Exclusive: Fed's Fisher, outspoken hawk, sees no QE reduction this month

By Ann Saphir, Jonathan Spicer and Pedro da Costa

NEW YORK (Reuters) - One of the Federal Reserve's biggest critics of the U.S. central bank's asset purchases said that because of the fiscal standoff in Washington policymakers are unlikely to reduce stimulus later this month.

Richard Fisher, the hawkish president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said that even he does not think he could make a case for scaling back bond purchases at the Fed's policy meeting on October 29-30.

"My personal opinion is that it's not in play," Fisher told Reuters on Tuesday. "This is just too tender a moment."

U.S. lawmakers were working on Tuesday to strike a deal to avoid a government debt default, as a Thursday deadline for raising the government's borrowing authority loomed. A default by the world's biggest economy could throw financial markets into turmoil and undercut economic growth in the United States and around the world.

If lawmakers fail to resolve the debt crisis, Fisher said, "Given what has happened in the marketplace, I personally would have a hard time arguing for us to dial it back" this month.

He said a possible short-term political agreement to delay the default threat to February, as Congress is debating, "doesn't solve the problem."

The Fed's purchase of $85 billion a month of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities is meant to spur U.S. investment, hiring and economic growth. Investors were shocked when the Fed decided not to trim the year-old QE program at its policy meeting last month.

Fisher said he still believes the Fed should have acted in September, in part to burnish its communications credentials.

But even as the threat of a debt default looms, similar to what happened in August 2011, Fisher gave the Fed strong marks for its ability to respond as necessary. The Fed acts in part as the government's agent in the marketplace.

"I'm more confident that we, my colleagues and I, are better prepared than we were in 2011," Fisher said, citing an "informational feeling."

He expects U.S. economic data to be "sloppy" for a couple more months due to the partial government shutdown.

(Reporting by Ann Saphir, Jonathan Spicer and Pedro da Costa; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Leslie Adler)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-feds-fisher-outspoken-hawk-sees-no-qe-143831522--business.html
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What, Exactly, Is James Franco Doing?

James Franco has big plans, always.

Andrew Medichini/AP

James Franco has big plans, always.

Andrew Medichini/AP

What is James Franco doing?

People started asking this question, in earnest, somewhere around the time he went on General Hospital in 2009. Up until then, he'd been a young actor whose path was relatively normal: he was on Freaks & Geeks, and in Never Been Kissed, and he played James Dean on cable. He was in the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies, and then into Apatow country. Occasional forays into super-artsy stuff like films that showed in museums? No big deal. Nothing you wouldn't see from, say, Ethan Hawke or somebody like that. Swerves between, say, Pineapple Express and Milk, but that happens. Mork wound up in Good Morning, Vietnam, after all.

But then: General Hospital.

Appearances in mainstream stoner comedies are one thing, when it comes to changing up the highness of your brow and toying with the expectations people have of what you would and wouldn't do. But ... a soap? A real, straight-up soap? The same one Luke and Laura were on? Even knowing that he called the appearance a form of performance art, it continued to raise the question...

What is James Franco doing?

Right now, he's releasing his first alleged novel, Actors Anonymous, but we'll get back to that.

It's not like he needs another line of work. He has a band. He writes short stories. He hosted the Oscars. He was roasted on Comedy Central. He's taken many, many classes — and taught some, too. He makes offbeat art and appears in other people's offbeat art. He's played a hot guy on single-woman network sitcoms (both Tina Fey's and Mindy Kaling's).

At the time of a 2010 profile in New York Magazine, the question Franco predicted would be asked about him — and the writer told him was already being asked — was whether he was spreading himself too thin. But in fact, by doing so much, Franco may have achieved something that's almost impossible: he has no meaningful image other than as himself. There is nothing James Franco could do at this point that would move the needle.

What could he do that would seem out of place? What could he do that you really wouldn't expect? He wouldn't really surprise people if he won an Academy Award. He wouldn't really surprise people if he decided to take a one-day role in a Virgin Airlines video demonstrating seatbelts. He could show up in oil paintings, on a sitcom, as a Jeopardy! contestant, as the announced star of So Fast & Extra Furious 8, or in hard-core pornography, and nobody would really think it was anything other than a further example of Well, That's James Franco For You.

