Prize-Winning Science

This week, Americans swept the scientific Nobel Prizes -- in physics, chemistry, medicine -- for the first time since 1983. The prizes represent work done in the past, so don't necessarily represent the current state of science, but still, is a reminder of the success of American system of research universities.

Once, I had to suffer talking to an obnoxious Englishman at a work function, who was bragging about Europe's educational systems. I knew he was an idiot when he bragged about England's universities, which are a bit of a mess, really. I wish that I said, to be equally obnoxious: Europeans stamp out Nobel Prizes, we take them home. On a less obnoxious level, the diversity of our education system might seem chaotic, but it sure does produce some awfully good research.

Another nice story from the prizes this year: Roger Kornberg, a chemist at Stanford, won the Nobel Prize in chemistry forty-seven years after his father won the prize in medicine.

Best of all, the Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded yesterday!

The 2006 Ornithology Ig Nobel Prize went to a scientist who studied why woodpeckers do not get headaches, while the Medicine Prize was awarded to Dr. Francis Fesmire for his discovery that "digital rectal massage" is a sure cure for the hiccups. The recipient accepted his award wearing one latex glove. The real Nobel Prize Laureates in attendance waved at him with foam fingers. A demonstration of that invention was stopped just short of indecency.