For Sale: One Nobel Prize Medal (Slightly Used, By Francis Crick) 179
Hugh Pickens writes "UPI reports that for the first time in the history of Nobel Prize, one of the Nobel Prize medals, along with the diploma presented by the Nobel committee, is on auction — with an opening bid of $250,000. Awarded to Francis Crick, who along with James Watson and Maurice Wilkins won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1962 'for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material,' the medal will be auctioned off in New York City, by Heritage Auctions. The medal has been kept in a safe deposit box in California since Crick's widow passed away in 2007 and a portion of the proceeds will go to the Francis Crick Institute of disease research scheduled to open in London in 2015. '"By auctioning his Nobel it will finally be made available for public display and be well looked after. Our hope is that, by having it available for display, it can be an inspiration to the next generation of scientists," says Crick's granddaughter, Kindra Crick. "My granddad was honored to have received the Nobel Prize, but he was not the type to display his awards; his office walls contained a large chalkboard, artwork and a portrait of Charles Darwin."'"
Here's an idea for a portion of the proceeds (Score:2, Interesting)
Award them to the relatives of Rosalind Franklin.
Re:Portion of the proceeds? (Score:4, Interesting)
Indeed. It's pretty low to get all worked up about Watson & Crick's asshattery... and then not mention the individual involved.
Re:Portion of the proceeds? (Score:5, Interesting)
This claim is, at best, controversial. Some people say that Rosalind's lab partner Maurice Wilkins gave her unpublished work to Watson and Crick without her permission; Watson and Crick say that it was in fact officially released by King's College. I'm not aware that Franklin herself ever stated that she had been robbed. Wilkins was included in the Nobel prize; presumably Franklin would have been also had she still been alive.
Re:Portion of the proceeds? (Score:5, Interesting)
Kissinger, like him or loathe him, actually DID something on the world stage BEFORE he got the award including the actual negotiation of peace accords, even though the accords ultimately failed to succeed.
Obama was a not even inaugurated President-elect whose main achievement was being in the U.S. Senate for a couple of years and having one kickass campaign PR team.
You can make a good argument why Kissinger was overrated, but I was absolutely stunned that Obama got an award not even for trying to bring peace, but simply promising to do so.
The Peace Prize is definitely a different category of award than the others, and it has a tendency to become political due simply to the subject matter, but they used to at least point to actual work or achievements, the quality of those actions admittedly being up for argument.