"I might be surprised if somebody else did that, but I can sort of believe it, coming from James Franco," is what a lot of us would say about literally anything he did with his career. Aside from something nefarious, even in his personal life, what could he really do now that would require a comeback, or a rehabilitation tour, or a second chance, or an audit of how audiences feel about him?

At times, he's seemed like the kind of guy who's obsessed with pretending he only touches the avant-garde — a self-styled intellectual who disdains everything that's not from art museums. But he's also perfectly happy to do Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes and Oz The Great And Powerful, two huge moneymaking films that have little connection to short films that wind up in museums. This year, he did This Is The End, a proudly stupid gross-out apocalypse comedy in which he and his friends play themselves.

Blockbusters, both self-consciously respectable and not so much? Fine. Obscurity? Fine. School? Fine. Art? Fine. Poetry? Fine.

And now he's published that "novel," Actors Anonymous. It's not really a novel; it's really a collection of ... stuff. Loosely — like, "XXXL shirt on XXXS body" loosely — based on the 12 steps of addiction treatment programs, it consists of short stories, snippets of scripts, and what it's hard not to envision as Things James Franco Wrote Down On The Back Of A Receipt One Time About Acting And Being Famous.

Among these snippets, there are flashes of insight — like, "I performed for money, and I performed for free. It's better to perform for money if you hate the director; it's better to perform for free if you love him." But there are also things nobody would pay money to read under normal circumstances — like, "There are some people that are very serious about their acting. But the ones that are too serious are boring and usually end up strangling their own performances." That would probably not make the cut if he said it in an interview; it's not really book material.

The fiction sections are stories about actors, but other themes tie them together: mostly, they are about young men driven nearly mad by some combination of generalized rage and a specific desire to have sex with, and sometimes to dominate and possess, women. They're far too inconsistent to be really satisfying, but they simmer with a sometimes intriguing frustration. Franco loves to intersperse signs that certain stories are autobiographical and that he's appearing in the book as "James Franco" or "The Actor," but there are also tweaked details that are meant to hold the reader at a slight distance and retain some sense of disorientation with regard to truth and fiction.

In other words, it's the James-Franco-iest book he could have written, because there's nothing to wrap yourself around. It's not very good, but it's not unambitious, and it's not lazy. It's about him but it's not, it's revealing but it's not, and in the end, it's interesting but it's not.

It's impossible for a celebrity to have an image that's a true blank canvas; we are far too voracious for that. But Franco has perhaps achieved the next best thing: a canvas onto which he's spilled so much paint in so many patterns that it ceases to look like anything, and anything you could add to it would look like it belonged there. And, of course, if you stare at it long enough, you can see patterns emerge and then recede — a poseur, a poet, something jarringly authentic, something painfully manufactured. Even, if you squint, the Last Honest Man In Hollywood, who puts out a book that demonstrates that like a lot of us, he has a certain number of sharp thoughts and an awful lot of mundane ones.

Lots of actors go high-low — the Steven Soderbergh "one for them, one for me" thing. But this is different; Franco has achieved a lack of definition that's unthinkable for a guy like George Clooney, no matter what combination of art-house movies and blockbusters he might make.

There was a lot of talk after Franco's Comedy Central roast about the number of jokes that focused on the idea that he's gay. If nothing else, you'd expect the people who were there to roast him, like Seth Rogen and Nick Kroll and Andy Samberg, to expect a little more from themselves than gay-panic har-har-ing like it's 1998. Even if they didn't worry that those jokes — 26, by BuzzFeed's count — would be offensive, you'd expect them to worry that after 26, they'd seem tired, as Aziz Ansari eventually pointed out that they were.

But maybe people who would normally know better remained stalled at lame gay jokes because roasts are usually focused on making fun of an image of the roastee that the audience will recognize, and Franco offers up less material in that regard than you might think. Hard to make pseudo-intellectual jokes at the expense of a guy who cheerfully made Your Highness. Hard to make dumb-stoner jokes at the expense of a guy who spends so much time pursuing advanced degrees.

It's really hard to know how much of this is on purpose. If it is — if this splatter-painting on his own image to achieve a certain imageless state is something he planned — it's nearly genius, but rather cynical. If it's accidental, it's almost sweet.

But the result is the same either way. He has a strange kind of freedom that comes from a very successful campaign of obfuscation, not so much about his personal life as about his sensibility. So he floats around, and he does what he wants, and none of it changes anything.

