Wild and Crazy Nobel Guys
Science is boring? Not during nobel week, when the recipients of the highest honors in chemistry, medicine and physics are announced. The 2006 winners were named last week, continuing a tradition begun in 1901, five years after Swedish dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel died, leaving $9 million and instructions to start annual prizes to honor achievements in those three scientific fields as well as in literature and peace. (Recipients of those awards will be announced this week, along with the winner in economics, a prize created in 1969.) The stories behind this year's science winners are particularly compelling. It was a banner year for the Americans, and there were family ties as well as years-old feuds. Here's the scoop.
U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
Maybe the color of the Nobel Prize medal should be changed from gold to red, white and blue. U.S. researchers swept the science awards for the first time since 1983. But the joy came with a warning from many in the U.S. scientific community: the kind of basic research that won Nobels is no longer getting adequate funding. Without more funds, they argue, U.S. scientific dominance won't last, as other nations become more competitive in these cutting-edge fields.
RNA! RNA!
A big winner this year was research on RNA--the genetic "messenger" that transcribes DNA code so it can be made into proteins. Work in this area earned the chemistry prize for Stanford
University's Roger Kornberg and the medicine prize for Andrew Fire, also of Stanford, and the University of Massachusetts' Craig Mello. Studying RNA is important because a full understanding of its functions could lead to therapies and cures for diseases linked to defective genes.
NICE GENES
For Kornberg, the prize meant living up to his father's example: Arthur Kornberg won a Nobel for medicine in 1959. The Kornbergs are in good company--seven other sets of parents and children have won science's highest honor. The most famous was also the most prodigious: Marie and Pierre Curie won in 1903 (Marie won another on her own in 1911); then daughter Irène Joliot-Curie, along with her husband Frédéric Joliot, won in 1935. Who wouldn't pay to get a piece of those genes?
BATTLIN' BRAINIACS
Physics winners George Smoot of U.C.-Berkeley and John Mather of NASA have long feuded over discoveries they made while both were at NASA trying to prove the Big Bang theory. Mather was infuriated when Smoot, in 1992, announced some results of their collaborative research in what Mather alleged was a grab for solo glory. But after they won the prize last week, the pair seemed buddy-buddy again. Nothing brings people together like shiny gold medals and a check for $1.4 million.
译文如下：
说诺贝尔奖得主
科学枯燥乏味么?在揭晓化学、生理学或医学以及物理学领域最高荣誉得主的诺贝尔周，答案是否定的：2006年度的获奖者名单已于上周公布，这项沿袭至今的传统始于1901年．瑞典炸药发明家艾尔弗雷德·诺贝尔逝世5年后。艾尔弗雷德·诺贝尔身后留下900万美元，并要求设立每年颁发一次的奖项。表彰在这3个自然科学以及文学和和平领域取得的成就。本年度诺贝尔自然科学奖得主的幕后故事尤为引人注目。这是美国人春风得意的一年；获奖者中有的有家族渊源，有的是多年的老对头。以下就是本刊的独家新闻。
美国!美国I
也许诺贝尔奖奖牌的颜色应该从金色变成红白蓝三色。美国研究者自1983年以来首度包揽自然科学方面的奖项。但是，喜悦的到来也伴随着美国科学界许多人士的警告：为美国赢得诺贝尔奖的这些基础性研究经费已不再充裕。他们说，随着其它国家在这些前沿领域竞争力的日渐增强，如果没有更多的经费．美国的科学优势将无以为继。
RNA! RNA 1
RNA研究是今年的大赢家。RNA(核糖核酸)是转录DNA(脱氧核糖核酸)密码以便合成蛋白质的基因“信使”，该领域的工作为斯坦福大学的罗杰·科恩伯格赢得了化学奖，为同样来自斯坦福的安德鲁·法尔和马萨诸塞大学的克雷格·梅洛赢得了生理学或医学奖。研究RNA非常重要，因为充分了解其功能可能帮助我们找到基因缺陷疾病的治疗方法。
优质的基因·
对科恩伯格来说，获奖意味着无愧于父亲树立的楷模：亚瑟·科恩伯格1959年获得诺贝尔生理学或医学奖：科恩伯格家族不乏同伴——还有七组父母和子女也曾赢得自然科学的最高荣誉，其中最著名的家族也是获奖次数最多的：玛丽和皮埃尔·居里夫妇1903年获得诺贝尔奖(1911年玛丽又单独获奖)；其后女儿伊伦·约里奥—居里与丈夫弗雷德里克·约里奥一道于1935年获得诺贝尔奖。谁不愿意掏钱来换取一点这样的基因呢?
不和的天才
物理学奖得主加利福尼亚大学伯克利分校的乔冶·斯穆特和美国国家航空航天局(NASA)的约翰·马瑟长期交恶，起因是两人在NASA共事期间为证明“大爆炸”理论而作出的研究成果。1992年，斯穆特公布了他们合作研究的一些成果，马瑟大为恼火，指责他想独占荣耀。但上周获奖后，这对搭档似乎又变得亲密起来。没有什么比光芒四射的金质奖牌和140万美元的支票更容易让人和解的了。
