From the release:
"In the late 1980s, Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun were postdoctoral fellows in the laboratory of Robert Horvitz, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2002."
So a single MIT lab produced 3 Nobel laureates; I'd say that's impressive. (Noting that the 2 current laureates had moved on to Harvard and Mass Gen when they did the relevant work.)
If this was politics, "impressive" wouldn't be the adjective used.
Especially when one factors in how Nobels are nominated and voted - previous laureates have a strong say. This is why the same themes keep getting rewarded over and over again: GPCRs, sensory systems, Drosophila, microscopy, regulation of gene expression - while others go repeatedly unrecognized: sequencing, evolutionary biology, etc.
umm Svante Paabo?
Paabo’s dad was a Nobel laureate.
He was born through an extramarital affair of his father, Swedish biochemist Sune Bergström (1916–2004), who, like his son, became a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (in 1982). Pääbo is his mother's only child; he has via his father's marriage a half-brother (also born in 1955).
I'm not sure where you're going with that, but Svante is an outstanding scientist and won the prize for his work in DNA sequencing + evolutionary biology.
Referring to an ancient genomics prize which is mostly about high-quality sample prep that Svaante Paabo no doubt pioneered as DNA seq + evol bio is quite the stretch when a prize wasn’t awarded for the human genome project, GWAS, 454/Solexa, microarrays etc.
Science uses an apprenticeship model so it's not surprising that you would see a sort of lineage or connected network of outstanding work.
Anyone who's had a great mentor knows how impactful they can be on the trajectory of your career just in terms of how much more effective you can be.
In many fields, but not all, essentially only a few small number of people can win. You must have trained with someone who won or was part of a group who won. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11192-024-04936-1
This isn't impressive. It's a sign of concentration of power, of nepotism, and of exclusionary policies. It's the usual dirty politics we see all over the place.
It's not power when it's a voluntary prize. My kids' school only awards raffle tickets to kids that go to the school. What an awful concentration of power, because power is the only lens through which to view anything.
This would be a valid analogy if there was a secret group at your school only handing out tickets to kids from the same extended families and no one else.
How you don't see that as an abuse of power is beyond me. Sometimes HN feels eerily like talking to Trump supporters that rationalize any abuse.
I think your concern might apply when there's a question about whether the discovery actually has significant merit. Context is important.
In this case, the discovery of microRNAs ushered in a whole new area of biology and medicine, and led to techniques (easy methods to selectively target and suppress gene expression) that facilitated discoveries in many other areas.
No. It has nothing to do with the discovery being of significant merit. There are countless discoveries of significant merit that aren't rewarded by the Committee.
They have many choices at their disposal. And they intentionally choose from only a small narrow pool of potential winners to keep it in the family. That's corruption.
I think you may have missed the point. By "significant merit" I meant "significant enough merit to be very deserving of a Nobel prize". The Karolinksa crew can award and have awarded the prize for nonsense in the past, but this wasn't one of those instances.
Of course, if your point was "it doesn't matter how deserving the winners are, they're all corrupt" then that's the sort of argument that facts can't counter.
I remember seeing a talk by Gary Ruvkun years ago at UC San Diego. He was complaining about how he got rejected from UCSD med school and just about every other med school he applied to.
Kudos to him now!
Analog to 22byte messages, instead of direct coding ops in this VM.
Congrats to the winners. Btw when I saw the first picture of the winner I thought it’s Jeremy Howard from fastai/answerai
[flagged]
Are you asking why? Because you give an answer to your own question and what should he receive a prize in exactly?
When Obama got the Peace Prize it was obvious that it is a popularity contest.
The peace price is given by the Norwegian committee, which is completely different from the Swedish that gives out all the science prices.
Nobel Peace Prize is handed out by Norway (not Sweden) with a different committee than the other Nobel prizes
Step back and maybe consider why you feel the need to simp for another man like this. He already has billions of dollars, millions of followers and you're upset he isn't getting another reward? would he do similarly for you or are you just parasocially attached to him?
