This year’s Nobel Prizes are being unveiled this week. Are there any predictors that point to who will be selected? Here’s George Beadle’s (medicine, 1958) response: “Study diligently. Respect DNA. Don’t smoke. Don’t drink. Avoid women and politics. That’s my formula.”Is precocity in childhood a predictor? When the 2001 economics laureate, George Akerlof, was in second grade, he was asked what he wanted for Christmas, and he said, “A steel mill.” Asked the same question by his scientist father,

WASHINGTON ― In the late 1950s, the famous nuclear strategist Herman Kahn facetiously suggested building what he called a “Doomsday Machine.” A computer would be wired to detonate a vast array of nuclear bombs if the Soviet Union took an action defined as intolerable. Kahn was joking. The point of his black humor was that official U.S. nuclear strategy was as crazy as his Doomsday Machine, in that it posited a war from which there was no rational escape. The alternative, wrote Fred Kaplan in his

President Barack Obama has nominated an exceptionally well-qualified economist as the next chairman of the Federal Reserve. By the way, once confirmed ― as few doubt she will be ― Janet Yellen will be the first woman to lead the central bank in its 100-year history.The new chairman will have her work cut out. Five years after the financial crisis, the U.S. economy is frail, and its largest banks are still oversized and undercapitalized. Congress and the White House are so much at odds over fisca

Here is something to remember as nuclear negotiations between the West and Iran appear set to recommence: The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, the putative moderate on whose shoulders great American hopes have been placed, is proud of the work he did to advance his country’s nuclear program ― and also of his efforts to stymie Western attempts to stop that work.Rouhani didn’t talk about this during his recent visit to the United Nations. He came bearing a different message: Iran seeks a peacefu

The global economy is facing a bizarre man-made threat: Radical legislators in the U.S., issuer of the world’s most trusted currency, think forcing the government to renege on its obligations would be a good way to shock it into recognizing the error of its fiscally imprudent ways.Lest anyone take this notion seriously, here’s what would happen if that threat were carried out.To keep spending, the government needs Congress to pass a spending law. Republicans have already blocked this, resulting

BUDAPEST ― As far as Germany is concerned, the drama of the euro crisis is over. The subject was barely discussed in the country’s recent election campaign. Chancellor Angela Merkel did what was necessary to ensure the euro’s survival, and she did so at the least possible cost to Germany ― a feat that earned her the support of pro-European Germans as well as those who trust her to protect German interests. Not surprisingly, she won re-election resoundingly.But it was a Pyrrhic victory. The euroz

In January, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that because his country’s talks to join the European Union had stalled, he might seek instead to join China and Russia in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.Few took the threat seriously; Turkey has been a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization since the 1950s. Yet the government’s decision late last month to award a $3 billion air and missile defense system contract to a state-run company from China suggests that Erdogan

By all accounts, there are enough House Republicans prepared to join with Democrats to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling without demanding provisions attacking Obamacare. The only thing stopping them is the House leadership, which is refusing to allow appropriations bills onto the floor.But House rules give the majority a way to take this decision out of Speaker John Boehner’s hands. By signing a “discharge petition,” 218 members can force a bill onto the floor for a decisive vote.

The day Asian leaders have long dreaded is here: The era of rapid growth is over.It has taken five years, but the fallout from what Asians call the “Lehman shock” is finally hitting gross domestic product and living standards. These risks are the talk of Bali, where Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation nations are mulling what to do about a world where “risks remain tilted to the downside.” There, Michael Taylor, chief credit officer for Asia at Moody’s Investors Service, said chaotic markets and a

President Barack Obama’s decision to cancel his already truncated trip to Asia has elicited shrugs in Washington and politely clenched jaws from Bali to Tokyo. What else could he do, say those focused on the high-stakes U.S. budget stalemate. What else is new, say those hoping that the administration will deliver on its promise of a “pivot” or a “rebalancing” toward Asia.Much of the criticism of the cancellation comes from those worried about China’s growing economic and strategic heft. The Chin

