Nobel Prizes for Radiation Science

[scherer@uiuc.edu (David Scherer)]

With all this attention to P-32 at NIH, nobody has commented on this year's
Nobel awards.  While we HPs are not often directly involved in the
ground-breaking research, when the radiation sources are used, HPs do
provide support that makes the research possible.

I guess this year UC Irvine wins the Triple Crown.  They have some
affilitation with winners in all three natural science categories.  Fred
Reines (physics) and Sherwood Rowlands (chemistry) are faculty members
there, and Eric Weischaus (physiology or medicine) did a post doc there
before his prize winning work in Germany.

BTW, there is a radiation connection in two of the areas.  The physics award
was for particle physics work conducted at Savannah River and at SLAC
(again).  The physiology or medicine warad was for work on mutations in
Drosophilla (of radiation biology fame).  I believe that Weischaus (now at
Princeton) uses a Cs-137 irradiator to induce mutations.  The chemistry
award was for study of reactions in the ozone layer.

If you include nonionizing radiation, I guess all three awards have some
radiation connection.  Even though radiation is regarded as a dreaded hazard
by the public and too many scientists, it sure has been useful in the
scientific enterprise.

Dave Scherer
scherer@uiuc.edu