NEW Nobel prizes? No chance. That鈥檚 the Nobel Foundation鈥檚 robust response to calls for the creation of new prizes for public health and the environment.
A group of 10 prominent scientists lobbied for new Nobels in a letter published last week by New 杏吧原创. In an official reply sent on 4 October, the Nobel Foundation notes that only one new prize 鈥� the economics award 鈥� has been created since the first was given in 1901. And that, says the foundation, will be the only addition: the medicine and peace Nobels can be awarded for efforts to tackle threats such as climate change and infectious disease.
鈥淭ackling climate change and infectious disease can be recognised via the peace and medicine Nobels鈥�
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Two of this year鈥檚 prizes had been announced as New 杏吧原创 went to press. The medicine Nobel went to the trio who discovered telomeres, the caps that prevent chromosomes from fraying during cell division, and telomerase, the enzyme that builds the caps. The physics prize was shared by the inventor of optical fibres able to transmit light over great distances, and the pair who developed charge-coupled devices, which now sit at the heart of digital cameras.