Not just to the pundits, who had variously speculated that perhaps the bloggers of the Arab Spring, or Russian human rights groups might win.

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Those fighting to free Puracal include the director of the California Innocence Project, the human-rights attorney who helped win freedom for Burmese Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and an ex-FBI agent who was one of the early champions of Amanda Knox's innocence.

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This allows the MAYA-II to play a complete game of Tic-Tac-Toe against a human opponent, and apparently nearly always win.

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Taking aim at arthritis, AIDS, cancer and hepatitis, Boger now has seven new drugs in second- or third-stage human trials (three stages are required to win approval).

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"This could be a calculated move on Assange's part -- that he's trying to send a signal that says, 'I'm still in control even though I'm in the embassy, '" said Jared Genser, a noted international human rights attorney who has extensive experience in asylum cases and recently helped win freedom for Burmese Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

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"Last year, thousands of Libyans sacrificed their lives or suffered lasting injury in order to win the right of the Libyan people to build a new state founded on human dignity and the rule of law, " Ban said in a statement Sunday.

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Other questioners focused on the government's plans to reform no-win, no-fee arrangements, changes to the administration of the European Court of Human Rights, and the operation of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974.

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Five have gone on to win Nobel prizes, but no one really knows whether those juicy rewards really advanced the sum total of human knowledge.

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