It’s Nobel Prize week and each day is a frenzy of speculation over who will win.

Monday, Dr. Robert Edwards won the medicine prize for his pioneering work with In Vitro Fertilization. Tuesday, Russian physicists Konstantin Novoselov and Andre Geim won the Physics award for their groundbreaking work with Graphene.

On Wednesday, the chemistry prize will be announced. The blog ChemBark, has two scientists Zare and Moerner as 6/1 favorites for their work in Spectroscopy and Lasers. We’ll have to see what happens.

[Note: Oops! So much for favorites. The chemistry prize went to three scientists, American Richard Heck and Japanese researchers Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki for their work in bonding carbon atoms.]

The speculation is growing around Thursdays announcement of the literature prize. The early buzz has been around the Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer, but other names in the running include Keynan Ngugi wa Thiong’o, and poets Adam Zagajawski from Poland, Ko Un from Korea, and Les Murray from Australia. In the past few days, interest has peeked for American novelist Cormac McCarthy. Be sure to keep your Amazon account handy so you can swoop up the books of whomever wins.

[Note: Well, we missed on this one too. The prize for literature went to Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa who has written more than 30 novels, including "The Time of the Hero" and "The Feast of the Goat."]

For the granddaddy of the lot, the Peace Prize, the oddsmakers are leaning towards Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. But, after last year’s surprise choice of Barack Obama, we won’t count out any of the other nominees.

[Note: Whew!, we got this one correct.]

Yesterday marked the end of regular season for Major League Baseball. We’re pleased to note that the San Francisco Giants didn’t choke and vanquished the San Diego Padres to win the division and return to the playoffs for the first time in seven years.

In Atlanta, the Braves squeaked into the playoffs as the wild-card – a nice final rally cap for long time manager Bobby Cox.

The playoffs begin Wednesday…  let iCurrent help you follow your team:

Cincinnati Reds vs. Philadelphia Phillies

Atlanta Braves vs. San Francisco Giants

Texas Rangers vs. Tampa Bay Rays

New York Yankees vs. Minnesota Twins

Labor Day traditionally marks the kick off of the campaign season, but many candidates took off their gloves long ago. Midterm elections are notoriously hard on the party in power and this year will be no different. The Democrats are facing losses that may strip them of their majorities in the House and severely reduce their majority in the Senate.

Here are a few races to keep your eye on:

Alaska Senate Race – Joe who? The 43 year-old Yale trained lawyer was unknown to everyone but Sarah Palin a few weeks ago. After upsetting incumbent Lisa Murkowski, he may be riding the Tea Party Express to the U.S. Senate.

California Governor Race – Former boy wonder Jerry Brown is looking to reclaim his spot in the Governors Mansion, but his quest to get his old job back is being blocked by the mountain of cash being poured into the race by his opponent Meg Whitman.

Arizona Governor Race – Already a cable news regular because of the controversial Arizona immigration law debate, incumbent Governor Jan Brewer is seeking a full-term (she became governor after Janet Napolitano became Director of Homeland Security) against Democrat Terry Goddard. Brewer’s deer in the headlights performance in the recent Governor debate hasn’t helped her reputation nationally, but she may be able to hang in the mainly reliable red state.

Nevada Senate Race – In another Tea Party face-0ff , Harry Reid faces a tough battle against Sharron Angle. With some key Republicans fleeing Angle, we’ll see if she can hang on  to topple the Senate Majority leader.

Hurricane Earl

The East Coast is getting an unwelcome guest for the Labor Day weekend. His name is Earl and he’s going to bring wet, stormy weather and cause the cancellation of countless picnics and BBQs.

In an already shaky economy, Hurricane Earl’s untimely visit will  bring frowns to tourists and business owners up and down the eastern seaboard as locals and visitors are told to evacuate or stay home. North Carolina has ordered evacuations for coastal areas and the Governor of Virginia has declared a state of emergency.

With Hurricane Earl still hundreds of miles offshore, the latest advisory from the National Hurricane Center has the storm skirting across Cape Hatteras and turning north for a potential landfall on the coastlines of Massachusetts and Maine early Saturday.

Use iCurrent to track Hurricane Earl:

• Hurricane Earl
• Hurricane Tracking
• Emergency Preparedness
• FEMA

Girls witch Satchels

It was a big week for Education. Teachers are sprucing up classrooms, parents are stocking up on school supplies, and kids are loading their backpacks for first day of school.