Franco has 13 projects listed on his IMDB page that are (or are rumored to be) somewhere between concept and execution — and those are just acting. There's also directing, writing, cinematography, and an unbilled job as the provider of morning pastries for the cast of NCIS.

That last one is a lie, but for a minute, you believed it.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2013/10/15/234075232/what-exactly-is-james-franco-doing?ft=1&f=1032
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HP Chromebook 11

If you've been on the fence about trying out Google's Chrome OS, the HP Chromebook 11 might be just what you need to reach the tipping point. The slim design and refined looks are matched with a handful of generous freebies—like free Google Drive storage space, a trial of unlimited music, and free inflight Wi-Fi—but it's the small improvements and innovations that help set it apart. Considering this isn't HP's first crack at the Chromebook, it's a definite step up, putting the budget-friendly laptop on the same level as past favorites.

Design

The Chromebook 11 has a sleek new design, with a clean white exterior and rounded corners that call to mind the old white Apple MacBook, but with a splash of color. On the bottom of the laptop are two large rubbery feet, brightly colored in Google's familiar hues (Red, Blue, Yellow, and Green). The first models were available only in the white and blue color scheme, but the other colors will be available soon, and an unadorned black version is also available.

There are a few distinct features of the Chromebook 11 that stand out. The first is the display, which has upgraded from the basic panels used on the Acer C7 Chromebook (C710-2055) and Samsung Chromebook Series 3 (XE303C12) Chromebooks to an IPS panel. The wider color gamut means that colors pop more, and the display has much wider viewing angles. Unfortunately, though the quality of the panel is improved over previous Chromebooks, it's still limited to 1366 by 768 resolution. At this price, however, the 720p picture quality is no surprise. It's also brighter than most laptop displays, with 300 nits of backlight. Placed side by side with the Acer C7, the HP Chromebook 11 clearly has the better display, even with the same low resolution.

The charger is also unique, as the HP Chromebook 11 is the first laptop to use a micro USB charger, like the ones you see on your tablet or phone. As a result, you can now share the charger between multiple devices, and if it ever gets lost—forgotten at home, left in a library study carrel, or misplaced during travel—you can use any other standard micro USB charger instead of having to special order a unique cable online.

The construction of the Chromebook 11 is a combination of high- and low-end, with a lightweight magnesium frame providing rock solid support for the chassis, and a white glossy exterior, which looks nice, but feels like the plastic it is. It's an odd juxtaposition, but the result is a design with a more premium feel than you might expect from a $279 device. There is no flexing at all when lifting the laptop by one corner, and despite weighing a light 2.3 pounds, it doesn't feel flimsy or low quality.

On the lid of the Chromebook 11 is a glowing multi-colored stripe, similar to that seen on the Google Chromebook Pixel (64GB, LTE). Though the size and price clearly put the HP Chromebook 11 alongside the Samsung and Acer models, this is the also the first inexpensive Chromebook to draw design elements from the premium-priced Pixel. In addition to the illuminated stripe, there's also the magnesium interior frame.

The keyboard is a Chrome keyboard, with the same sort of chiclet keys and Chrome layout seen on other Chromebooks. Caps Lock has been switched for a dedicated Google Search key, and along the top of the keyboard are several Chrome-specific function keys (Across from left to right: Escape, Back, Forward, Reload, Full Screen, Next Window, Brightness Down/Up, Volume Mute/Down/Up, Power). What's different, however, is the addition of a a colored stripe around the keyboard, a small accent that matches the colored footpads of the underside.

The keyboard also functions as a hidden speaker grill, with sound playing from beneath the keys. The sound quality isn't terrible, and while the sound gets a little reedy at high volume, there's none of the buzzing that is so common in low priced systems. The bass is, as expected, rather weak, but the placement of the speakers directly beneath the keyboard means that you feel it far more than you would with any other configuration. All things considered, the HP Chromebook sounds better than any other sub-$300 laptop I've tested.

Features

The Chromebook 11's few ports are all found on the left-hand side of the system. There's the micro USB charging port mentioned above, along with two USB 2.0 ports and a combination headphone and microphone jack. While the port selection on other Chromebooks has always been scanty, it's a bit more sparse on the Chromebook 11.

