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Medicine/Physiology Nobel Laureates Announced
Seehund writes "Today, the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet announced the laureates of this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Richard Axel and Linda B. Buck are jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for their discoveries in the field of odorant receptors and the organization of the olfactory system."
That really stinks.
(It's a JOKE, not flamebait.)
Yeah, I remember reading that paper... it stunk.
Ba Dum Cha!
I'll be here all week folks. Try the fish!
Nothing disturbs me more than blind loyalism towards some unrealistic and over-idealistic notion of one's nationality.
For studying scents.
It was close, though - they won by a nose.
I saw this and thought: Aren't there enough bad jokes on slashdot already? Do the editors go out of their way to put these stories up? I can't think of a single thing to say that doesn't involve some bad pun or reference to flatulence... and I'm sure I'm not alone.
All Rights Reserved. All Wrongs Avenged.
about quality of life stuff, don't get me wrong, but this is hardly the cure for cancer, AIDS, or diabetes. Are you telling me there were no more qualified applicants than this? People working on life stuff, not "just" quality of life?
"All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power." - Ashleigh Brilliant
"...awarded the Nobel Prize for their discoveries in the field of odorant receptors and the organization of the olfactory system."
I wonder if it explains why your own farts don't smell as bad as others.
Unknown host pong.
Does this mean if I don't shower for a month I can get one too?
field of odorant receptors and the organization of the olfactory system
The flatus odor judge could have used some insight!
Free XBox, PS2
My dog has got no nose!
How does he smell?
Awful!
Kudos to Drs. Axel and Buck.
Is that some new gimmick from Old Spice? "Here young man, carry this 'odorant detector' with you so that you know when you need to swipe on some more of our classic deodorant goodness to keep the honeys happy."
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
Woo hoo! That makes 4 Nobel laureates for Stuyvesant HS! Axel is class of '63
The Public Patent Foundation (which recently got Microsoft's FAT filesystem patent rejected) has gotten the patent office to agree to re-examine the most recent, presumably illegitimate Axel patents.
Of course this work has almost nothing to do with the work for which he was awarded the Nobel prize...
I had no idea that something that friggin' obvious had made so much money. It is akin to being able to collect royalties every time someone sorts a list because you were the first one to implement a bubble sort in COBOL - and of course file it with the patent office.
But then again why should I be surprised...
Olfaction is of central importance for most species
All living organisms can detect and identify chemical substances in their environment. It is obviously of great survival value to be able to identify suitable food and to avoid putrid or unfit foodstuff. Whereas fish has a relatively small number of odorant receptors, about one hundred, mice - the species Axel and Buck studied - have about one thousand. Humans have a somewhat smaller number than mice; some of the genes have been lost during evolution.
Smell is absolutely essential for a newborn mammalian pup to find the teats of its mother and obtain milk - without olfaction the pup does not survive unaided. Olfaction is also of paramount importance for many adult animals, since they observe and interpret their environment largely by sensing smell. For example, the area of the olfactory epithelium in dogs is some forty times larger than in humans.
If we're thanking people for working on smells, I say we nominate the dude that came up with that blue stuff in the Portable-Johns. Kicker-good stuff, that.
Their research found over 600 genes involved in the coding for unwashed geek stench alone!
Kidding aside, this is interesting and worthy of praise. Olfaction is deeply intertwined with memory and an important part of general living. They have mapped genes involved in the process and identified a seemingly tree-like messaging hierarchy where messages can meet and interact to produce unique smells/thoughts/ideas in differnt parts of the brain.
I can't think of a single thing to say that doesn't involve some bad pun or reference to flatulence... and I'm sure I'm not alone.
Bad puns and flatulence usually result in me being alone.
As one planning to study neuroscience at the PhD level, this is good to hear. It's a huge field, so lots of people are needed!
-I am an elective eunuch.
Work that Linda's group, in conjunction with our group and a number of others, has brought us closer to understanding how odor works on a molecular level, to how odor is perceived, to how we can model this using artificial equipment.
Ultimately, she is well deserving of the Prize.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Whooboy, had to look at that Buck name twice there.
Welcome to tongue-wag-theatre! Go ahead ya self-rightous bastahd, I got plenty of karma to burn...
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
Professor: Eat it, everyone who's never won a Nobel Prize! And that includes you, Amy!
Amy: (sobs)
-- A No-Account Drifter
I notice noone has mentioned the 'shape' vs 'vibration' tussle in olfactory reception. The vibration theory seemed like a good bet to me because of its predictive powers, which the Nobel laureates' theory has always lacked.
am i the only one who wonders about why this is a nobel prize or why it's been posted to slash ??
...
typical overpaid underworked stupid rich peeps
They called up the winnder of the nobel price in medecine on the swedish radio yesterday.
He was suprised that they called and he seemed surprised that anyone knew of him, let alone his phone number.
When asked how he was gonna celebrate he was quiet for a little while, then stated: Well...I'm going to have a cup of coffee I think.
Seems like an ingenious theory. But I don't quite see how the signal transduction works. How are vibrations supposed to couple to the conformational equilibrium of the receptor?
Maybe they should team up with these other award winning researchers.
like g-a-r-y, only different
Luca Turin is the current proponent of the theory that olfaction is at least influenced not only by molecular shape, but also by the vibrational modes and spectra of the molecule. Recent double-blind experiments in March '04 put doubt on this theory, but had no absolute proof of the "shape" theory either. Clouding the whole scientific controversy is the cult-following Turing has acquired following the publication of Chandler Burr's book about Turin, "The Emperor of Scent".
You can find discussions of this and other theories of smell here.
There has been some investigation into the predictive capacity of vibration theory. Results were not consistent with Turin's predictions.
However the Rockefeller U. worked with a theory of only 347 receptors while the Nobel prize winner work established some 1000 receptors each corresponding to a single odorant receptor gene. Interestingly, the prize winning work was published in 1991 while the investigations into vibration theory was published in 2004.One thing in the Nobel prize press release that should jump out at anyone who is familiar with Turin is, "most odours are composed of multiple odorant molecules." They do hedge that claim immediately with, "each odorant molecule activates several odorant receptors."
The major mark against traditional explanations of smell is there are just too many smells for each one to correspond to a unique receptor. Certainly receptors working in combination may explains many thousands of unique smells coming from some 1000 receptors. However we know of many thousands of different smells coming from pure molecules. Any theory of smell should consider mixtures, but cannot depend on mixtures to explain the wide range of smells coming from a limited number of receptors.
The press release is light on methodology, and I have not read the original papers, but it seems the winning work is strictly theoretical.
They've only shown (or claim to show) a particular gene is expressed in a particular cell that responds to a particular odorant. What they haven't done is look at a molecule, predict a smell, and stick it under someone's nose to test the theory.I don't think it's time to dismiss Turin completely, but I don't expect to see him making any acceptance speeches in Stockholm any time soon.
By the way, have you smelled the perfume he developed?
No one cares enough about your useless opinion to bother modding you down, you partisan piece of shit.