Fluorescent Protein Research Lands Scientists Nobel Prize 79
Iddo Genuth writes "The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has announced three recipients of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry award for 2008: jointly given to Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie and Roger Y. Tsien 'for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP' — a remarkable brightly glowing green fluorescent protein first observed in the beautiful jellyfish, Aequorea victoria, in 1962."
Re:Green Eggs and Ham (Score:1, Insightful)
First, there is no Nobel Prize for biology. The closest related fields are "chemistry" and "physiology or medicine."
Second, it is truly sad that a relatively trivial technique, rather than a grand idea or discovery is awarded the Nobel Prize. The Prize should be given to those who actually advance the knowledge of the field and provide a breakthrough that leaves us all gaping in amazement, not the engineers that build the tools to do the investigations. It is an unfortunate commentary on how trivial research is these days.
Re:Green Eggs and Ham (Score:3, Insightful)
When Nobel was creating the prizes biology had more in common with being a librarian than it did with what we think of as biology today.
Poor link choice? (Score:3, Insightful)