I don’t care. For some reason, this year I’m not getting into Wednesday Madness nearly as much as I have in previous years. I’ll be happy if they give it to, uh, a chemist.≡≡≡
Oh well. Here’s an idea. In lieu of giving out Nobel Prizes in Chemistry to achievements in chemistry (since they only seem to give it to actual chemists every other year anyway, it won’t be much of a stretch), let’s start handing them out to the authors with the best paper titles ever.≡≡≡
As already announced biologists walked away with this year’s Nobel prize in chemistry once again, this time for work in determining the structure of Ribosomes.≡≡≡
As chemists we would like to see the Nobel chemistry prize go to a chemist. Our Nobel hopefuls may be a measurable magnitude more chemically interesting, as measured by ChemFeeds, but there is more work for them to do until these topics become world renowned (which seems to be the dominant prerequisite these days).≡≡≡
And again the Nobel for Chemistry goes to "bio-chemists"....Alright guys, the applicant to get into school to work on an undergraduate degree (I do already have my A.S. at least) has some news for you: biochemistry is chemistry. I find this reaction deplorable. Chemistry is all about atoms and the bonds between them, what things are made of and how they interact with each other. That is exactly what this prize was awarded for. Perhaps word has not yet reached the innermost confines of your biology-free ivory towers, but ribosomes are made out of atoms and ribosomes have bonds—lots of them. Ribosomes participate in chemical reactions. This really should go without saying.
Congratulations...but as a strictly synthetic organic chemist...I am a bit ticked off.
With all the biology and the nanoscience development in recent years, it'll be eons before an organic chemist wins the prize again.
I could be way off here, but I don't think I would see this in other branches of science. If an annual physics prize went to scientists who did work in astrophysics, would physicists complain that the astronomers are taking physics prizes? I think not, but maybe some of them would. Maybe some of them sequester themselves in ivory towers devoid of any science that is not their own particular specialization, just as apparently some chemists do. My impression is that many, if not most, physicists have a passion for the universe and its fascinating nature. They want to see the physics in everything. I want to see the chemistry in everything. And I'd like to think I'm in good company, but the reactions I've seen to this Nobel Prize have cast some doubts on that.
How arrogant must one be to think, "Only research in the area of chemistry that I focus on should win prizes"? Some might protest that this is an unfair characterization, but if one is willing to dismiss the entirety of biochemistry, I am more than willing to err on the side of assuming that one would go on to dismiss other purportedly unworthy subjects in a similar manner. This exclusive approach is the exact opposite of what I want to stand for. I want chemistry to be inclusive. If we excise some of it because it deals with biological molecules and can therefore be considered biology, we might as well excise the parts that deal with minerals and make that geology and so on until we have divided everything up and there are no more chemists, just former chemists working in other fields of science.
The ribosome people did not win because the biologists are taking over and they did not win because ribosomes are famous and other work was too obscure. They won because they did good chemistry that is of abundant benefit to humanity.
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