The Nobel Prizes are handed out to humanity's best
and brightest, but sometimes even the best and brightest
get overlooked.
Howdy folks.
Trace here wrapping up the coverage for DNews.
The Nobel Prizes were announced over the last week,
and there were a couple of surprises out there.
The prizes come in six categories, chemistry,
economics, literature, medicine, peace and physics.
This year, three scientists shared the chemistry prize
for creating computer models of molecules
so we don't have to use these peg and ball ones anymore.
Canadian author, Alice Munro, took the literature award home,
three Americans won the Nobel Prize in medicine
for discovering how cells transport things around.
They're like little factories.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize,
and the prize for physics went to two scientists who
discovered the Higgs boson particle.
Economics doesn't get handed out until Monday.
Kind of an incredible list, don't you think?
But what about the amazing projects
that didn't warrant a Nobel win?
The Nobel Prize for peace is pretty existential.
How do people encourage peace globally?
Removing chemical weapons is a great one,
but what about promoting non-violence
in the face of a much more powerful aggressor?
Mahatma Gandhi promoted a free and independent India
and was assassinated in 1948.
Though his efforts helped the Britons to quit India,
he never won a Nobel Prize for peace.
Though he was nominated posthumously.
I think we all agree the idea that DNA and genes passed
from parents to offspring is pretty much a game changer,
but the scientists credited for the discovery never
won the Nobel Prize for physiology and medicine.
In the 1940s, Oswald Avery discovered
it wasn't a protein which passed your hereditary traits
to your children, but DNA itself.
Which might seem kind of like, oh, duh now.
But then, it was revolutionary, because most scientists
thought the opposite.
The Human Genome Project might be
one of the most interesting and wonderful things
to happen with the human DNA since it was discovered.
And since that project was completed in 2003,
we've been learning things about humans
we may never have discovered without it.
We've catalogued all the DNA of the whole human, and still
no Nobel Prize.
There are so many more of these, you guys.
The Nobel Prize for chemistry was never
given to Dmitri Mendeleev for creating
the modern periodic table.
The inventor of radio telecommunications,
Nikola Tesla, never received a prize for physics.
Robert Noyce, the inventor of the microchip,
never got a prize.
Fred Hoyle, who coined the term the Big Bang,
claimed new elements were made inside stars during fusion,
never got a Nobel Prize for that.
Leo Tolstoy, one of the most critically acclaimed novelist
in human history, no Nobel medal we're hanging around his neck.
We could talk about this all day.
There are only so many Nobel prizes.
And unfortunately for some, once in awhile
you've got this great season and it's hard to pick.
And other times it's pretty sparse.
I mean, personally, I'd love to see Malala Yousafzai win
for her work toward peace.
The Taliban shot her in the head for simply
trying to go to school.
Education, it's important.
She stood up to them peacefully, survived,
and is still working for peace today.
I think the Nobel Prizes are an incredible way
to show recognition for humanity's best achievements.
But how do you feel about it?
Share your own opinions in the comments below the video,
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