A handful of Nobel prize winners and herd of goats
by Sarah Wild
2016-10-06 05:45:41.0
IT’s Nobel Prize season, the time of year that forces us to question our life choices. We watch people, their hair turned silver by hard work and possibly stubbornness, receive accolades for the research that they were doing when they were in their late 20s to early 40s. Consciously or subconsciously, we begin to compare that to what we were doing during those years — or what we plan to do in the coming years. A brief mental meander, and we realise why we are not the ones getting Nobel prizes.
On Monday, 71-one-year-old Yoshinori Ohsumi received the Nobel prize for medicine. He discovered autophagy in cells, the process by which cells degrade and recycle their constituents. This discovery, published in 1992, more than two decades ago, has transformed our understanding of cell behaviour.
Ohsumi joins a list of some of the world’s greatest thinkers. In the time-honoured tradition of elite clubs, it is populated by mostly men from the US, UK, Germany and France. (So far, 15 black people have won a Nobel prize: one in economics, three for literature and all the others for peace.)
But the most prestigious scientific prize in the world does research in general a disservice. Most scientists do not have their own laboratory (Ohsumi began his own laboratory in 1988 at the age of 43, and two years later published a study that left people slack-jawed) or an army of hungry-eyed postdocs or postgrads at their disposal. Your average researcher has only their wits, a small purse of monies that always fall short of what they need, and a sense of humour (sometimes).
Perhaps a fairer representation of research — and life in general — is the Ig Nobel Awards, which are meant to "honour achievements that make people laugh and then think". This prize is a highlight of the science calendar, even though there is less money, fewer free dinners and perhaps a smidgeon of embarrassment. The psychology prize, for example, was awarded to a team "for asking a thousand liars how often they lie, and for deciding whether to believe those answers". They produced a paper entitled From Junior to Senior Pinocchio: A Cross-Sectional Lifespan Investigation of Deception. A primer on their lie-detection strategy could have been more useful.
The chemistry prize went to Volkswagen "for solving the problem of excessive automobile pollution emissions by automatically, electromechanically producing fewer emissions whenever the cars are being tested". According to the Ig Nobel website, no one from VW attended the ceremony.
One of the winners of the biology prize was Thomas Thwaites, "for creating prosthetic extensions of his limbs that allowed him to move in the manner of, and spend time roaming hills in the company of, goats". With the grace of a Star Wars At-At, he roamed the Alps with arm and leg prostheses and a white helmet. (Are you also wondering about the helmet?) On his website, Thwaites says: "I tried to become a goat to escape the angst inherent in being human. The project became an exploration of how close modern technology can take us to fulfilling an ancient human dream: to take on characteristics from other animals."
Aside from this dream, Thwaites walked away with a book deal (GoatMan) and, maybe, his curiosity assuaged. There are few other professions out there in which one can take off a year to be a goat and document what it was like.
That’s the beauty of science. It’s unlikely to win you a Nobel Prize though. Only a handful of people get to be Nobel prize winners. Most of us — if we’re lucky — get to be the goat.
• Wild is a science writer.
Yoshinori Ohsumi, a professor of Tokyo Institute of Technology, attends a news conference after he won the Nobel medicine prize, in Tokyo, Japan, on Monday. Picture: REUTERS/KIM KYUNG-HOON
IT’s Nobel Prize season, the time of year that forces us to question our life choices. We watch people, their hair turned silver by hard work and possibly stubbornness, receive accolades for the research that they were doing when they were in their late 20s to early 40s. Consciously or subconsciously, we begin to compare that to what we were doing during those years — or what we plan to do in the coming years. A brief mental meander, and we realise why we are not the ones getting Nobel prizes.
On Monday, 71-one-year-old Yoshinori Ohsumi received the Nobel prize for medicine. He discovered autophagy in cells, the process by which cells degrade and recycle their constituents. This discovery, published in 1992, more than two decades ago, has transformed our understanding of cell behaviour.
Ohsumi joins a list of some of the world’s greatest thinkers. In the time-honoured tradition of elite clubs, it is populated by mostly men from the US, UK, Germany and France. (So far, 15 black people have won a Nobel prize: one in economics, three for literature and all the others for peace.)
But the most prestigious scientific prize in the world does research in general a disservice. Most scientists do not have their own laboratory (Ohsumi began his own laboratory in 1988 at the age of 43, and two years later published a study that left people slack-jawed) or an army of hungry-eyed postdocs or postgrads at their disposal. Your average researcher has only their wits, a small purse of monies that always fall short of what they need, and a sense of humour (sometimes).
Perhaps a fairer representation of research — and life in general — is the Ig Nobel Awards, which are meant to "honour achievements that make people laugh and then think". This prize is a highlight of the science calendar, even though there is less money, fewer free dinners and perhaps a smidgeon of embarrassment. The psychology prize, for example, was awarded to a team "for asking a thousand liars how often they lie, and for deciding whether to believe those answers". They produced a paper entitled From Junior to Senior Pinocchio: A Cross-Sectional Lifespan Investigation of Deception. A primer on their lie-detection strategy could have been more useful.
The chemistry prize went to Volkswagen "for solving the problem of excessive automobile pollution emissions by automatically, electromechanically producing fewer emissions whenever the cars are being tested". According to the Ig Nobel website, no one from VW attended the ceremony.
One of the winners of the biology prize was Thomas Thwaites, "for creating prosthetic extensions of his limbs that allowed him to move in the manner of, and spend time roaming hills in the company of, goats". With the grace of a Star Wars At-At, he roamed the Alps with arm and leg prostheses and a white helmet. (Are you also wondering about the helmet?) On his website, Thwaites says: "I tried to become a goat to escape the angst inherent in being human. The project became an exploration of how close modern technology can take us to fulfilling an ancient human dream: to take on characteristics from other animals."
Aside from this dream, Thwaites walked away with a book deal (GoatMan) and, maybe, his curiosity assuaged. There are few other professions out there in which one can take off a year to be a goat and document what it was like.
That’s the beauty of science. It’s unlikely to win you a Nobel Prize though. Only a handful of people get to be Nobel prize winners. Most of us — if we’re lucky — get to be the goat.
• Wild is a science writer.
