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Nobel Prize For Medicine Awarded, Physics Soon To Follow
Nobel Prize season is here again, and the first award for Physiology or Medicine was split between two virologists who discovered HIV and one who demonstrated that a virus causes cervical cancer. Coming soon is the announcement for Physics. Look to the right for a chance to pit your selection wit against the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences with a poll for which scientific achievement deserves the prize. Front runners, according to Reuters, are; Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov, discovers of graphene, Vera Rubin, provider of the best evidence yet of dark matter, and Roger Penrose and Dan Shechtman, discoverers of Penrose tilings and quasicrystals.
Agreed, these are just the observations. Maybe dark matter and dark energy will be all captured at the same time.
Also, around the same time as Rubin's work (which was all optical), the HI (neutral hydrogen) data gave a far more convincing picture. The surprising flattness of e.g. M31 was already noted several decades before Rubin's work. We all stand on the shoulders of those who came before us.
"And the Band Played On" was the title of a movie about the CDC tracking the first breakouts of AIDS in San Francisco and then all around the world. Alan Alda played one of the virologists that just got this nod. He played the American who was out to screw the French lab that was onto the same discovery that this was a hantavirus. Very interesting story with TONS of stars including a "young" Ian McKellen.
put the what in the where?
The guy who discovered HIV and the guy who discovered HPV shared the award....
Well, it has never been successfully tested.
In the 80's Robert Gallo was celebrated as the discoverer of HIV and that, oh yeah, maybe
some French scientists helped too. Turns out Mr. Gallo either intentionally or mistakenly
(through cross-contamination in a sloppy lab) cultivated a sample of the French-discovered
strain of the virus. Even after he should have realized a mistake, he misled people and
caused the United States blood supply to use a much poorer HIV test (than the French one)
and as a result people needlessly died. His claims of original discovery ultimately fell
apart because HIV mutates with amazing rapidity, and so his HIV strains were traceable to
the French one his so closely matched.
The book "Science Fictions" by John Crewdson is worth your time to read. It's a long read,
not an easy read, but I got hooked.
Have you wondered why some less technically talented coworkers are able to influence
management and, even worse, make you the fall guy when things go wrong? I think this book
gave me insight into that.
If Mr. Gallo had only half the talent for science as he did for obfuscation, he would've
been a great scientist indeed.
Most HPV infections do not lead to cervical cancer.
Most cervical cancers are caused by HPV.
These two statements are logically consistent.
The mechanism of action is even known: HPV blocks the action of tumor-suppressing gene p53.
Please stop spreading misinformation.
1. You're not supposed to take the vaccine if you've already been exposed to HPV. That's why they only prescribe it to young girls - not older people.
2. There is a genetic component to the risk from HPV.
3. Yes, the HPV virus itself causes the cancer. It messes with apoptosis gene expression, causing the cells to proliferate without the normal cell death mechanism kicking in.
Coming soon - pyrogyra
also, different country (Norway)
It's not imprecise, it's just nondeterministic.
The "still haven't" is misleading. Bell's clearly shows that the only possibility for a deterministic mechanism behind quantum mechanics is a system containing nonlocal hidden variables.
Einstein's changing his mind about a theoretical concept is hardly comparable with what Penrose did. He didn't simply restructure a theory. He tried to rationalize a completely new model of the physics behind human intelligence. This model is popular in some circles because it seems to re-assert the concept of free will. That has a lot of implications outside physics: psychology, ethics, artificial intelligence, etc. When you come with a theory with those kinds of implications, you really have an obligation to make sure your ideas have a solid foundation. And there's a lot of good arguments that Penrose didn't do that.
Now, it's true that the physics prize is awarded for a specific achievement, not for being a good scientist. But there's a lot of science going on out there, and I doubt that half the work that's Nobel quality makes the cut. You might think it a little unfair that a particular achievement doesn't rate a Nobel just because the comittee doesn't want to recognize bad science by the same guy. But given the number of deserving nominees, excluding somebody from the cut because they're guilty of bad science is not unreasonable.
When I was writing the above paragraph, I went back and re-read the post that started this thread, so I could refer to the scientific breakthrough the poster thought was Nobel-worthy. He didn't have one. His argument for recognizing Penrose was based on the fact that Penrose was Hawking's mentor and had also written some good popular science books. Significant achievements, but not what they hand out Nobel Physics medals for. Anybody have some more relevant accomplishments to cite?
Here's the link to the manuscript, though.
Mmmm......sacrelicious.
a) Persistent infection with HPV can cause cancer. Gardasil is designed to prevent infection with the 2 of the high risk strains associated with 50% of cervical cancer. Saying that HPV doesn't cause cervical cancer is like saying viruses don't cause colds: not all viruses cause colds, but infection with certain rhinoviruses combined with not clearing them leads to the disease. It's true that most HPV infections are cleared spontaneously, usually withing 2 years. However, almost all cases of cervical cancer require infection with HPV.
b) The evidence that the vaccine increases the risk of lesions is equivocal. One group of the several groups examined had an increase in lesions in the women who already had HPV infections. The treatment group, in that case, was also found to be higher in risk factors for lesions with comparison to the placebo group. Several of the other groups showed no significant increase in lesions. Not saying that it's not possible, but the evidence is weak due to the study being confounded by other risk factor differences and a lack of repeatability. More investigation is required.
c) Cervical cancer is NOT one of the more treatable forms of cancer. It's very PREVENTABLE in many cases with safer sex protocols (though condoms are not as effective in prevention of HPV transmission versus, say, HIV), regular checkups, and treatment of precancerous lesions. Unfortunately it's quite a serious disease to try to treat: even early stages are addressed with a radical hysterectomy in most cases.
Honestly, I'm not sure that Gardasil is the hot thing that everybody thinks, but exaggerating the risks of the vaccine while minimizing the potential danger of the disease scares me. Educating yourself is important. This is the number 2 cancer in women and it's due to an STI. People should know a lot more about it.
Nobel prize, like most western institutions, has an enormous western bias and is unable to see beyond the borders of western civilization, for most parts. This is not a complaint, it is just a fact!!
It is NOT a fact, in fact the opposite is true. The winners in the last 10 years have been:
4 international organizations,
2 Americans
1 Bangladeshi 1 Bandladeshi organization,
1 Egyptian,
1 Korean,
1 Kenyan, 1 Iranian,
2 Irish (well North Irish),
1 Ghanan.
So, out of the 10 individuals who won, only 4 were western.
Some would say that the peace prize gets undue respect from sharing it's name with the science prizes.
That's rich, considering the peace prize was stipulated in Nobel's will, and the "the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel" (which "some critics" might find more politically agreeable) was designed half a century later to ride on the Nobel coattails.
science prizes are given a long time after the fact, for discoveries that has really truly held up
Except for the frontal lobotomy
Giving out prizes contemporaneously is always risky, it's much easier when history has been written; that's why it took so long to give Luc Montagnier the award.
The problem with the Economics prize (and to a lesser extent with the Peace prize) is that they're too contemporary.
For Peace, it's probably inevitable that selection will be driven by current events.
For Economics, they've just ran out of worthwhile awardees. Perhaps this year they should give it to the EU bank regulators for managing to avoid the destruction of their economy thus far.
"Linus Pauling won two Nobel prizes, and he might still be the only person to have two Noble prizes to his name."
Marie Curie: Physics and Chemistry.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.