Billionaire internet investor Yuri Milner says he launched his $3 million science prizes to create heroes for the next generation
What is the goal of the new prizes? Scientists are under-represented as heroes in our society. We intend to change that. This is not an objective in itself; it will in turn encourage younger people to go into science and also help to increase funding. The more attention you attract to science, the better off everybody will be.
Why do you think famous scientists are key to inspiring the next generation? To inspire young people to go into science you need to show them the heroes of the present. People look at Usain Bolt and they go into running. You need role models to attract young talent. That is not emphasised in science. How many scientists are household names?
You launched physics prizes last year. Why did you create life sciences prizes as well? Fundamental physics is at the forefront of answering big questions; I don't think there is any bigger question than the universe. The next set of big questions is about life ? evolution, disease, genetics, longevity and so on. So the life sciences are a natural second step.
How did you decide on $3 million? There is no magic in this number, but it emphasises the importance of these people in society: not only Wall Street traders should be making millions. That said, I don't think scientists are inspired by money. It's not so much about the $3 million ? though that's not going to hurt. It is about showcasing the scientists. Millions of lives are saved every year by what these people are discovering, yet nobody knows who they are.
Why did you decide to have prize recipients form a committee to select future winners? I'm a former scientist and an internet investor. Something that makes some internet companies very powerful is the network effect: as people join a network, it becomes disproportionately more powerful. If previous winners pick the next winners, they have a vested interest in keeping the bar high ? if not, they devalue their own prize.
Are you concerned about networks of insiders ? colleagues selecting colleagues? Over the years, I think this will not really dominate. If you remember, Facebook started in colleges. It was the network for Harvard, then Stanford and then other colleges. Then it went beyond colleges, and the bigger it grew, the more representative it became. You just have to start somewhere. Of all ways to pick winners, I think this is less political.
Critics of these prizes point out that most recipients work for well-funded universities. This money is not going towards research. It is not to buy equipment and do genome sequencing ? there are multiple philanthropic organisations that do that. It is going straight into the pockets of individuals, to reward individual achievement. That's why I think a lot of this criticism is slightly misplaced. This is about people, not institutions.
How do you hope winners spend the money? I hope this will give them more freedom to do what they want to, allow them to spend more time on science and less time thinking about how to fix the car or put someone through college or buy a house.
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Martha Stewart arrives at New York State Supreme Court in New York, Tuesday, March 5, 2013. Stewart, 71, is scheduled to take the stand Tuesday in a legal battle between two of the nation's largest retailers ? Macy's Inc. and J.C. Penney Co. Macy's sued the media and merchandising company Stewart founded for breaching an exclusive contract when she signed a deal with Penney in December 2011 to open shops at most of its stores this spring. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Martha Stewart arrives at New York State Supreme Court in New York, Tuesday, March 5, 2013. Stewart, 71, is scheduled to take the stand Tuesday in a legal battle between two of the nation's largest retailers ? Macy's Inc. and J.C. Penney Co. Macy's sued the media and merchandising company Stewart founded for breaching an exclusive contract when she signed a deal with Penney in December 2011 to open shops at most of its stores this spring. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Martha Stewart arrives at New York State Supreme Court in New York, Tuesday, March 5, 2013. Stewart, 71, is scheduled to take the stand Tuesday in a legal battle between two of the nation's largest retailers ? Macy's Inc. and J.C. Penney Co. Macy's sued the media and merchandising company Stewart founded for breaching an exclusive contract when she signed a deal with Penney in December 2011 to open shops at most of its stores this spring. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Martha Stewart arrives to court in New York, Tuesday, March 5, 2013. Macy's Inc. is suing the media and merchandising company Stewart founded for breaching an exclusive contract when she signed a deal with J.C. Penney in December 2011 to open shops at most of its stores this spring.(AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Martha Stewart arrives at New York State Supreme Court in New York, Tuesday, March 5, 2013. Stewart, 71, is scheduled to take the stand Tuesday in a legal battle between two of the nation's largest retailers ? Macy's Inc. and J.C. Penney Co. Macy's sued the media and merchandising company Stewart founded for breaching an exclusive contract when she signed a deal with Penney in December 2011 to open shops at most of its stores this spring. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Martha Stewart arrives at New York State Supreme Court in New York, Tuesday, March 5, 2013. Stewart, 71, is scheduled to take the stand Tuesday in a legal battle between two of the nation's largest retailers ? Macy's Inc. and J.C. Penney Co. Macy's sued the media and merchandising company Stewart founded for breaching an exclusive contract when she signed a deal with Penney in December 2011 to open shops at most of its stores this spring. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
NEW YORK (AP) ? Home decor and food guru Martha Stewart testified in court on Tuesday that she did nothing wrong when she signed an agreement to open shops within most of J.C. Penney's stores across the country.