Can you list some recent scientific publications authored by Elon Musk that you seem worthy of a Nobel Prize?
What an utterly bizarre thing to post on a thread about the Nobel prize for physiology/medicine.
What I found bizarre is demanding a Nobel Prize being awarded to an entrepreneur. Is there any precedent for that?
Without Musk, there would be no SpaceX, no reusable rockets, and no focused effort toward becoming an interplanetary species. Without his leadership, the talented people at SpaceX would be elsewhere—likely at NASA—buried in bureaucracy and achieving far less. Just look at Jony Ive. A talented person who has hired most of the talented designers who worked at Apple during the Steve Jobs tenure. What have these talented people done without the Steve Jobs leadership?
The nobel prizes tend to focus on scientific discoveries, often primarily from smaller groups, not engineering or entrepreneurial success.
SpaceX or Musk just don't really fit into the cateogires that well, and the committee is probably not all that desperate for Musk's attention to give him a throwaway Peace prize.
I don't see any research authored by Musk in your comment.
I, for one, am glad Nobel Prizes are generally awarded (Peace prize being an exception) for extraordinary, individual research contributions, and not to controversial billionaire entrepreneurs.
[flagged]
Israel is committing what some experts are calling a genocide. In any case, they killed a lot of civilians. It can probably be debated whether this is noble or "striving to be better". But either way, the political beliefs and hobbies of the laureates aren't interesting to me, and I can't imagine the Nobel committee seriously taking this into account.
How does Victor Ambros and his wife sending money to a school educating Arabs and whoever else make him a Zionist?
He and his wife sent money to a school educating Arabs seven years ago, and you stretch that to mean he supports the Zionist monsters slaughtering children right now in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and filming rapes in Sde Teiman, which are then broadcast on Israeli TV (go watch it on Youtube if you want), after which the Zionist rapists are praised by rabbis and Knesset members. I see nothing connecting Ambros to that sick behavior.
jews and arabs together, coexisting. If one views zionism as supporting jewish self determination in the land (which doesn't have to exclude arab self determination, side by side, there were a small minority of pre state zionists, whose goal was a binational state, who still viewed themselves as zionists).
Or in other words, I'd argue that many of the jews (probably not all) involved in this school (I wont speak for the arabs), view what its doing as a requirement for zionism and to rectify failures of zionism in the past, but that they don't view themselves as not zionist. (there are also arabs in Israel who are bigger zionists than some of the jews, one only has to go to druze villages in the Galilee to see this)
But it goes beyond that, this school system has been lauded by the "zionist" state. Yea, there are those in the country who hate "coexistence" schools like it (one can only look at the arson that took place a decade or so ago), but the fact that its actively supported and lauded by the state that you seem to think it rejects. Or in different terms, if one views anyone that supports the continued existence of the state of israel to be a zionist, I don't see how one can't consider this school to be "zionist" (and therefore, anyone supporting it, is supporting a "zionist institution".
Of course, one can also not be willing to say everyone that supports the continued existence of the state of israel to be a zionist, but that doesn't quite fit with you wanting to paint all zionists with the broad brush that you do. In regards to that broad brushing, I'd argue that the palestinians and arabs in general should then be painted with the same brush, because they have done the exact same things and many of their leaders have praised the exact same things. If you're not willing to paint them with the same brush, why are you willing to paint jews/zionists as a while with that brush?
Personally, I'm not willing to paint all palestinians with such a brush, so IMO your broad brush strokes reflects more on the you, than on Israel.
