TASK DEFINITION: Generate an explanation for the given claim using the provided supporting material from the paragraph. Please consider the following points while generating an output. 1) The claim will always have supporting proof in the paragraph, and the paragraph will have a clear point of view supporting the claim. 2) There can be instances where direct correlation to the claim is not available. Make use of the sentences in the paragraph to provide a corresponding output supporting the claim. 3) The explanation should be at least one and at most twelve sentences long.
PROBLEM: Paragraph: Serge Haroche of France and American David Wineland, both 68, found ways to manipulate the very smallest particles of matter and light to observe strange behavior that previously could only be imagined in equations and thought experiments. Wineland once described his own work as a “parlor trick” that performed the seemingly magical feat of putting an object in two places at once. Other scientists praised the achievements as bringing to life the wildest dreams of science fiction. “The Nobel laureates have opened the door to a new era of experimentation with quantum physics by demonstrating the direct observation of individual quantum particles without destroying them,” said the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awarded them the 8 million crown ($1.2 million) prize. “Perhaps the quantum computer will change our everyday lives in this century in the same radical way as the classical computer did in the last century.”  Haroche said he was walking in the street with his wife when he recognized the Swedish country code on the incoming call to inform him of the award. “I saw the area code 46, then I sat down,” he told reporters in Sweden by telephone. “First I called my children, then I called my closest colleagues, without whom I would never have won this prize,” he said. Asked how he would celebrate, he said: “I will have champagne, of course.”  He told Reuters he hoped the prize would give him a platform “that will allow me to communicate ideas, not just in this field of research but for research in general, fundamental research”. Wineland was asleep at home in Boulder, Colorado, when the phone call from Stockholm arrived before dawn on Tuesday morning, he said at a press conference. (His wife answered.) Physics is the second of this year’s crop of awards; scientists from Britain and Japan shared the first prize on Monday, in medicine, for adult stem cell research. The prizes, which reward achievements in science, literature and peace, were first awarded in 1901 in accordance with the will of Swedish dynamite millionaire Alfred Nobel. “This year’s Nobel Prize recognizes some of the most incredible experimental tests of the weirder aspects of quantum mechanics,” said Jim Al-Khalili, professor of physics at the University of Surrey in Britain. “Until the last decade or two, some of these results were nothing more than ideas in science fiction or, at best, the wilder imaginations of quantum physicists. Wineland and Haroche and their teams have shown just how strange the quantum world really is and opened up the potential for new technologies undreamt of not so long ago.”  Quantum physics studies the behavior of the fundamental building blocks of the universe at a scale smaller than atoms, when tiny particles act in strange ways that can only be described with advanced mathematics. Researchers have long dreamt of building “quantum computers” that would operate using that mathematics - able to conduct far more complicated calculations and hold vastly more data than classical computers. But they could only be built if the behavior of individual particles could be observed. “Single particles are not easily isolated from their surrounding environment, and they lose their mysterious quantum properties as soon as they interact with the outside world,” the Nobel committee explained. “Through their ingenious laboratory methods Haroche and Wineland, together with their research groups, have managed to measure and control very fragile quantum states, which were previously thought inaccessible for direct observation. The new methods allow them to examine, control and count the particles.”  Both scientists work in the field of quantum optics, studying the fundamental interactions between light and matter. The Nobel committee said they used opposite approaches to the same problem: Wineland uses light particles - or photons - to measure and control particles of matter - electrons - while Haroche uses electrons to control and measure photons. In one of the strange properties of quantum mechanics, tiny particles act as if they are simultaneously in two locations, based on the likelihood that they would be found at either, known as a “superposition.”  It was long thought that it would be impossible to demonstrate this in a lab. But Wineland’s “parlor trick” was to hit an atom with laser light, which according to quantum theory had a 50 percent chance of moving it, and observe the atom at two different locations, 80 billionths of a meter apart. In a normal computer, a switch must either be on or off. A quantum computer would work with switches that, like the particles in Wineland’s experiment, behaved as if they were in more than one position at the same time. An example is a computer trying to work out the shortest route around town for a travelling salesman. A traditional computer might try every possible route and then choose the shortest. A quantum computer could do the calculation in one step, as if the salesman travelled each route simultaneously. Wineland is a dedicated experimentalist, not bothered by the bizarre philosophical implications of quantum mechanics, such as the notion that reality does not exist until an observer measures it. “You can find debate on this, but I’m not sure we’re so special in the universe” as to have the power to bring reality into being, he told Reuters. His realism extends to applications of his work. “I wouldn’t recommend anybody buy stock in a quantum computing company,” Wineland told reporters, but he said he was optimistic that it might be possible to build one eventually. He plans to be part of the quest. Asked if his science career was nearing an end, he said he had no plans to retire “until they drag me out of here for being too old”. ($1 = 6.6125 Swedish crowns) Claim: "Nobel for quantum ""parlor trick"" that could make super computers."

SOLUTION: A French and an American scientist won the Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for finding ways to measure quantum particles without destroying them, which could make it possible to build a new kind of computer far more powerful than any seen before.

