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Nobel 2021
The Nobel science prizes: The good, the bad and the ugly
For all of the good they do to improve public understanding of science, the Nobel Prizes also have major issues. The laureate selection lacks diversity and rewards individuals, promoting competition versus collaboration in science. Continue Reading
2021 Nobel Prize in chemistry for the development of a tool to manipulate molecules
The discoveries that won the 2021 Nobel Prize in chemistry led to an innovative way to build chemical molecules that is widely used today — and are a testament to the value of conducting and supporting basic research, which creates the pool of knowledge needed to create useful, practical applications of that information. Continue Reading
2021 physics Nobel honors work that explains the changing climate
The Nobel committee’s choice to broaden the scope of its science awards, which has historically been conservative in its interpretation of what counts as “physics,” to include climate science is a welcome — and much needed — change in the long history of the physics prize, rewarding how science is conducted today, rather than how it was defined and performed in 1901. Continue Reading
2021 Nobel Prize in Medicine awarded to researchers who told us how chili peppers make you hot and menthol cool
The research conducted by this year’s Nobel Prize winners in the fields of physiology or medicine was a major breakthrough in physiology — but it can also be viewed as research rooted in human curiosity. Fundamental research is often guided by the investigators’ observations and questions about their environment. But their work would not be possible without funding, which is why federal support for basic science research in the U.S. is so vital. Continue Reading