The 2010 Nobel Prizes - And the Economics Prahahaha who cares

Butler

The 2010 Nobel Prizes are underway! Winning one of these is pretty cool. Some say that if you bite into the medal, you can actually taste Alfred Nobel's remorse.

Categories

Medicine & Physiology: Awarded to Robert Edwards of the UK, for his work in developing IVF. Edwards developed the technique with Patrick Steptoe, but since he passed away in '88 and the award cannot be made posthumously Edwards gets it aaaall to himself. The Vatican is apparently getting its knickers in a twist over this, because precious [strike]bodily fluids[/strike] embryos are wasted in the IVF process, but scientists have yet to confirm whether anyone in the Vatican wears knickers anyway.

Physics: Awarded to Andre Geim and (the mysterious) Konstantin Novoselov for the discovery of Graphene.

Chemistry: Awarded to Richard F. Heck, Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki for palladium-catalyzed cross couplings in organic synthesis.

Literature: Awarded to Mario Vargas Llosa for "his cartography of the structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt and defeat."

Peace: Awarded to Liu Xiaobo for "his non-violent struggle for human rights in China".

Economic Sciences: Awarded to Professor Peter Diamond, Professor Dale Mortenson and Christopher Pissarides, for "their analysis in markets with search frictions".

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#pipe

There should be a nobel prize for sandwiches

you know like

give it to the guy who invented I Can't Believe It's Not Butter or the pioneers of the inverted grilled cheese

YaYa

guys I'm gonna win the peace prize

I didn't punch anyone this week

Butler

I was reading through the list of past winners of the Literature prize and I recognised maybe five of them.

RMS Oceanic

Butler wrote: »

I was reading through the list of past winners of the Literature prize and I recognised maybe five of them.

That's four more than me, I could just spot Seamus Heaney.

Iloveslimes

I recognized 20, which isn't too bad since I had one (Japanese) literature class.

Beasteh

did the guy who invented hammocks get a nobel prize

because he should

Butler

The livestream on nobelprize.org has opened but I can't get it to start. Is the traffic too heavy? I've no idea how many or few people would be hitting the site right now.

L|ama

about half an hour until physics is announced apparently

#pipe

Beasteh wrote: »

did the guy who invented hammocks get a nobel prize

because he should

The Nobel Prize for Relaxomics.

Also I think Obama should win for Peace again.

Wimble

YaYa wrote: »

guys I'm gonna win the peace prize

I didn't punch anyone this week

aw man I knew I shouldn't have punched that one guy

Wimble

quick how do you unpunch someone hurry there's not much time left

Butler

Invent a depunching machine and you'll scoop the Peace Prize yourself.

It's not announced until Friday! There's still time!

Wimble

okay I've got it. It's a claw that rips away the part of the body you punched

sure you punched his face but his face isn't there anymore so he should get over it

Butler

Wimble you'll be using that medal as a coaster in no time.

L|ama

Andre Geim, Konstantin Novoselov for discovery of graphene

Butler

The winners are... these two dudes! For their work with graphene.

L|ama

TOO SLOW OLD MAN

Butler

Wimble in a minute I'm going to need to borrow your depunching machine.

Wimble

punch his typing hand

L|ama

but that's both of them

Wimble

oh really?

now we know how he beat you, butler. He is cheating!

#pipe

what's graphene

Butler

It's what's for dinner

and by "for dinner" I mean "linked in the OP"

The short version is that graphene is a single one of the carbon sheets that compose graphite.

Wimble

the short version bores me

I wanna see cool stuff I didn't already know about! I guess that is not what the nobel prizes are about though

Zombies Tossed My Salad!

Yes but why should I care

#pipe

what's a carbon sheet

Butler

Oh, the Chemistry Award has been won by Richard F. Heck, Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki "for palladium-catalyzed cross couplings in organic synthesis".

This article explains it in a little more detail. It's essentially a toolkit for synthesising complex organic molecules? I think? So yeah, go these guys.

Wimble

I could've done that but I didn't want to

Butler

The next award is literature. That should be easier to follow. I mean, we all know what a book is, right? I don't need to make the word "book" a hyperlink do I?

M.D.

is that the thing I see on the tv sometimes

thanimations

Butler wrote: »

The next award is literature. That should be easier to follow. I mean, we all know what a book is, right? I don't need to make the word "book" a hyperlink do I?

You'll probably have to link to some obscure, European author, though. I hope it's something that actually in print in the US this year so I can get it in my store.

Taskman

Palladium catalysis sounds like it could make life a lot easier. Used to be (and still often is) the case that if you needed an organic molecule you had to get it from an organic source, or put a gene into a bacteria to produce it if it wasn't easy to get hold of. There was a lot of clean up, and often you got it out by smashing open whatever it was in and centrifuging/ dissolving/ preferentially bonding the remains. Making organic molecules from inorganic substrates could potentially be a huge hassle and not exactly energy efficient. If this makes it easier to bond organic molecules from inorganic components, we might see a big jump in organic polymer production (organic plastics). Gonna go read up on this.

KetBra

The best thing about the Physics one is that it literally involves something called the scotch tape method.

Kusuguttai

read that as phalladium

Baidol

Taskman wrote: »

Palladium catalysis sounds like it could make life a lot easier. Used to be (and still often is) the case that if you needed an organic molecule you had to get it from an organic source, or put a gene into a bacteria to produce it if it wasn't easy to get hold of. There was a lot of clean up, and often you got it out by smashing open whatever it was in and centrifuging/ dissolving/ preferentially bonding the remains. Making organic molecules from inorganic substrates could potentially be a huge hassle and not exactly energy efficient. If this makes it easier to bond organic molecules from inorganic components, we might see a big jump in organic polymer production (organic plastics). Gonna go read up on this.

These are well-established reactions that have been known for decades, so I would not expect an explosion of new stuff based on these reactions.

I wonder why Stille (organostannane compounds) was not selected instead of Negishi (organozinc) or Suzuki (organoborane).

Butler

I imagine Stille must be fucking steamed right now.

Baidol

I bet its because organostannane compounds stink like peppers and the Nobel committee hates peppers.

Hunter

#pipe wrote: »

what's graphene

Linked carbon atoms in a thin sheet (like 1 atom thick) that is extremely strong, lightweight, and very conductive. It could revolutionize aerospace materials, vehicles, and replace copper and silicon in electronics.

Baidol

Hah, so I'm reading the BBC article on the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and there's a paragraph talking about discodermolide, a compound mentioned in the article Butler linked, which I'm assuming was where the information was lifted directly off of.

sarukun

Graphene is the SHIT you guys.

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/10/physics-nobel-honors-the-creative-use-of-adhesive-tape.ars