Meet the New Nobility

The Nobel prizes, perhaps the greatest honors given out by mankind, have been announced, and there are some surprises and some interesting stories. Here’s who’s getting them this year:

Physics: Yoichiro Nambu (b. Tokyo, currently at the Fermi Institute in Chicago), for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics. Also, Makoto Kobayashi & Toshihide Maskawa (KEK in Kyoto), for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature. The Irish news service RTE reported that “They laid the theoretical foundations for modern understanding of how the laws of physics differ for matter and anti-matter.”

Medicine: The prize went to three researchers crediting with discovering important viruses, this allowing for their effective treatment. The honorees are Harald zur Hausen (German Cancer Research Centre, Heidelberg) for his discovery of human papilloma viruses causing cervical cancer, and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi & Luc Montaignier (Institut Pasteur, Paris) for their discovery of human immunodeficiency virus. Definitely deserved all around.

Chemistry: Three Americans: Osamu Shimomura (born in Japan), Martin Chalfie, & Roger Tsien, received the prize for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP. Remember those pictures of the glowing cats? Yeah, that was these guys. I want a glowing cat. It was reportedly discovered in jellyfish, then researchers discovered they could use it as a study marker.

Literature: I personally think the literature branch is completely out of touch with reality. I’m not usually nationalist, but the head of the committee said the other day that there’s “nothing of value” coming out of America right now. Uh-huh. The prize this year went to a French writer I’ve never heard of, Jean Marie Le-Clezio, "author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization."

Peace: Probably the most prestigious prize goes this year to the former President of Finland, Martti Ahtisaari. He has apparently been a peace moderator everywhere from Kosovo to Indonesia’s Aceh Province, though I had never heard of his laudable efforts before now. Most Americans have only heard of the current Finnish president, a woman who Conan O’Brien supported because he thought she looked like him. Um…

The Economics prize will be announced Monday. Of course, the Nobel prizes were started by Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite. He decided that his invention was too violent and decided to do something positive with his fortune in his will. In addition to the prestige, winners get oodles of cash. The prizes are awarded in Stockholm, except for Peace, which is awarded separately in Oslo, for whatever reason.