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Science's "Breakthrough" Winners Earn Over $21 Million In Prizes (reuters.com)

Posted by samzenpus on from the big-brains-big-money dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Founded by Sergey Brin of Google, Anne Wojcicki of 23andme, Mark Zuckerberg and others, the Breakthrough Prize Awards honor the world's greatest scientists and their discoveries. For the third year Russian billionaire Yuri Milner handed out seven $3 million awards to scientists, researchers, and a high school student for their accomplishments.

9 of 18 comments (clear)

  1. They seem to like people with wide interests... by jeffb+(2.718) · · Score: 1

    ...judging from this line:

    Some 1370 physicians are being honored as part of a single $3 million prize for their work confirming the theory of neutrino oscillation, a phenomenon in quantum mechanics.

  2. Wow... by koan · · Score: 1

    Did "clock boy" win?

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    "If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
    1. Re:Wow... by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 3, Funny

      Did "clock boy" win?

      What do you think this is, the Nobel Prize committee?

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      Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
    2. Re:Wow... by fredrated · · Score: 1

      To be more precise, do you think this is the Nobel Peace Prize committee?

  3. terrible article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It names the host and entertainers in the ceremony, but not a single one of the winners, never mind what their achievements are beyond the first line from two of the laudations.

    1. Re:terrible article by Raseri · · Score: 1

      You need to scroll down to see the whole article. Don't worry, I'm sure you'll win a prize of some sort some day.

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    2. Re:terrible article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      There is one paragraph describing a prize for neutrino oscillations, where they can't even tell the difference between physicians and physicists, a second paragraph that describes a math prize with a single sentence, and two other sentences that just give a vague description of the range of prize topics. There are some five paragraphs describing the guy who started the prize, and three paragraphs describing what celebrities and business people will be there. There is no more detail from scrolling further down...

  4. Better article by SoftwareArtist · · Score: 3, Informative

    Here's a much better article: http://www.nytimes.com/interac.... The one linked in the summary doesn't even say who most of the winners were.

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    "I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
  5. Re:Corrected for you! by tehcyder · · Score: 1

    > ... the Breakthrough Prize Awards honor the world's greatest scientists and their discoveries. ... the Breakthrough Prize Awards honor the world's greatest profit-making scientists and their discoveries.

    They couldn't care less about the little people, if anything the mega-rich want to be even richer and in a world with a total 0.5 billion or less population, so their ranches, stretch limos and mega yachts can grow more elbow space. In their world-view only 3 kinds of people can fit: programmers coding 7/24 on drugs, the executive class and those who provide the execs with a gilded life (private security, servants, cooks, harlots a.k.a. personal fitness trainers and designer drug chemists). Andbody else, like peasants or elderly are either unneeded or can be replaced by robots at less cost/more profit.

    So you're saying the future's looking good for slashdotters?

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