All the above isn't to say that either of these people support what the state of Israel is doing, but many unabashed zionists also criticize the state for its failings. I don't quite get why to some, sins of the state of israel (or zionism in general) are prooftexts to the zionism/israel being illegitimate, but to those same exact people, very similar sins done in the name of palestinian nationalism, don't brand it illegitimate. In practice (from my biased view point, used more in the statistical sense, because of what I've been exposed to, than in the prejudice sense), I see much more self criticism within the zionist movement from its inceptions till modern times that I see within palestinian nationalism (but again, thats because I'm exposed to much more aspects of zionism). And even with that biased belief, I try to deal with respect with any person who believes in palestinian nationalism and deal with them as an individual and not paint them with the broad brush strokes (though, in all honesty, I don't always succeed, as well as realizing that if they can't deal with me an individual and therefore view me as guilty of all the crimes they might place on the state, there's no where to even start a conversation, so its better to just move on, as any argument is just going to create confirmation bias (in this case more related to prejudice) in me going forward impacting how I relate to others.
> if one views anyone that supports the continued existence of the state of israel to be a zionist
I don’t think that’s the correct definition of Zionism. Zionism is Jewish nationalism, the belief that Jews are a nation and that as a nation they ought (at least in principle) to have their own state. A person can reject that belief, yet nonetheless support the continued existence of Israel as a practical matter, on the grounds that now that it exists, its destruction would cause greater overall human suffering than its continuation in existence in some form.
To give a parallel - a person doesn’t have to be a Czech nationalist to support the continued existence of Czechia. They may simply believe that allowing Czechia to remain in existence is pragmatically going to result in less human suffering than destroying it. That doesn’t require one to believe that Czechia has some abstract “right to exist”.
A consistent anti-nationalist opposes all forms of nationalism, including Zionism. But at the same time they may support the maintenance of the existence of many or all current states, even if those states were originally founded out of nationalism, so long as their reason for that support is pragmatic/utilitarian rather than based on nationalist principle.
And even a person who is a nationalist, isn’t required to be a nationalist of every nation - a person might be an Irish nationalist but not a Czech nationalist or a Zionist. An Irish nationalist might favour the continued independence of Ireland on nationalist grounds, while taking the same position with respect to Israel or Czechia on purely utilitarian/pragmatic non-nationalist grounds
Also, Haredi religious anti-Zionists aren’t opposed to a Jewish state in the land of Israel in principle, they just believe it was wrong to seek to establish it secularly, as opposed to waiting for the Messiah to do so. And yet, most of them, despite being opposed to the current State of Israel’s existence in principle, also oppose active attempts to harm its existence in practice. Yes, there are the extremists of Neturei Karta (NK) who will openly consort with Israel’s enemies, infamously attended the Tehran Holocaust denial conference, regularly support pro-Palestine protests - but most Haredi anti-Zionists aren’t like that. Satmar and its allies (Edah HaChareidis in Israel, the Central Rabbinical Conference in the US), who vastly outnumber NK, reject Zionism as an ideology, but simultaneously reject all cooperation with non-Jewish groups that threaten Israel’s physical safety-indeed, they’ve put NK under a cherem (excommunication) for doing so. They oppose the contemporary State of Israel’s existence in principle, but they also oppose any active efforts to harm its existence in practice, because they put high value on Jewish lives, and they see the latter as a threat to Jewish lives
a few points
1) I don't think your limitation of zionism to simply "nationalism" is correct. As I wrote, there were many self described "zionists" (especially in pre-state days) who weren't "jewish nationalists", i.e. their goal wasn't specifically a jewish state, but jewish settlement in a binational state, i.e. their goal was the return of the jewish people to their indigenous homeland, the birthplace of the culture and peoplehood). By restricting it to jewish nationalism (to the exclusion of others), one limits what zionism means.
see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brit_Shalom_(political_organiz... or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ihud for examples of "dissident" zionist thought in pre-state days.
2) while I agree that one doesn't have to be a "nationalist" (in a pejorative view of the term) to support the continued existence of an existing state. I think most people who actively support Israel (and institutions in Israel) are not simply being "pragmatic" about that doing that is because its less human suffering, they view that its continued existence is a net positive to the world.
to rephrase the concept, with your next paragraph of "consistent anti-nationalists". Yea, one can oppose all forms of nationalism, but if one considers themselves a "consistent ant-nationalist opposed to all forms of nationalism", but supports palestinian nationalism / excuses violence as valid forms of "resistance", I'd argue that one isn't a "consistent anti-nationalist". i.e. I personally see very few "consistent anti-nationalists".