PROBLEM: Paragraph: A crowdfunding initiative by the finance minister amid reports of government spending on new vehicles for Cabinet members has only swelled public anger. Some local non-governmental organizations on Friday blamed the government for the deaths in an outbreak that is spreading beyond the capital and raising fears of a repeat of the 2008 epidemic that killed over 4,000 people. “It is alarming and quite unusual for such a medieval and preventable disease to continue to claim such valuable lives in this day and age,” said the Civil Society Health Emergency Response Coordinating Committee in a statement. It warned that government failure to “guarantee the right to health is a serious violation of both local and international law.” The government, which this week declared an emergency, has said it is committed to ending the outbreak. Health Minister Obadiah Moyo, while visiting a suburb identified as the epicenter of the outbreak on Friday, said it is not time “for a blame game.” United Nations agencies such as the World Health Organization say they have intervened to assist the southern African country whose economy collapsed under former leader Robert Mugabe, who resigned in November under military pressure. Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube used Twitter to announce a crowdfunding initiative to help fight the outbreak, infuriating some Zimbabweans long frustrated by the country’s currency crisis and high unemployment rate. ___ Follow Africa news at https://twitter.com/AP_Africa Claim: Zimbabwe’s government criticized over cholera outbreak.

SOLUTION: Zimbabwe’s new government is battling criticism over a cholera outbreak that has killed at least 25 people.

PROBLEM: Paragraph: The story says the federal government is paying about $2,250 per patient for a standard 5-day treatment course. It also notes that the approved alternative treatments are less expensive. The story points out that the benefits of peramivir have yet to be proven and that it is being offered only because some patients are not helped by approved drugs or are they are so sick they need a drug that can be given intravenously. The approved antiviral drugs are currently available only in pill or inhaled form. The story should have mentioned the side effects seen in clinical trials so far, as well as the risk that patients could suffer harms like those sometimes seen in people who have been given similar antiviral drugs. These side effects are clearly spelled out in an FDA fact sheet prepared for patients and caregivers: “The most common side effects of PERAMIVIR are: • diarrhea • nausea • vomiting • white blood cell count decreased These side effects may go away after you stop receiving PERAMIVIR. These are not all the possible side effects of PERAMIVIR. Peramivir is still being studied so it is possible that all of the risks are not known at this time. Other medicines that are used to treat people with 2009 H1N1 flu have side effects that may also happen in people who receive PERAMIVIR. These side effects include: • Signs of unusual behavior. People with the flu, especially children and adolescents, may be at a higher risk for seizures, confusion, or abnormal behavior early in their illness. These events may happen after starting PERAMIVIR or may happen if the flu is not treated. These events are not common. Patients should be watched for signs of unusual behavior. • Allergic reaction or severe rash Not a lot of people have taken PERAMIVIR for 5 days or longer. Serious and unexpected side effects may happen. The side effects of getting any medicine by vein are brief pain, bleeding, bruising of the skin where the needle enters, soreness and swelling at that spot, and possible infection at that spot.”  Patient fact sheet available at: http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Drugs/DrugSafety/PostmarketDrugSafetyInformationforPatientsandProviders/UCM187799.pdf Provider fact sheet available at: http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Drugs/DrugSafety/PostmarketDrugSafetyInformationforPatientsandProviders/UCM187811.pdf The story points out more than once that peramivir is still being tested and that questions remain about its potential effectiveness. The story points out that the experimental drug is being offered only to patients who are already in the hospital and aren’t being helped by approved drugs. The story did not point out that one of the supporters of faster and broader access to peramivir, Dr. Richard Whitley, has long been a booster of the drug, which is being commercially developed by a spin-off of the University of Alabama department he works in. See Whitley comments in a 2005 article promoting the potential of peramivir: http://main.uab.edu/show.asp?durki=87834 Here we also point out that the story profiled only one patient and includes a quote from the patient’s father crediting peramivir with saving his daughter’s life. The story does not give any examples of similar patients who either survived after getting approved drugs or who received peramivir and yet did not survive. Despite the clear caveats in the story, the reliance on only a single anecdote may give readers a skewed sense of the benefits of the unapproved drug. The story makes clear that the approved antiviral flu drugs are Tamiflu and Relenza. The story makes very clear that peramivir is experimental and is being offered only because some patients cannot take or aren’t helped by approved antiviral drugs. The story is quite clear that peramivir is still being tested. The story does not appear to rely on a news release. Claim: New Drug for H1N1 Flu Offers Hope

SOLUTION:
This story about giving some people hospitalized with H1N1 flu emergency access to an unapproved antiviral drug, peramivir, does a good job of emphasizing how much is unknown about the potential benefits of the drug and that the drug will be offered to patients who don’t have other treatment options. The story also highlights the financial stakes for the company developing the drug and its investors… and how those conflicts can color the comments of those speaking about the drug. However, the story introduces readers to only one patient and includes a quote from the patient’s father claiming the experimental drug saved his daughter’s life. There is no independent corroboration of that claim, nor are readers introduced to any patients who either received the experimental drug and did not benefit or received standard therapy and responded well. Also, readers are not told that the president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, who is quoted urging broader access to the drug, works in the University of Alabama department that developed peramivir and that the university has ties to the company that is trying to bring the drug to market.