What makes a Nobel laureate?
This year's Nobel Prizes are being unveiled this week. Are there any predictors that point to who will be selected? Here's George Beadle's (medicine, 1958) response: "Study diligently. Respect DNA. Don't smoke. Don't drink. Avoid women and politics. That's my formula."
Is precocity in childhood a predictor? When the 2001 economics laureate, George Akerlof, was in second grade, he was asked what he wanted for Christmas, and he said, "A steel mill." Asked the same question by his scientist father, Roger Kornberg (chemistry, 2006) said, "A week in the lab."
But early privilege is not essential. Mario Capecchi (medicine, 2007) was an abandoned child on the streets of wartime Italy.… Seguir leyendo »