I also agree that one doesn't have to be a consistent "nationalist" per the next paragraph. I'm certainly not. If one wants to claim that that they aren't "anti-nationalist", but that they simply value palestinian nationalism over jewish nationalism, I get that.
In terms of Hareidi religious anti-zionism
1) outside of satmar affiliated ones, they don't have a consistent view of what it means to be anti-zionist today (i.e. I'd argue that they are more non-zionist jewish nationalists, vs anti-zionist).
2) Even with satmar, to many people who are virulent opponents of Israel (ex: who view zionist as a pejorative), they would view Satmar members, as you describe their philosophy (or opposing any efforts to harm the states existence) as "zionists".
In practice, i believe this demonstrates, that "zionism" (to people virulenty opposed to the state of Israel) is just a code word for anti-semitism, and is just a safe way for people to demonstrate their anti-jewish animus, and therefore further demonstrates the necessity of the modern state of Israel. In practice, I see very little "anti-israel" protests that don't devolve into such usages.
I don't think it is possible to come up with a definition of "Zionism" which will please everybody. But defining it as "Jewish nationalism" is very mainstream – both Encyclopaedia Britannica and Wikipedia open their articles on "Zionism" by framing it as a form of nationalism.
If some binationalists want to call themselves "Zionists", it isn't my place to tell them they can't call themselves that. But other binationalists disagree. For example, Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin (professor of Jewish History at Ben-Gurion University) is a binationalist, and I've read some of his writings, and he is rather critical of Zionism, and presents binationalism more as an alternative to Zionism than as a form of it.
I don't agree that donating money to a school in Israel aimed at promoting peaceful Arab-Jewish coexistence necessarily implies any particular position on whether the State of Israel should exist. If someone donated money to a school in Northern Ireland promoting peaceful Catholic-Protestant coexistence, I wouldn't assume that donation implied any particular position on the future constitutional status of Northern Ireland (whether it should remain part of the UK, or become part of a united Ireland, or even some third option such as shared sovereignty or independence).
I agree that a consistent antinationalist can't support Palestinian nationalism, but I think such people exist. I already mentioned Raz-Krakotzkin. In principle, I support neither Zionism nor Palestinian nationalism, but nowadays my own emotional sympathies are more with the Israeli side. That said, I get annoyed by Zionist language such as "Israel's right to exist" because frankly speaking I don't think any state has a "right to exist". But saying that doesn't mean I support the dreams some have of "dismantling" Israel–I think that would very likely end in genocide
I don't think non-Satmar-affiliated Haredim are being "inconsistent". Both sides agree that the establishment of the secular State of Israel was a mistake, but now it exists, it is a fait accompli, and it would be wrong to permit its enemies to destroy it. Where they disagree, is on how far one can permissibly go in relating to it (such as by accepting money from it or participating in its elections). I don't think either camp is being inconsistent, they just have a difference of moral and halachic opinion. There are similar debates–over how far you can go in compromising with a practical reality which you believe to be ultimately wrong–in other religions too.
Finally, I don't think we should allow the word "Zionist" to be defined by those who use it as a pejorative. People who rant about "Zionist Occupation Government", etc, are just using "Zionist" as a codeword for "Jewish", in order to obscure their own antisemitism. They aren't saying anything useful, and so should just be ignored. But non-pejorative critics of Zionism, from Joel Teitelbaum to Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin, are worth listening to, whether they ultimately are right or wrong.