Stewart testified in New York state court in a trial over whether the company she founded breached its contract to sell cookware, bedding and other items exclusively at Macy's when she inked the deal with Penney.
During three hours of testimony, Stewart, who founded Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc., denied Macy's allegations that she did anything unethical and said she was only looking to expand her brand.
In fact, Stewart said it's Macy's that didn't uphold its end of the agreement to try to maximize the potential of her business. She said her brand had grown to about $300 million at Macy's, but the business was now "static" at the department store chain. She said she had hoped the business would exceed $400 million.
"We were disappointed," Stewart, 71, wearing a light brown tunic and a mini skirt, testified. " We got to a certain dollar amount and struggled and never got any further."
The trial, which began Feb. 20, focuses on whether Macy's has the exclusive right to sell some Martha Stewart branded products such as cookware, bedding and bath items.
Penney signed a pact in December 2011 with Martha Stewart Living to open shops at most of its 1,100 stores by this spring. A month later, Macy's renewed its long-standing exclusive deal with Martha Stewart until 2018, then it sued both Martha Stewart Living and Penney.
Macy's is trying to block Penney's from opening the shops. The company also is seeking to stop Martha Stewart from providing any designs to Penney ? whether or not they carry the Martha Stewart label.
Martha Stewart and Penney are using what they believe is a loophole in the agreement between Macy's and Martha Stewart to move forward with their deal. It's a provision that allows Martha Stewart to sell some of the products that it offers in Macy's stores at Martha Stewart stores, too.
According to Martha Stewart lawyers, because the Macy's agreement doesn't specify that Martha Stewart stores have to be "stand alone" stores, the mini shops within Penney's stores would not violate the contract. Stewart said in court Tuesday that even Amazon.com could be considered a store, given that shoppers are shifting more to online buying.
"I don't think you need walls to be a store," she said.
The trial has revealed some of the drama that took place behind-the-scenes between Stewart and the CEOs of Macy's Inc. and J.C. Penney Co.
During his testimony on Friday, Penney CEO Ron Johnson rejected claims by Macy's lawyers that he plotted to push Martha Stewart to breach her deal with Macy's with the goal of eventually becoming the sole carrier of some of Stewart's products.
Johnson, dressed in a dark suit and striped navy tie, said during his testimony that he just wanted to get a piece of the action while helping the Martha Stewart's business grow. He also said that the expanded partnership could be good for all parties involved, including Macy's.
Macy's attorneys, meanwhile, have portrayed Stewart as someone who turned her back on a good friend, Macy's CEO Terry Lundgren, to broker a deal with a rival company. During testimony earlier in the trial, Lundgren, who wore a suit, said that he hung up on Stewart after she told him about the deal she'd reached with Penney. He said he hasn't spoken to her since.
"I was quite taken back by his response and when he hung up on me I was quite flabbergasted," Stewart testified Tuesday.
Stewart also testified that she couldn't discuss the impending Penney deal with Lundgren sooner because the negotiations were "confidential." But Theodore Grossman, an attorney representing Macy's, presented an email on Tuesday that showed that Stewart had discussed it with Millard Drexler, CEO of the J. Crew clothing chain, before the deal was complete.
Stewart's testimony comes as the company she founded continues to struggle. Martha Stewart Living just finished its fifth straight year of losses. The company has also had steep sales declines.
Martha Stewart Living had taken a when Stewart was convicted in March 2004 of lying to prosecutors about a stock sale. After Stewart's release, business began to recover as advertisers who had fled returned. But in the past few years, Martha Stewart Living has been grappling with a consumer shift to the Web and mobile devices to get the latest recipes and other food tips.