A few features you won't see on the HP Chromebook 11, include a USB 3.0 port, full-size HDMI, or an SD card slot. These features were offered on the Samsung Series 3, the Acer C7 and the HP Pavilion Chromebook. The loss of USB 3.0 isn't a huge loss, though it does mean you'll be slowed down when using an external hard drive or high-capacity flash drive. The loss of an SD card slot, however, will be felt by anyone who might want to upload photos or videos from a camera or camcorder. For SD Card use, you'll want to pick up a USB connected card reader.

In regards to HDMI, however, the HP Chromebook 11 does have two distinct alternatives. The first is streaming via Chromecast, which plugs into a TV via HDMI and streams video content over Wi-Fi. If you absolutely must have an HDMI connection, the micro USB port—the same one used for charging the laptop—also supports SlimPort, which can output video to HDMI through a SlimPort adapter.

The Chromebook 11 is equipped with a dual-band WiFi adapter, pumping out 802.11a/b/g/n signal at both 2.4GHz and 5.0GHz, which should offer better connectivity in crowded buildings (like apartments or dorms) where a dozen or more Wi-Fi signals may crowd the airwaves. It's also equipped with Bluetooth 4.0 for connecting wireless peripherals. While this model is Wi-Fi only, Google will be selling an LTE 4G-equipped model sometime later this year.

The Chrome operating system is a lightweight OS designed around Google's Chrome browser. Google has built out the Chrome concept to provide many (if not quite all) of the same tools and functions you would use with a tradition Windows or Mac laptop, but uses Chrome Apps and Extensions to provide those same capabilities in a cheaper, web-connected system. With apps like Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides replacing most functions of Microsoft Office (it's compatible with Office files, too), photo editing via apps like Google+ Photos and Pixlr, video editing with apps like WeVideo, and offline modes providing Gmail and Google Docs even when away from the web, the Chromebook is a cheap way to get a lot of things done. Plenty of the Chrome faithful have embraced the always online paradigm, and constant development continues to improve Chrome to fill the gaps pointed out by naysayers.

To entice new users of Chrome OS, Google offers a few free extras. To encourage the switch to cloud storage, the Chromebook 11 comes with 100GB of additional storage space on Google Drive. To highlight the entertainment and multimedia options of the Google ecosystem, Google also throws in a 60-day trial of Google Play Music All Access, which gives you unlimited ad-free listening to the entire Google Play music library, create custom radio, and unlimited skipping. For those who expect to take to the air, the Chromebook 11 also comes with 12 free sessions of GoGo Inflight Internet, for use when traveling by air.

Performance

The HP Chromebook 11 is equipped with a Samsung Exynos 5250—the same 1.7GHz dual-core ARM processor found in the Samsung Series 3 Chromebook. Paired with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of local flash storage, the processor is well suited to the lightweight Chrome OS, but it's actually a little bit slower than other Chromebooks we've seen that opt for Intel Celeron processors; when tested in BrowserMark 2.0, it was slower than both the Acer C7 or HP's own Pavilion Chromebook 14. Despite this, the HP Chromebook 11 is largely on par with the well-received Samsung Series 3, and offers snappy boot times (under 8 seconds), reasonably nimble browsing, and doesn't require any cooling fans—you can thank the Exynos processor for the sleek, vent-free design.

While past Chromebooks, like the HP Chromebook 14 and the Acer C7, have opted for removable batteries, the Chromebook 11 uses an internal battery that can't be removed. This allows for a slimmer, seamless design, and thankfully, the battery life is pretty good. In our battery rundown test, the HP Chromebook 11 lasted 5 hours 13 minutes, easily beating out the Editors' Choice Acer C7 (4:12) and falling only minutes behind the long-lasting Samsung Series 3 (5:25).

Conclusion

The HP Chromebook 11 isn't perfect, with all of the limitations of any other Chrome OS device (though those limitations are likely fewer than you might imagine). The inexpensive laptop does, however, manage to bring some new and improved elements to the inexpensive Chromebook category, boasting a bright IPS display, a unique micro USB charger, and a magnesium-reinforced design. It's definitely a good value, but it doesn't replace the Editors' Choice Acer C7, which offers a larger port selection and larger local storage for those not yet fully migrated to the cloud.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/TqnL742Pio4/0,2817,2425720,00.asp
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Britain's Cameron attacks EU red tape before reform drive

By Peter Griffiths

LONDON (Reuters) - European Union regulation is strangling economic growth and costing the continent billions of euros, according to a British government report on Tuesday that Prime Minister David Cameron hopes will bolster his case for reform of the 28-nation bloc.