I'd argue that I'm not convinced that many hareidim (especially those on the street, as opposed to the thinkers) actually believe that state of Israel's creation was a mistake anymore (and in practice, even at the time of the creation, I'm unsure many felt that way, there was lots of celebrations in 1947 with UN vote and in May 1948 even amongst people we would today consider chareidi). Even amongst the thinkers this is a complicated question. I don't think its simply (anymore at least) the fact that it exists. Hence why I view it as a complicated question in terms of if they are zionists or not. Their anti-zionism (to me), seems more performative than practical. i.e. the refusal to say the prayer for the state of israel or the IDF (though these are both commonly said in USA synagogues that are more aligned with the chareidi world). When it comes to practice, what the state means to them, its not simply anymore a matter of it be a shame for it to be destroyed / "bad" things would happen to members of our people.
I'd differentiate this chareidi "zionism" that we see practiced from "religious" zionism in that their zionism is more secular, without ascribing religious significance to the state. i.e. while the "religious zionism" sector ascribes religious, messianic, meaning to the state and hence would suffer an internal rupture if the state would fall, the chareidim whose "zionism" I'd argue is more simply "secular/national" would simply view it as part of the ebb and flow of jewish history.
> even at the time of the creation, I'm unsure many felt that way, there was lots of celebrations in 1947 with UN vote and in May 1948 even amongst people we would today consider chareidi)
There are Haredi Religious Zionists, the Hardal - in particular the followers of Rabbi Zvi Thau, his students at the Har Hamor Yeshiva he founded in Jerusalem, and the Noam political party for which he serves as spiritual leader.
But although the term “Hardal” has only been heard in recent decades, there has always been a “very frum” subset of Religious Zionism. There is a direct line going from Rabbi Zvi Thau, to the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva in Jerusalem where Thau held a leadership position for decades before splitting off to found his own yeshiva, to Thau’s mentor Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, and in turn to his mentor’s father and the founder of Mercaz HaRaz, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Mandatory Palestine.
Among the strictly Orthodox (“Haredi”), although Satmar-style hardline anti-Zionism and “non-Zionism” (which can be interpreted as “soft anti-Zionism”) have traditionally been the clear majority, there has always been a Religious Zionist minority, going back to the early 20th century. Religious Zionism has always contained a spectrum of observance from Haredi-style strictness through to “dati lite” laxity. So some of the people you are talking about were arguably “proto-Hardal” or “Hardal avant la lettre”
Complicating the matter is there has definitely been some movement in recent decades from the “non-Zionist”/“soft anti-Zionist” camp to Religious Zionism. A good example is the Sephardic Haredi party Shas, who used to identify as “non-Zionist” but in 2010 decided to join the World Zionist Organisation. Or similarly, Chabad is still technically “non-Zionist”, but with every passing year their “non-Zionism” appears ever harder to distinguish from actual Zionism. (But, keeping in mind that the Chabad of shluchim in Chabad houses is rather different from the Chabad of Crown Heights and Kfar Chabad, I’m not sure if that generalisation is equally true of both.)
Conversely, however, United Torah Judaism and Agudath Israel haven’t really changed their position - they still reject both secular Zionism and religious Zionism in principle, but are willing to engage in certain forms of cooperation with the State of Israel in practice. Rather than moving like Shas and Chabad have, they are staying where they are. In fact, I think the recent ratcheting up of the long-standing controversy in Israel over Haredi conscription is encouraging them to dig-in to their current position. (Although interestingly even Shas, despite embracing Religious Zionism on paper, is still opposing conscription for its followers, and urging them to engage in civil disobedience against it.)
If only the same level of Nobel-winning intellect was applied to researching the history and origin of sacred texts, perhaps we would live in a more rational world.
What sort of new information do you think that research would uncover?
Or are you simply suggesting that you don’t think these people have thought hard enough about the matter because they don’t share your worldview? That’s a popular take among the adolescent atheist set.
Many key events happened in the Oral tradition era and the divine revelation mostly stops after writing is invented.
So you were suggesting that these brilliant scientists simply need to consider very obvious objections and then their faith will vanish.
You imagine yourself as being more of an intellectual than anyone who disagrees with you, even those who are among the most brilliant people on the planet. This sort of posturing is something most people outgrow.
I haven't said any of that actually.
In most organized religions, people join as children, and at that age you have developed the necessary cognitive maturity to analyze the complexity of a belief system (see Piaget stages of development).
