Remember When The Nobels Used To Be Inspiring?

Remember when they didn't give them out just because you are the first black president. Hard to take the award seriously after that

Personally i actually thought it was extremely exiting so far. I`ve seen more headlines about these Noble prizes then any year before.

The Noble prize in medicine (European/Japanese) for discovering that mature cells can be transformed back into embryo-like stem cells that may one day regrow tissue in damaged brains, hearts or other organs is groundbreaking. Especially exciting after the endless headaches around the world with the morality of using embryo`s. Even Bush banning US embryonic stemm cell research which scientists consider crucial to the development of new medical treatments.

This new knowledge and potential means millions of lives in the future will be saved. Not only that it might prove to be the key to immortality on a biological basis (next to the possibility of immortality on a Cyborg/pure Android basis by `uploading` our brains). ;-) It means we can use any person and actually use his or her OWN stemm cells and reprogram them to make new skin, organs etc. It`s beyond incredible that it will be possible. Like building a working fusion reactor, warp drive or a real life and powerful quantum computer.

The Noble prize in physics (European/American) even though i was hoping for an early prize for Higgs/CERN is groundbreaking in itself. Leading to a lot of new research, understanding and possibilities. Like with the already demonstrated improvement of super atomic clocks. Something that will one day enhance our free GPS services to millimeter precision on the go. Detecting individual car lanes with ease and steering our cars and who knows what else exactly where it needs to go.

Even more interesting is quantum computing. That received a massive boost from this work and might mean real impressive quantum computing power to arrive in my lifetime. If only for large research institutes. So much computing power. It will be beyond incredible i`m sure of it. Just imagine if they can use it in combination with 1Gb/s or faster high speed internet and allowing future virtual worlds to be entered as realistic as life itself. Anywhere and at any time with anyone in the world!

All in all exciting and based on ground braking research. And allowing possibilities that even the mighty Federation never possessed. To go where no one......

Yeah... I thought it jumped that particular shark when they gave it to Obama for... winning the Presidency? I dunno, something about peace.

That said, we're starting to reach the point where all of the low-hanging fruit have been plucked. Until someone figures out what causes gravity or makes a FTL drive (or a cure for male pattern baldness), they're mostly going to be awarded to people that refine previously discovered knowledge. That's part of the reason that I think having it as a yearly award is a flawed concept. Some years, there's just no real interesting science being completed.

I guess when they gave obummer one for what...things he was thinking about doing...that kind of destroyed any cred for the award. Let's go back to remembering the dynamite instead now.

I'm sorry PopSci, but I think this article is far off the mark. And I am sorry; I'm an avid PS reader.

The notion that the Nobel winners' work was not "exciting" or "inspiring" is hardly a fair criticism. To a biologist studying ant behavior, ants are probably the coolest thing around. Likewise, for a large portion of the physics community, especially those working towards quantum computing, the physics prize was probably received well. There were obviously some other candidates- I heard a lot of grumbles about no prize for the Higgs. I can't speak to why that or others on the short list didn't win, but that shouldn't diminish the importance of the winners' work. So to say that the prize winning work wasn't inspiring or bold enough to deserve the prize seems to be more a statement about your criteria for exciting science rather than its true merits.

Furthermore, I think the scientific community and science journalists should be far less concerned about the perceived lack of boldness in the Nobel committee's choices and more concerned about the less subjective problem of a lack excitement about science and mathematics in education.

Greenmatrix, I agree that the Nobel prize in medicine was very exciting. John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka showed that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent.

Unfortunately you're wrong about President Bush banning stem cell research. He did exactly the opposite: he ALLOWED federal funding of research on embryonic stem cells--limited to stem cell lines that already existed at the time he signed the legislation. Embryonic stem cell research has never been banned in the U.S., but Congress and President Clinton banned TAXPAYER FUNDING of all such research because of the moral implications of the possibility of using embryos from abortions. President Bush allowed federal funding of research in limited cases. I know it's a different story than the very liberal mainstream media was telling--even PopSci perpetuated the lie--but it's the truth. Look it up yourself. Try Wikipedia.

The liberal media despised Bush and spun their reporting accordingly. Do not ever take at face value the reporting of major news outlets. Dig a little deeper. Liberal leaning media bias is real and well documented. Surveys of journalists show that over 90 percent vote for Democrats in any recent election; far different from Americans in general who are evenly divided in their voting.

The myth of "objective" journalism dates back about 50 years or so. Prior to that it was widely understood that newspapers adopted their own viewpoints on current events, and even competed for readers with each other based on how their version of a story differed from their competitor's. The age of television news and FCC regulations requiring "equal time" for opposing viewpoints created the myth that reporting had magically become unbiased. It hasn't.

They insulted the Peace Prize after they gave it to Obama.

On the 2012 Nobel science concepts...

Re some now esteemed basic science concepts…:

Betrayal Of The Enlightenment Science Heritage

Three glaring examples of betrayal of the Enlightenment science heritage:

- The Higgs particle case: by plain common sense and data the origin of all mass in the universe is the minuscule pre-big-bang gravitons singularity…

- Life nature and genesis: by plain common sense and data life is just another mass format …

- The Genetics concepts: by plain common sense and data culture and natural selection are ubiquitous and genetics are their evolving RNA nucleotide progenies…

Dov Henis (comments from 22nd century)
universe-life.com/

PS:
1.Ponder why Mass = Energy at singularity…
2.Ponder that Culture is reaction-to-circumstances/drive-to-survival by ALL MASS FORMATS…
3.Ponder the implications of the various modes of Cooperation in nature…
4.Ponder that Intelligence = learning from experience…
5.Ponder that in an evolving two-pole system (m/E, singularity/max expanded) there cannot be randomness…
6. Ponder that in an evolving two-pole system m/E, gravitation is propensity of energy reconversion to mass…
DH

glad im not the only one who lost faith in the nobel when they gave it to obama for just winning the election. and now its to the entire European Union??? are they high?