Much to their chagrin, teachers in the L.A. Unified School District got their report cards early this year. Last week, The Los Angeles Times published a report that analyzes and grades teacher performance based on the test scores of students. Of course, the Times is naming names so all the world can see the teachers with the lowest marks.

At the higher end of the education spectrum, For-Profit Universities took a hit. The U.S. Department of Education released a study showing that too many graduates from for-profit universities such as The University of Pheonix, Kaplan, and Corinthian Colleges are not paying back their loans. This stoked the fear of a student loan bubble and forced Wall Street to send the companies who run these institutions to detention.

For more, check out these iCurrent channels:

• Back to School
• For-Profit Education
• No Child Left Behind
• Education Reform
• Education

Chupacabra by fmstir

Chupacabra has been spotted again and it’s causing quite a fuss. The latest sighting of the wily cryptid was in Hood County, Texas where a rancher reported “the ugliest creature he has ever seen” in his barn.

First spotted in Puerto Rico in 1990, “El Chupacabra,” or “goat sucker,” has been spied in a number of areas across the Americas from Maine to Chile. Legend has it that the beast attacks and drinks the blood of livestock, and shows a particular fondness for goats.

DNA tests will be performed on this latest Chupacabra candidate. It may turn out to be just a ugly coyote or a hairless dog, but we advise to stay aware – you never know when “El Chupacabra” will strike.

Follow El Chupacabra and other Cryptids on iCurrent:

• Chupacabra
• Cryptids

Thanks to BP, we have a new vocabulary word: Top Kill. This is the process where thick, heavy mud is poured into a well in an effort to push the oil back down. Hopefully, this will successfully stem the flow of 5,000 barrels of oil per day that are gushing into the Gulf of Mexico  and causing unfathomable damage to the local economy and ecosystem.

This accident, along with the tragic explosion at the Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia, sharpens the argument that the United States needs to break from its dependence on fossil fuels. While it’s not possible to instantly switch to other sources of energy, the time is right to begin the weening process.

Luckily, there is a lot of innovation happening in the areas of Green Energy and Clean Technology. New companies with names like First Solar and Fuel Tech are popping up with the promise of more earth-friendly technologies like better photovoltaic products or cleaner coal processing. Other Ventures are focusing on a variety of areas such as biomass, better battery technology, and offshore wind farms.

Check out the iCurrent Channels related to Clean Energy:

• Wind Power
• Bio-Energy
• Solar Energy
• Renewable Energy

In the United States it seems we’re always gearing up for an election. The pundits have been salivating for November’s Midterm Elections since President Obama took the oath of office. And there is already chatter about who’s in and who’s out of the running for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination

Over the pond in the UK, elections do not drag on and on forever.  While the upcoming general election has been anticipated – British law requires an election every 5 years – it was only formally scheduled for May 6th when Prime Minister Brown visited the Queen on April 12th and asked her to dissolve Parliament.

A month of formal campaigning doesn’t leave the major candidates much time to drag each another through the mud, but this year a spanner has been thrown into the works in the form of debates among the three major party candidates, televised live in primetime. Live debates are new to British politics and it’s really turned the race on its head.

The conventional wisdom had David Cameron, a conservative Tory candidate running away with the election over the current PM, Gordon Brown of the liberal Labour Party. But the conventional wisdom didn’t factor in Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats. Clegg surprised the voters with his debate performance and got a major boost in the polls, but it remains to be seen if that boost will carry through to election day.

iCurrent Channels:

• 2010 UK Election
• Gordon Brown
• David Cameron
• Nick Clegg

Space Shuttle Lifting Off

Over 5o years after the launch of Sputnik, there  is lots of human activity up in the solar system. Even as NASA winds down the Space Shuttle Program, the shuttles Endeavour and Discovery still have a full schedule of missions that are critical in the construction of the International Space Station. And Mars is constantly being poked and prodded in search of water and interesting rocks by the rovers Spirit and Opportunity.

While the Space Shuttle, the ISS, and Mars missions grab all the headlines, NASA has a lot more going on. There are long-term missions such as Cassini, which  is delving into the mysteries of Saturn and the Hubble Space Telescope, which is expanding our knowledge of space. There are also numerous lesser known missions that never get any headline and are doing equally important research. The EPOXI mission is studying cometery bodies and extrasolar planetary systems, GALEX is mapping the history of star formation, and the Swift mission is focusing on learning more about gamma-ray bursts.

Check out iCurrent to follow the latest channels related to space exploration:

• Space Exploration
• International Space Station
• Mars Exploration
• LCROSS Mission