Cameron set up the review of EU red tape in June, addressing one of the biggest grievances of British Eurosceptics who complain that the bloc's rules are often petty, interfering and expensive to implement.

"All too often, EU rules are a handicap for firms, hampering their efforts to succeed," Cameron said of the report. "There are lots of simple and practical ways to cut EU red tape and save businesses across Europe tens of billions of euros."

Reducing red tape will be central to Cameron's campaign to reshape the EU and Britain's place in Europe before a promised referendum on its membership of a group it joined 40 years ago.

His chances of winning a second term at the next election in 2015 depend in part on convincing wavering Conservative voters not to defect to the UK Independence Party, whose call to leave the EU could split the center-right vote and benefit the opposition Labour party.

Cameron said the report, compiled by six business leaders, suggested companies were forced to spend too much time complying with "pointless, burdensome and costly regulations".

The report made more than 30 recommendations to reduce regulation, in areas from shale gas extraction, licensing medicines and environmental safeguards to paid maternity leave and limits on working hours.

Scrapping the rule that forces companies to keep written records of health and safety risk assessments could save companies across the EU around 2.7 billion euros ($3.67 billion), it said, while abolishing EU barriers to trade in services could add an extra 1.8 percent to the single market's gross domestic product.

Trade union leaders have described Cameron's investigation into European regulation as "anti-EU rhetoric" that would erode workers' basic rights.

Trailing in the polls before the election, Cameron will send a copy of the report to every European leader and press his case at next week's meeting of the European Council in Brussels, a spokeswoman said. His argument will focus on making Europe more competitive, she added.

Since joining the EU's forerunner in 1973, British Eurosceptics have grumbled about "meddling Eurocrats" in Brussels imposing rules on them. Anti-EU newspapers ridicule and sometimes distort the details, prompting the European Commission to issue rebuttals on its own "Euro Myths" website.

In May, Cameron attacked a European Commission plan to ban restaurants from serving olive oil in jugs or dipping bowls as bizarre. The proposal was later dropped.

The Commission said earlier this month it would review existing EU laws and be careful when writing new ones.

Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the EU's executive, said it had cut the cost of administrative burdens by 32.3 billion euros over the last five years and scrapped 5,590 legal acts.

(Editing by Andrew Osborn and)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/britains-cameron-attacks-eu-red-tape-reform-drive-230134815.html
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Levine can win 'Voice,' if he can handle battles

TV

Craig Berman
TODAY contributor

7 hours ago

Trae Patton / NBC

It's not the first time Adam Levine has built a strong team on "The Voice," but he'll have to be smart if he doesn't want his top talent stolen.

Blake Shelton might be the coach everyone wants to dethrone on "The Voice" after his third straight win last season, and it just might be possible this time around. Entering Monday's battle rounds, he's not the guy with the best team.

Instead, that honor goes to Maroon 5 frontman, Adam Levine. Throughout the blind auditions, he was a master at convincing artists whom all of the coaches wanted to join his team. 

James Wolpert, Tessanne Chin, James Irwin and Ashley DuBose each turned all four chairs, and Adam convinced each to sign with him. It's a pretty stellar accomplishment, considering only six singers in the blinds managed to get all four coaches to push their buttons.

“Adam is a master of those four-chair turns. He’s got the team to beat right now because we all four saw something in a lot of his artists,” Blake said on Tuesday's show.

Moreover, Adam also won over Preston Pohl, Matt Cermanski, Grey and Will Champlin, each of whom got everyone but Christina Aguilera to turn around. Adam also beat Blake head-to-head for Barry Black, CeeLo Green for Nic Hawk and Christina for Donna Allen. Justin Blake is the only singer he has who he won without having to fight for.

“My team is really strong," he admitted on "The Voice." 

Now, he just has to go out and win — something he hasn’t done since the first season.

Time to coach
Of course, while beating Adam at a blind has been difficult for the other coaches this season, beating him once the competition really gets underway tends to be easier.

