Nobel Prize 2010, And The Winners Are...

I know most of you have been on the edge of your seat, while waiting for the announcements of this year's Nobel Prize winners.

Ok, I have a proposal. For next year's awards there should be a Nobel Prize show, just like the Grammy's, the Oscars or the MTV Music awards shows.

This is my vision. The host would be Stephen Hawking or James Watson. Each time a category goes up, they would show 30 seconds highlights of each individual or lab nominated: interviews, papers/abstracts published, oral presentations, clips of failed experiments, people sleeping in the lab. And finally, the envelope will be opened and... "The Nobel Prize In Chemistry goes to..." spotlight on the winner!!! and then quick pan over the losers while they clap and show the standard fake smile of congratulations! I'm going to pitch the idea to the Swedish commission ...

Just one note before give this year's winners. I've been lucky to have met two Nobel Prize Laureates: Wole Soyinka (Nobel Prize in Literature 1986 and first ever African Nobel laureate), and Harald zur Hausen (who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2008 ,  "for his discovery of human papilloma viruses causing cervical cancer"). In both instances, I was struck by the depth of their personality and the mystic aura surrounding them.

While we wait for the new award format and to meet more Nobel Laureates here are this years winners:

THE NOBEL PRIZE IN PHYSICS

Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov "for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene"

THE NOBEL PRIZE IN CHEMISTRY

Richard F. Heck, Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki "for palladium-catalyzed cross couplings in organic synthesis"

THE NOBEL PRIZE IN PHYSIOLOGY OR MEDICINE

Robert G. Edwards "for the development of in vitro fertilization"

THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE

Mario Vargas Llosa "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat"

THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

Liu Xiaobo "for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China"

THE PRIZE IN ECONOMIC SCIENCES

Peter A. Diamond, Dale T. Mortensen and Christopher A. Pissarides "for their analysis of markets with search frictions"

From: "Nobel Prizes 2009". Nobelprize.org. 8 Oct 2010 http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/lists/year/index.html