Martha Stewart Living has been trying to bolster its merchandising business, which represents 30 percent of the company's annual revenue, to offset declines in its broadcast and publishing divisions. The biggest opportunities for Martha Stewart Living are in selling products for the home, including bedding, bath and kitchen merchandise. That's because as the housing recovery gains momentum in the economic recovery, people likely will put more money into their homes.
During her testimony on Tuesday, Stewart said she always wanted to open big shops within Macy's stores, but the retailer never embraced that concept. Instead, she said the merchandise in Macy's stores is just "here and there."
That's why she said that a proposal from Penney's Johnson to create shops filled with home merchandise was appealing to her.
"We hoped this business would be growing," Stewart said. "It just boggles my mind that we're here sitting in front of you, judge."
Health benefits of marriage may not extend to allPublic release date: 5-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Hui Zheng Zheng.64@sociology.osu.edu 614-688-8348 Ohio State University
COLUMBUS, Ohio Marriage may not always be as beneficial to health as experts have led us to believe, according to a new study.
Researchers made two discoveries that explain why: First, marriage provides less protection against mortality as health deteriorates, even though it does seem to benefit those who are in excellent health. Secondly, married people tend to overestimate how healthy they are, compared to others.
"We believe marriage is still good for the health of some people, but it is not equally protective for everyone," said Hui Zheng, lead author of the study and an assistant professor of sociology at Ohio State University.
"For those who are already in poor health, marriage doesn't seem to provide any extra benefits."
The results generally held true for both men and women. They were also similar for all types of unmarried people, including divorced, widowed and never married, as well as separated people.
Zheng conducted the study with Patricia Thomas of the University of Texas at Austin. Their results appear in the March 2013 issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.
The researchers used data on about 789,000 people who participated in the National Health Interview Survey from 1986 to 2004. In this survey, participants rated their own health on a five-point scale (excellent, very good, good, fair, poor). Zheng and Thomas then used follow-up data to identify the nearly 24,100 people who died between 1986 and 2006.
The self-rated health measure used in this study has been found to be one of the best predictors of whether a person will die in both the short and long term even better than doctor diagnosis in some cases, Zheng said.
The researchers used a statistical model to determine how self-rated health, marriage status and other factors related to mortality risk over a three-year period.
Overall, the researchers confirmed the volumes of previous research that has found that, overall, being unmarried including never married, separated, divorced and widowed significantly increases the risk of death within three years. For example, a never-married person who lists his health as "excellent" is two times more likely to die within three years than a similar married person in excellent health.
But their new finding is that as self-rated health declines (from excellent down to poor), the mortality advantage for married people diminishes.
For example, for never-married people, each unit decline in health (e.g., from fair to poor) decreases the risk of death compared to married people by 12 percent. When people rate their health as "poor," there is essentially no difference in mortality risks between married and unmarried people.
"These results suggest that marriage may be important for the prevention of disease, but not as helpful once people become seriously ill," Zheng said.
"That's why we see a protective effect of marriage when people are in excellent health, but not when they are in poor health."
The researchers confirmed that marriage offers diminishing protection against mortality at poorer levels of health by using another, more objective measure of health. They compared married and unmarried people's responses to questions about how well they could handle routine care activities such as eating and bathing, as well as activities that promote independent living, such as driving and cooking.
These results also showed that married and unmarried people have similar mortality rates when they have worse health as measured by limitations on their ability to perform these types of activities.
But the diminishing protection of marriage as health declines is only part of the explanation about why marriage may not guard health as much as assumed. The other explanation uncovered by the study is that married people overestimate how healthy they are.
"The married don't seem to report their health as being poor until they've already developed much more severe health problems," Zheng said.
"They have a different threshold for what they consider to be bad health compared to unmarried people."
That means that once a married person rates his health as "poor," he may be sicker than a similar single person who also lists his health as poor.
The reason may have to do with the social support married people receive from their spouses.
"Even when married people do get sick, the impact on their life may be less because of the support they receive from their husband or wife. They don't rate their health as low as do unmarried people, because their spouse helps them cope," Zheng said.
These results shouldn't be used to cast doubt on the validity of self-rated health measures, Zheng said. In general, self-rated health is still very useful and accurate in predicting mortality. However, the results here show researchers should use such measures cautiously when comparing people of different marital statuses.
