“THE merchant of death is dead.” That was the headline of an 1888 obituary of Alfred Nobel, who had amassed a fortune by selling explosives. The notice was premature, however: it was actually Alfred’s brother Ludvig who had died. The arms manufacturer did not like what he saw, so the story goes, and was thus inspired to burnish his legacy.

When Nobel wrote his will it contained instructions to create a series of prizes for those who confer the “greatest benefit on mankind”. The awards remain the most prestigious in science. It is questionable, though, whether they still live up to Nobel’s noble intentions.

A Nobel prize can elevate brilliant but little-known innovators to influential visionaries with global reach. Few people outside Kenya, for example, had heard of Wangari Maathai and her attempts to boost sustainable development and human rights until she was awarded the 2004 peace prize. The resulting media attention gave her a golden opportunity to spread her message.

Maathai is just one recent laureate whose achievements fit awkwardly into the prizes’ framework. Her work on environmental and social justice is relevant to peace-keeping, but it is hardly conflict resolution. Even so,

Nobel prizes for the 21st century

EDITORIAL

she was shoehorned into the peace category. The basic science prizes in chemistry,

physics and “physiology or medicine” still reflect Nobel’s 19th-century world view. In fact, the only alteration to the Nobel line-up in 108 years was the creation by the Bank of Sweden in 1968 of the economics prize, and one might question whether this has really served to recognise the “greatest benefit” to humanity. The winners of the 1997 prize were the brains behind Long-Term Capital Management – the gigantic hedge fund whose near-collapse a year later was a harbinger of greater financial woes to come .

So do the prizes need to change? We asked a range of prominent scientists, and most replied with an emphatic yes (see page 6). After a month of debate, they decided to call for the creation of new Nobel prizes for the global environment and public health. The group also said that the existing medicine prize should be reconfigured to recognise achievements across the life sciences, from ecology to molecular biology.

What would Alfred Nobel make of these proposals if he were alive today? We believe that he would feel that they captured the spirit of his will. The people who do the most for the world over this century may well be the organisations and individuals who – we hope – are able to rein in climate change and eradicate diseases. Let’s make sure those achievements can be fully recognised by the most prestigious prizes of all. ■

The verdict of leading scientists is clear. We need to rekindle the spirit of Nobel’s great legacy

What’s hot on NewScientist.com

IT MADE for disturbing reading when we asked scientists to speculate on what the world would be like if the global average temperature rose by 4 °C. They were happy to oblige, and the results formed the basis of the cover story for our 28 February issue . Now climate scientists have firmed up their speculations with modelling studies, and their conclusions are, if anything, more worrying (see page 14). A 4 °C rise would be a disaster.

It is not hard to imagine that if we fail to get a grip on the climate, civilisation will collapse altogether. So we asked another question: if we consume ourselves back to the Stone Age, what happens next? Would Earth recover? The answers paint a strangely comforting picture of our planet’s future (see page 32) – but they don’t leave a lot of room for us or our descendants. ■

Earth will be OK, but for us it’s not so good

New MacDonald

IF YOU can recite Old MacDonald Had a Farm you’re already familiar with most domestic animals . But have you ever wondered why that list has stayed the same for centuries? Charles Darwin thought the process of domestication was “insensibly slow”. Hard-to-tame species backed that perception, but it will change once we find domestication’s genetic basis (see page 40). So what should MacDonald farm next? Tame African buffalo, perhaps? Or has domestication gone far enough? Give us your views at www.bit.ly/Kybfd. ■

“The prizes in chemistry, physics and ‘physiology or medicine’ still reflect Nobel’s 19th-century world view”

3 October 2009 | NewScientist | 3

TECH Touchscreen Lego

Piling special blocks onto a

new touchscreen “table” offers a

whole new way to interact with

the virtual world. Watch how it

works in our video

ONLINE WARFARE Gamers

more aggressive to strangers

Levels of testosterone in

computer gamers surged when

they were competing against

strangers, but not friends – as

you’d expect in real warfare

ASTRONOMY Reclaim

the night sky Iranian

photographer Babak Tafreshi

has won the 2009 Lennart

Nilsson scientific photography

prize – see his stunning images

of the sky in our gallery

ASTEROIDS The

world’s best impact

craters About 150 such

craters are known on Earth.

See our gallery of the most

spectacular examples

WEB ‘Time telescope’

could boost internet speed

A “telescope” that is able to

“magnify time” could dramatically

increase the amount of data

that can be sent through

fibre-optic cables, speeding

up broadband connections

If you would like to make a

comment online about any of

the articles in this issue, you can

do so by visiting the article at

www.newscientist.com

WE WANT to hear from you. What recent

advance has had the biggest positive impact?

For the next month we will be running the Big

Impact poll to find out. Navigate to www.bit.ly/

47jKvp to vote on the suggestions of leading

lights, including author Simon Singh and satellite

engineer Martin Sweeting, or suggest your own.

The poll is supported by the EPSRC – the main UK

government agency for funding research in

engineering and the physical sciences. The

agency has launched www.impactworld.org.uk

which, in the words of UK science minister Paul

Drayson, offers a “fascinating insight” into how

technologies are tackling the biggest challenges.

Big Impact poll