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” is known to be a uniquely American novel that reflects the social milieu of the American 1920s, also known as the “Jazz Age” or the “Roaring Twenties.” In this monumental novel, Fitzgerald laments the loss of innocence and the demise of the American pastoral dream in the age of hedonism and materialism. Readers come to realize that Gatsby was the last Romanticist who naively believed in the pure, pastoral American Dream, symbolized by the green light on t

Americans are becoming more familiar with e-cigarettes, which are beginning to appear in restaurants, bars and coffeehouses where regular cigarettes have long been banned. An e-cigarette is, in effect, a battery-operated nicotine delivery system that works by heating a mixture of water, nicotine and other chemicals. The user inhales and exhales the resulting vapor rather than smoke.E-cigarettes look like regular cigarettes and, for many people, substitute for them. But enormous questions remain.

Calvin Beale, a federal employee for more than 50 years, was an expert on the town of Fayette, Mississippi. He was also an excellent source of information if you happened to be traveling to Grand Forks, North Dakota; Estes Park, Colorado; or Ephrata, Washington.As the national correspondent for a chain of daily newspapers, I traveled all over the U.S. and each time I set off for a new destination I would call Beale, a senior demographer at the Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Servic

Forget the teeth-gnashing already occasioned by a new study on Jewish identity in the U.S. by the Pew Research Religion & Public Life Project. The only thing every generation of Jews has in common is the conviction that it will be the last. What matters for the continuity of Jewish life is quality, not quantity. And in today’s America, Jewish intellectual, cultural, spiritual and religious life is flourishing. Case in point: Beth Medrash Govoha of Lakewood, New Jersey, known as BMG or simply “La

The conflict in Syria is destroying not only the lives of the Syrian people but their heritage ― the world’s heritage ― as well.Syria is a treasure house of history. Damascus, Aleppo, Palmyra and almost 10,000 other archaeological sites there hold the remains of thousands of years of culture. Greeks, Romans, Persians, Christians and Muslims lived and fought in what is now Syria. As the U.N. special envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, explained at a recent UNESCO meeting, “Few countries are as rich

“I am not a member of any organized political party,” the humorist Will Rogers said. “I am a Democrat.”Even Will Rogers would be shocked at the disjointed and self-destructive congressional Republican Party of today. By forcing a government shutdown and possibly a credit default in a few weeks, a minority of rank-and-file Republican members have run roughshod over the leadership. They are pushing a futile effort to kill President Barack Obama’s health-care law, enacted in 2010, upheld by the Sup

The recent collapse of Tong Yang Group has highlighted the insidious growth of corporate debt and the need to swiftly put vulnerable corporations under harsh restructuring programs. According to Chaebol.com, a research company that closely monitors the nation’s chaebol groups, the aggregate debt of Korea’s 30 largest family-controlled conglomerates has surged since the global financial crisis in 2008.Their debt totaled 575 trillion won last year, up 83 percent from 314 trillion won in 2007. The

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has left many here puzzled by abruptly saying that Washington is ready to sign a non-aggression agreement with North Korea.Kerry made the statement during a news conference in Tokyo last week. Although it was attached with one condition ― the North should first decide to denuclearize and to engage in legitimate negotiations to achieve that end ― the overture came as a surprise to many.It is because Kerry was the first U.S. official to express in public Washingt

A vast scholarly literature spanning more than six decades exists on the subject of leadership. The characteristics of effective leaders have been pored over, cataloged and debated. Among them, one trait stands out as axiomatic: Effective leaders take responsibility for problems around them; they do not shift blame to others. As Winston Churchill put it, “The price of greatness is responsibility.”Indeed, studies show that taking responsibility is one of the key traits people expect from a leader

This weekend, the Ladies Professional Golf Association demonstrated its willingness to sacrifice player safety for its own long-term financial health.The occasion was the conclusion of the Reignwood LPGA Classic ― the LPGA’s first tournament in China. The importance of this event for the association’s desired future in China’s rapidly expanding golf market cannot be underestimated. At the top of the leader board going into Sunday’s final round was Guangzhou-born Shanshan Feng. As the LPGA websit