People should also be clear about what marriage can and cannot do when it comes to health. "Marriage is helpful in persuading people to adopt a healthy lifestyle that can lead to a longer life," Zheng said. "But it is not as useful in helping people recover from a serious illness."
###
The research was supported in part by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Health and Child Development.
Written by Jeff Grabmeier, (614) 292-8457; Grabmeier.1@osu.edu
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Health benefits of marriage may not extend to allPublic release date: 5-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Hui Zheng Zheng.64@sociology.osu.edu 614-688-8348 Ohio State University
COLUMBUS, Ohio Marriage may not always be as beneficial to health as experts have led us to believe, according to a new study.
Researchers made two discoveries that explain why: First, marriage provides less protection against mortality as health deteriorates, even though it does seem to benefit those who are in excellent health. Secondly, married people tend to overestimate how healthy they are, compared to others.
"We believe marriage is still good for the health of some people, but it is not equally protective for everyone," said Hui Zheng, lead author of the study and an assistant professor of sociology at Ohio State University.
"For those who are already in poor health, marriage doesn't seem to provide any extra benefits."
The results generally held true for both men and women. They were also similar for all types of unmarried people, including divorced, widowed and never married, as well as separated people.
Zheng conducted the study with Patricia Thomas of the University of Texas at Austin. Their results appear in the March 2013 issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.
The researchers used data on about 789,000 people who participated in the National Health Interview Survey from 1986 to 2004. In this survey, participants rated their own health on a five-point scale (excellent, very good, good, fair, poor). Zheng and Thomas then used follow-up data to identify the nearly 24,100 people who died between 1986 and 2006.
The self-rated health measure used in this study has been found to be one of the best predictors of whether a person will die in both the short and long term even better than doctor diagnosis in some cases, Zheng said.
The researchers used a statistical model to determine how self-rated health, marriage status and other factors related to mortality risk over a three-year period.
Overall, the researchers confirmed the volumes of previous research that has found that, overall, being unmarried including never married, separated, divorced and widowed significantly increases the risk of death within three years. For example, a never-married person who lists his health as "excellent" is two times more likely to die within three years than a similar married person in excellent health.
But their new finding is that as self-rated health declines (from excellent down to poor), the mortality advantage for married people diminishes.
For example, for never-married people, each unit decline in health (e.g., from fair to poor) decreases the risk of death compared to married people by 12 percent. When people rate their health as "poor," there is essentially no difference in mortality risks between married and unmarried people.
"These results suggest that marriage may be important for the prevention of disease, but not as helpful once people become seriously ill," Zheng said.
"That's why we see a protective effect of marriage when people are in excellent health, but not when they are in poor health."
The researchers confirmed that marriage offers diminishing protection against mortality at poorer levels of health by using another, more objective measure of health. They compared married and unmarried people's responses to questions about how well they could handle routine care activities such as eating and bathing, as well as activities that promote independent living, such as driving and cooking.
These results also showed that married and unmarried people have similar mortality rates when they have worse health as measured by limitations on their ability to perform these types of activities.
But the diminishing protection of marriage as health declines is only part of the explanation about why marriage may not guard health as much as assumed. The other explanation uncovered by the study is that married people overestimate how healthy they are.
"The married don't seem to report their health as being poor until they've already developed much more severe health problems," Zheng said.
"They have a different threshold for what they consider to be bad health compared to unmarried people."
That means that once a married person rates his health as "poor," he may be sicker than a similar single person who also lists his health as poor.
The reason may have to do with the social support married people receive from their spouses.
"Even when married people do get sick, the impact on their life may be less because of the support they receive from their husband or wife. They don't rate their health as low as do unmarried people, because their spouse helps them cope," Zheng said.
These results shouldn't be used to cast doubt on the validity of self-rated health measures, Zheng said. In general, self-rated health is still very useful and accurate in predicting mortality. However, the results here show researchers should use such measures cautiously when comparing people of different marital statuses.
People should also be clear about what marriage can and cannot do when it comes to health. "Marriage is helpful in persuading people to adopt a healthy lifestyle that can lead to a longer life," Zheng said. "But it is not as useful in helping people recover from a serious illness."
###
The research was supported in part by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Health and Child Development.
Written by Jeff Grabmeier, (614) 292-8457; Grabmeier.1@osu.edu
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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