to share the stage with "a charismatic pope who understood the power of the arts to stir people's souls."

Dylan, 75, was born as Robert Zimmerman in Duluth, Minnesota, and raised in a Jewish family.

In the 1960s, his ballads became anthems for the anti-war and civil rights movements.

In the late 1970s until part of the 1980s, Dylan became a born-again Christian.

His songs in that period include "They Killed Him," a lament about the murders of Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Jesus.

His ballads seek to prick consciences on of the folly of war, environmental destruction, and the isolation of the poor.

Human dignity is a recurring theme

Comments made about his work note Dylan's songs have been inspired by different cultures, faith traditions and periods of history.

Others mention his spiritual nature, saying he's: "... a spiritual seeker, and that's an incredibly important part of his art."

"He acknowledges in everything he does, the sacredness of life, and our obligations to each other."

Some of Dylan's songs in the 1960s had titles with religious allusions, including "Gates of Eden," and "I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine."

The 1964 song "With God On Our Side," fiercely scorns the way wars have been rationalized throughout history by harnessing divine approval.

Dylan is said these not days not to follow any organized religion.

His 1997 song, "Trying to Get to Heaven" includes the lyrics: "I've been all around the world, boys, and I'm tryin' to get to heaven before they close the door."

Source

• Crux
• Image: ChurchPOP

Adolfo Perez Esquivel said Pope Francis preferred to carry out a "silent diplomacy" in helping victims, rather than leading a more public outcry during Argentina's "dirty war".

"The Pope had nothing to do with the dictatorship ... he was not an accomplice," said the Nobel Peace Prize laureate said.

Perez, 81, spoke to journalists after a private meeting with Pope Francis on March 21. He said he and the Pope spoke about the so-called "dirty war" period "in general terms" during their 30-minute encounter.

During the "dirty war", as many as 30,000 Argentines were kidnapped, tortured, murdered or disappeared, never to be seen again.

Perez won the Peace Prize for his work on human rights during the 1976-1983 dictatorship.

He said leaders and members of the Catholic Church reacted and behaved differently during the period as regards to either collaborating or resisting the regime.

"There were bishops who were accomplices with the dictatorship, but not Bergoglio," he said.

Meanwhile, one of the two Jesuits who were kidnapped and held for five months by Argentina's military regime has issued a new statement making it clear that he does not believe the future Pope Francis was responsible for his incarceration.

"The fact is: Orlando Yorio and I were not denounced by Father Bergoglio," said Father Francisco Jalics, who now lives in a Grmany monastery.

At the time of the kidnapping, then-Father Bergoglio was the Jesuit provincial in Argentina.

Father Jalics admits that after their release, he and Father Yorio suspected that they had been denounced. But as he learned more about Father Bergoglio's efforts to secure their freedom, he said, "it became clear to me that this suspicion was unfounded".

Sources:

Catholic News Service

The Guardian

Image: Yahoo! News

Fifty years of stem cell research have brought cures for intractable diseases within reach but they have also generated firestorms of controversy. Between 2001 and 2008, stem cell research vied with climate change as the most contentious issue in science. But since then, the firestorm died down — basically because of Yamanaka's achievements. In fact, Tom Douglas, of the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, at Oxford University, describes Yamanaka's work as "a rare example of a scientific discovery that may solve more ethical problems than it creates".

So what happened in these 50 years? (Click here for a graphic explanation from the Nobel Committee.)

In his classic experiment at the University of Cambridge, Sir John discovered that cell development is reversible. The conventional wisdom was that cells could never change once they had specialized as nerve, skin, or muscle cells. He proved that this was wrong by replacing the nucleus of a frog egg cell with a nucleus from a mature intestinal cell. This modified cell developed into a normal tadpole.

This astonishing development eventually led to the cloning of the first mammal, Dolly the sheep, in 1996 and subsequent attempts by rogue scientists to clone human beings.

But while the technique clearly worked, no one really understood how cell development worked. The obvious target for research was the embryo. From this ball of undifferentiated cells come each of the body's specialized cells — more than 200 of them in humans. Surely the answer must lie there. In 1998 an American scientist, James Thomson, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, isolated and cultivated human embryonic stem cells.

But a one-eyed focus on embryos left stem cell science hostage to ethics. Despite scientists' bravado, everyone had some qualms about destroying embryos for their stem cells. Even Thomson admitted to the New York Times that "if human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough". Read more

Sources

• MercatorNet
• See also ProLife NZ
• Image: The Catholic Spirit