Even a person that will grow up to be rational and brilliant can be persuaded to believe pretty much anything as a kid. A bearded man delivering gifts in a flying sled pulled by flying raindeer? A fairy that exchanges teeth for money? All good.
In jewish philosophy, Maimonides (nearly 1000 years ago) wrote that basically anything we can comprehend as human beings, all we know is that isn't god, as god is by definition beyond our ability to comprehend.
A child's belief in religion should not be the same as an adults (both in a metaphysical sense, as well as in what the religion brings and contributes to making the world a better place). Now one might hope that there's a smooth path from one childlike understanding to one's more mature adult understanding (at least if one values the religion), but that's not always the case, or not readily available to all due to the way they are taught and raised (and again, to those who value religion), that can be a shame.
My "rational" mind has a very difficult time accepting the concept of "spacetime" being limited (not that the limits might ever matter to me in practice), but that doesn't change my belief in its truism.
On the flip side, when it comes to religion, there are many things as an adult I cannot know if they are "really true" or not (though as a child it was much simpler to believe in them being simply true), but I can believe that operating as if they are true, can allow me to operate in the world in a manner that can hopefully makes the world a better place. Do I know if the metaphysical stuff is "real" or not? The honest answer is no. Do I feel acting ("belief" some might say) as if they are true, can make the world a better place? yes. Do I also know that others who believe can make the world a worse place? yep. But guess what, plenty of people have made the world a worse place trying to replace religion as well, so I don't think its so much that religion should be blamed, but people in general, they will always looks for an excuse, and religion can be a simple excuse, but to paraphrase the voltaire's famous statement of "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him", if religion didn't provide the excuses people make for making the world a worse place, people would have invented other reasons for it.
Second year in a row for mRNA, interesting.
What I love about these announcements is how good they are at explaining the concept. Click the "Press release" or "Advanced information" and get something easily digestible. Also fun to watch the talks the winners hold, they're often good at explaining.
microRNA is abbreviated miRNA.
mRNA provides the blueprint for constructing proteins based on the genetic information stored in DNA.
miRNAs are small regulatory RNAs that control gene expression by interacting with mRNA, influencing whether certain proteins are produced or not.
Why not μRNA, damn it!
oh well, can't edit my message now, but then: interesting that RNA is twice in a row. (Not sure I deserved the amount of downvotes, though, mRNA is mentioned twelve times in the press release as well, easy to confuse for a layman)
Don’t take it personal. By mistake you created a comment that is stating a blatant falsehood. And people are downvoting that blatant falsehood. That’s a statement it the fact that the comment is false. It’s not an attack on your person, it doesn’t matter if it was a small or big mistake that lead to that comment existing, because the comment is there and is false, people will downvote it, as they should.
Is there really a need for an abbreviation that cuts off 3 characters of an 8 character word? Feels like the risk of getting it mixed up with mRNA outweighs in. Then again, that mixup might happen even if microRNA wasn't abbreviated. Or maybe I shouldn't count the abbreviation under the assumption that RNA is already abbreviated?
mRNA = messenger RNA; miRNA = microRNA, which is the subject of 2024's Nobel
mRNA = messenger RNA
miRNA = microRNA
tRNA = transfer RNA
rRNA = ribosomal RNA
siRNA = small interfering RNA
Interesting… at least in my field, the prefix “micro” gets abbreviated with a “u” since it looks very close to the lowercase Greek letter μ (mu), as “micro” itself is Greek in origin
In this case, the phrase micro does mean the metric prefix 10^-6, but just "smaller than mRNA". The important unit in biology is nucleotides [1], which are the elements specifying the composition of proteins (loosely speaking, the "atoms of biology"). mRNA typically has on the order of thousands of nucleotides, whereas miRNAs have about 20 nucleotides. The physical size of miRNAs is actually ~3nm. [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucleotide [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3500609/
Yes, but it’s quite common to use “micro” to mean “small” in some technical fields. Example: Microprocessor
Typically I see “u” used in instances where it is the actual SI Unit prefix for 10^-6, and leaving it as “mirco” is used when in its more common form for “very small”
The only exception i can think of off hand is "uP" as a very rare abbreviation for "microprocessor": https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/microprocessor
micro-operation in a CPU is uop.