Last season, he came away from the blind auditions with four of the artists who got four-chair turns: Judith Hill, Midas Whale, Sarah Simmons and Sasha Allen. Of those, the most successful finisher was Allen – after she was stolen by Shakira in the battle rounds. Of Adam's two four-chair turns in season three, Nicole Nelson was eliminated in the knockout round, and Bryan Keith went out early in the live episodes.

In other words, while Adam has been great at getting the talent all of the coaches want, he hasn’t been able to translate that momentum to the later stages of the competition. From questionable battle-round pairings to disconnected song choices, this part of the competition is where he often makes himself vulnerable.

The other coaches are counting on him to make similar mistakes this time around, and they're poised for the steals when the battle rounds begin Monday. Both CeeLo and Blake have already said on the show that they've set their sights on stealing Tessane and James, respectively, from the Maroon 5 frontman.

And worse for Adam? His archenemy, Blake, shines in the battle rounds, getting his acts to keep on doing what made them successful in the first place — just better. This while the Maroon 5 frontman tends to get his hopefuls to try new things and move out of their comfort zones, which hasn't worked quite as well, as past seasons' results have shown.

But for now, “Team Adam definitely looks like the one to beat,” Blake admitted on the show, before adding, “but you can say that almost every season.”

If it turns out Adam isn't able to beat his nemesis and win the competition this season based on the incredible talent he scored in the blind auditions, he may have to find strategies to woo the TV audience as much as he does the contestants.

"The Voice" airs Mondays and Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on NBC.

Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/adam-levine-can-win-voice-if-he-doesnt-blow-it-8C11377323
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Rose McGowan Ties the Knot

Neilson Barnard

Rose McGowan and Davey Detail

Rose McGowan is officially off the market.

The actress married artist Davey Detail Saturday, The Hollywood Reporter confirms. She wore a Oscar de la Renta gown and will travel to Tahiti with her new husband for their honeymoon. The couple wed at the Paramour Mansion in Los Angeles.

It is the first marriage for the Charmed alum. She was previously engaged to Marilyn Manson and director Robert Rodriguez.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/thr/television/~3/X6EBeTT8zs4/story01.htm
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3 Scientists Win Chemistry Nobel For Complex Computer Modeling

A screenshot of the Nobel Prizes webpage showing the 2013 chemistry laureates Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel.

Claudio Bresciani/AP

A screenshot of the Nobel Prizes webpage showing the 2013 chemistry laureates Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel.

Claudio Bresciani/AP

Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel have won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for their development of powerful computer models used to simulate how chemical reactions work, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced Wednesday.

The technology they pioneered is now used to develop drugs and to perform other vital tasks in the laboratory.

"Chemists used to create models of molecules using plastic balls and sticks. Today, the modelling is carried out in computers," the academy said. "In the 1970s, Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel laid the foundation for the powerful programs that are used to understand and predict chemical processes. Computer models mirroring real life have become crucial for most advances made in chemistry today."

All three scientists are naturalized U.S. citizens but also hold citizenship in another country. Karplus, of the Universite de Strasbourg in France and Harvard University, was born in Vienna, Austria; Levitt, of Stanford University, also holds British citizenship and was born in Pretoria, South Africa. Warshel, of the University of Southern California, is Israeli.

On Morning Edition, NPR's Richard Harris says "Karplus ... and his group [at Harvard] were working with the spooky world of quantum mechanics to simulate simple chemical reactions." He was "using this incredibly basic physics to simulate something as complicated as a molecule ... [but] couldn't do it that well."

At the same time, Warshel and Levitt were working on computer simulations of chemistry using classical physics. "That allowed them to solve bigger problems, but in a much more simplified way. So at Harvard, Warshel and Karplus combined these two approaches ... and later, working with Levitt, they pioneered the world of doing chemistry inside a computer," Harris explains.

The academy said that "the work of Karplus, Levitt and Warshel is ground-breaking in that they managed to make Newton's classical physics work side-by-side with the fundamentally different quantum physics."

"Previously, chemists had to choose to use either/or," it said.

For more on the winners and their research, head on over to the Shots blog.

[An earlier version of this post said Warshel was born in Israel. His birth year is 1940, eight years before Israel was declared a nation.]

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/10/09/230646961/three-share-nobel-chemistry-prize-for-complex-computer-modeling?ft=1&f=1019
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