Science: Nobel Madness

It's Nobel season this week, the biggest popularity contest for scientists everywhere (although sadly there is no swimsuit competition).  And just like other popularity contests, the selection criteria are opaque and seem to be at the whim of the judging body.  There are many arcane rules that surrounding the Prize---for example, the Prize cannot be awarded to the deceased, which can bias the Prize away from research where one of the leading scientists has passed away.  Another strange rule is that each Prize can only be split between a maximum of three winners, which can reduce adult scientists to name calling if they're left out.  The most recent case of this was the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded for the discovery of green fluorescent protein (GFP).  Three scientists were awarded the Prize, but the actual person who discovered the gene for the protein was left out and now drives a bus (although maybe not in that order).  However, probably the most egregious consequence of those rules was the exclusion of Rosalind Franklin, the woman who solved the crystal structure of DNA.  The Nobel Prize for the discovery of DNA was awarded in 1962 to Crick, Watson, and Wilkins, who failed to acknowledge her work in any meaningful way.

Sadly, out of all of the prizes, Chemistry is kind of like the leftover bucket.  Often, since there is no prize in Biology, it tends to spill over and displace more suitable Chemistry winners.  Other times, research in Physics will creep into the Chemistry Prize as well.  As a result, each year chemists worldwide hope for a prize in "real" chemistry.  Similarly, there is no Nobel Prize in mathematics, although this can sometimes be shoehorned into the Prize in Economics (itself a relatively recent addition). 

Still, it's also starting to seem like except for the Peace Prize, Nobel Prizes are something that only scientists care about---the Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded today for the invention of in vitro fertilization and the news is buried in most online news sites (although I wonder if this is due to general disinterest in science or residual controversy over "test tube babies"---on the other hand, CNN.com doesn't even have a section devoted to Science).  However, it's the one week where nerds can act like jocks and fill out their own "Nobel Madness" prediction brackets---who will win this year?  I wonder if even Vegas gets in on the action.  Surprisingly, even The Simpsons got in on this.  I used to be a huge Simpsons fan, but the show has definitely gone downhill and has been virtually unwatchable for nearly a decade.  Still, I happened to catch an episode this season which Lisa and the rest of the nerds showcased their Nobel predictions---and surprisingly, the predictions are actual known chemists with relatively reasonable chances.  It looks like the writers on the Simpsons have actually done their homework instead of just using a throwaway gag.

Season 22, Episode 1: Simpsons Nobel Predictions

Zare and Moerner did work on single molecule laser spectroscopy, Feringa has done work in many different fields but is probably most famous for his molecular machine work, and Sonogashira is one of the big founders palladium-catalyzed cross coupling.   If it was up to me, I would pick Sonogashira, Suzuki, and Heck for cross coupling as I'm partial to synthetic chemistry (methods to make new molecules), although this is a case where the rules are biased against it---Stille, one of the big cross coupling pioneers, passed away in 1989.