was thinking the same. it could be mi instead of u because the other one are not size related
These probably this joke is about, Every Scientific Field:
Good one, but not really applicable here. Everyone in the greater domains of biology, biochemistry, bioengineering, and medicine (and maybe more) should know all of these types of RNA
mtRNA = mitochondrial RNA
In Web framework terms, DNA is a message schema that generates messages (mRNA) which can have microDNA applying direct injection to disable certain fields so that the receiving micro service produces a different result.
This is not a good analogy.
I thought it was ok actually, what part is bad?
They famously botched the Bell’s inequality summary two years ago.
Who is "they" here? There are completely separate committees for each subject's Nobel prize.
Edit: the individual committees are even not all run by the same institution [0]. The medicine prize committee is run from the Karolinska institute, whereas the physics committee, for example, is run by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
[0] https://www.nobelprize.org/the-nobel-prize-organisation/priz...
That’s too much inside-baseball for my taste. All committees are under the Nobel prize umbrella.
Check out Sean Carroll on the subject:
https://web.archive.org/web/20230224123835/https://twitter.c...
mRNA ≠ microRNA
Nobel Prizes in the modern era are pretty misleading when it comes to the public's understanding of how scientific research and discovery is done in practice.
In this specific case, which revolves around a fundamental revision of the old central dogma of DNA replication, mRNA transcription and protein expression, billions of dollars of funding through over a dozen major government funding agencies in the US, Europe and Asia were required, involving hundreds of research groups scattered around the world over a few decades. Ask the following questions for more details:
(1) How much governmental funding in the United States and abroad has been directed to the study of this new model of complex and dynamic miRNA-based regulation of gene expression and function over the past few decades, and what are the main agencies supplying such funding, and to which research universities has most of the funding been directed?
(2) Given the complexity of the problem and the involvement of hundreds of research groups and dozens of national and international funding agencies, why give a Nobel Prize to just a couple of research group heads for this new understanding?
Abolishing the scientific Nobel Prizes entirely makes a lot of sense from this viewpoint.
>(2) Given the complexity of the problem and the involvement of hundreds of research groups and dozens of national and international funding agencies, why give a Nobel Prize to just a couple of research group heads for this new understanding?
Because these two were directly responsible for the discovery and the initial understanding of the mechanism of what was going on. The depth and quantity of the resulting research, funding, and all the other streams of new jobs or additional lines of research are follow-on results from the finding, which to me is a metric that highlights the enormity of their achievement and the richly deserved nature of this award.
Why not give it to this team instead?
Conservation of the sequence and temporal expression of let-7 heterochronic regulatory RNA - AE Pasquinelli, BJ Reinhart, F Slack, MQ Martindale, MI Kuroda, B Maller, DC Hayward (Nature, 2000)
Limiting it to three people really doesn't make much sense, and the selection of winning candidates has far more to do with political maneuvering then it does with how scientific discovery works. Similar issues arise in many other Nobel Prize awards, eg the discovery of the mechanism of ribosomal protein synthesis.
How does this conflict with the Central Dogma?
It doesn't; the central dogma was always intended as a jokey simplification of real biology. It was never proscriptive.
The direction of information flow
No? The Central Dogma is about the flow of sequence information: from nucleic acid to protein, and never back again.
It's not about regulatory information.
You're being downvoted, but I think that you bring up an important point that I've seen debated a lot elsewhere: science is much more of a large, collaborative effort these days than it has been in the past, often involving huge teams and billions in government funding. The fact that Nobels are limited to I believe 4 recipients in a year gives the broader public the idea that it's "a couple of geniuses" that move science forward these days, and that's just not how it works.