NOBEL PRIZE AWARDS -2008 The Father of Invention - Mother of Great Innovation -A sure source for Discussion and Disagreement

No member of the scientific community nor blog on Science based Innovation can ignore the work done by the Nobel Prize Organization. This week and next will see the 2008 Nobel Prize winners. I have included for your keen attention the Nobel Prize Widget to keep us all informed. Feel free to "Innovated by sticking it on your blog or website.

"This-Above-All"
Now why, oh why, you may ask, have I brought up the "Conversation item in the title "A sure source for Discussion and Disagreement". Yes of course it is the title of my Blog and an underlying theme "across the board. More importantly, regular followers of science and scientific news, invention, innovation will have many ideas as to what this may be. For the less involved, including myself, I can easily imagine that there is substantial lobbying, battles in communication, and all manner of strategies and tactics involved, and projects which would benefit greatly from the renown of this most prestigious award (sorry for we contenders in "The Best or Worst Blog Awards contest!)...


More important in my opinion is the fact that so many scientists involved are "Nobel Class" and I wish to propose that the "Class" too should be given the just acknowledgement as it is neither possible nor desirable that "The Olympic Gold Medal in Science - The Nobel Prize" be given to "The Whole Class."



As a pointer or tag: let me just mention a great research start for a budding journalist could be the award of the 2008 Prize for Medicine. Do not get me wrong this is in no way "Bashing the French" with my superior english or something. Quite the contrary, just before writing this I was watching the excellent french daily medical magazine on the French-German joint TV Arte. An illuminating behind the scenes portrait of the role of about 5 professors and researchers associated with the prestigious Institut Pasteur played leading roles. Two are 2008 award winners. The project initiator in France Prof. Rosenbaum, presented his inside knowledge and the fact that his focus on preventive medicine and open communication, in the form of a Newsletter from an Atlanta Medical Institute brought immunodeficiency disease cases in US to his attention. He addressed The Institute Pasteur with the result we know today. The decision appears as I understand him to have been given to one leading but lesser known researcher, the youngster Prof. Françoise Barré-Sinoussi (b.1947) at Pasteur and the extremely well known Prof Montagnier(b. 1932), forced into retirement at 65y, a few years ago, now heading projects in USA. Prof. Rosenbaum paid great tribute also to the excellence of their US colleagues, with an enigmatic expression "perhaps too good."? And again "Pasteur's communication - [communication policy may be the new research winners "drug." -JA]

Now you see too that such a slant completely ignores that half of the Prize went to Harald zur Hausen (b. 1936), of the German Cancer Research Centre Heidelberg, Germany "for his discovery of human papilloma viruses causing cervical cancer"

However the incredible human side of this very high level science remains to be told.

I posted a piece on the search for neutrinos - "The materials science of materials science" Link to my post and poem on Neutrinos in which I mention Clyde Lorrain Cowan, Chemist, WWII-Hero, and Nobel prize winner in Physics whose family encountered difficulty in having their father recognised also as a War Hero highly deserving a place of honour in the US Military Grave Yard in Arlington, Virginia. - now acknowledged.

To support this request for more on the "human angle" I would be pleased to have your comments and information, web links on such subjects. As a metallurgist and materials scienctist physics and chemistry will naturally be my prefered research areas.

Thanks in advance.

ref: Nobel Prize Organisation