 My name is Juliana, and today I'm going to tell you about the Nobel Prize. The Nobel Prize is one of the most prestigious awards in the world, and it's given every year to six different categories. We have physics, chemistry, physiology, or medicine, literature, peace, and economic sciences. Like any other prize, the Nobel Prize is at some critics lately, but more interesting than any other prize, is that scientists are criticizing the scientific Nobel Prizes, and this is quite uncommon, the people that the prize is trying to recognize are the people that are saying it's not good enough anymore. So we will discuss about this a bit in the future, but we should start from the beginning, how the Nobel Prize came about, and how is the selection process to get a Nobel Prize. The beginning starts with Alfred Nobel. Alfred Nobel was born in 1833 in Sweden. He wanted to be a poet, his father did a degree, so he became a chemical engineer, and he was quite a genius. He had 355 patents by the time that he died. Most of his work is done in explosives. He started with nitroglycerin, which is very, very explosive, and ended up blowing up one of his factories and killing his younger brother. Then this just propelled him to try to find safer explosives, and he ended up in Penitent Dynamite in 1867, which is the invention that he's most well known for. Of course, it didn't take too long for the dynamite to be used in wars, which led to the event in 1888 that Alfred Nobel's brother died. But a French newspaper made a mistake, and he thought that Alfred Nobel himself had died, and in the newspaper they wrote that the Alfred Nobel had died, the person that had made millions by finding ways of killing people faster had finally died. And this was quite a shock for Alfred Nobel. He did not understand that people would see him as a killer instead of an inventor. So this propelled him to make some changes in his life. And in 1896, when he died of a stroke, he left something quite unusual on his testament, on his will. As his last words, he said that most of his money, and please bear in mind that by the time that he died, he had 170 million euros in today's coin. So that's a lot of money. He said that most of his money should be distributed into prizes. These prizes should be given to the person that on the last year had conferred the greatest benefit on mankind. Moreover, these prizes should be divided into five categories, physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and to promote the peace among nations, which was known as the Nobel Peace Prize. He also said that the institutions that should give away these prizes should be Swedish institutions, with the exception of the Nobel Peace Prize that should be given away by Norway. So in my notice that the economics prize is actually not in that list. That is because it's not a peace prize. The economics prize was added later in 1968 to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the Bank of Sweden. So it's not part of the first list idealized by Alfred Nobel. But coming back to his testament, this testament was quite the shock amongst his family, because he had a lot of money and most of it was not coming to them. Also for the people of Sweden, because although he names all these institutions that they should give away the prize, he never spoke with any of them if they wanted to do it. He also claims that Norway should give the peace prize. But Alfred was Swedish. So people thought maybe he's not patriotic. This might be treason or something. So this was quite a scandal at the time. But it took five years for the executors of his will to finally convince people to do this prize. But they had to start somewhere. And the description of who should receive these prizes is not very detailed on Alfred's will. So they started by creating some criteria about what should be a discovery worthy of a Nobel Prize. And this discovery should be something that has such a major importance not only in science and the field that it belongs to, but also in society. It has to be something that has a practical application and that we can feel the effects not only when this discovery was made, but also now. So with this in mind, in 1901, the first Nobel prizes were given. And the Nobel Prize in physics went to Vilhelm Rutger for the discovery of x-rays. Nobel Prize in chemistry, Tudor Kovushov, for the discovery of osmotic pressure, which is the basis for water filtration systems today. Then we have the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine given to Emil Bevin. He invented the diphtheria antitoxin. Antitoxins today are still used for many of the vaccinations that we use. Then the Nobel Prize in literature to Silly Proudhon, a French poet. And finally, the Nobel Peace Prize to Henry Dukas. He was the founder of the Red Cross. All of these prizes, including the Nobel Peace Prize, are all things that change the science fields that they belong to and our society still. We still use all of these things today. And they still make an impact in our lives today. So it appears that all of the criteria that offered Nobel Claim to be important really were perfected. But of course, things have changed since things have not stayed the same, and some other rules have to be added to make the criteria for Nobel Prizes. And these are the following at the moment. So no more than three people can receive one prize, but the same prize can be shared for different reasons. And this is the case, for example, this year, where most of the scientific Nobel Prizes are given to three people, and usually for two different discoveries. Then we have that the Nobel Prizes can only be given to living people with the exception of the Nobel Peace Prize that can be given away to an institution. The Nobel Prizes cannot be contested. So if you win a Nobel Prize and you don't want to accept it too bad, it's still yours, and you still go in history as the recipient of a Nobel Prize. You don't need, you may be a refugee or a asylum seeker, and you can still win a Nobel Prize because there's no need for your country to support you. There's no political reason for this. So it has happened, for example, that Adolf Hitler has, when he was in power, he forbade three Germans from receiving the Nobel Prize. Of course, as again, this is not a political prize, so in the end they managed to receive the prize anyway. Then not every prize needs to be given every year. During the World Wars, there were many years where a Nobel Prize was given, and this year, for example, there's actually no literature Nobel Prize due to sex scandals involving the Academy that gives away this prize. But how does the selection process goes? So the selection process is pretty much the same and follows more or less this timeline for every prize. The Nobel Committee of each of the fields of the prizes selects and contacts people that they think are worthy of nominating someone else to receive a Nobel Prize. You cannot nominate yourself. These people that can nominate others to receive the Nobel Prize can be people that belong to the Academy that gives away the prize, can be previous Nobel laureates, can be professors or scientists that are very well known on that subject, and they are selected by the Nobel Committee. By February, all the nominations have to be delivered and out of the 3,000 people that have been contacted to submit nominations, only 300 nominations are received. Then the Nobel Committee will consult with experts to evaluate if those nominations really make sense, if that discovery really meets the criteria that we have discussed before. Then the writer reports telling the Academy these are our favorites and this is the reason why they are our favorites. And then in October the Academy will vote who by majority vote, who they think should win on that year and they will announce it. And only in December will the ceremony and the prize be given away. And this is done on the 10th of December to celebrate the death of Arthur Nobel. So the Nobel Prize ceremony is a grand affair, very formal and it occurs in Sweden and Norway. Sweden gives away most prizes and Norway will give away the peace prize. The Nobel Prize award itself is composed of a gold medal, a diploma with a citation and the original piece of art. It also has a money prize. This money prize varies every year and this year is a little less than one million. If more than one person receives this Nobel Prize, then the money will be shared amongst the winners. Of course the Nobel Prize is not only so much about the money, it's actually more about the recognition that you get. You get recognition from the people in your field, from your fellow scientists, and you also get recognition from the public. If you win a Nobel Prize, everyone will know your name, most likely. But let's move on to some of the most iconic Nobel Prizes that you might have heard of. These include Marie Curie. She received the Nobel Prize in Physics with her husband in 1903 and she received also a Nobel Prize of Chemistry in 1911, both having to do with the radioactive elements and radiation. Then we have Albert Einstein. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the photoelectric effect. This is something that we still use and is the basis for solar panels and optic fibers. We have Sir Alexander Fleming, the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for the discovery of peninsular, one of the first antibiotics and still used today. Max Quack, the name of this organization, he was the inventor of crystallography, x-ray. This sounds very complicated, but actually it was a very important discovery because it was the basis for finding out that the, it was the basis, the technique was the basis for Maurice Wilkins to find out that this DNA is actually a double helix, which led to the winning of the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1962 by Francis Greek, James Watson, and Maurice Wilkins. Now, not everything is black and white, and even though these people are quite famous, there are also some controversies amongst them. For example, Albert Einstein is most famously known for his theory of relativity and the theory of gravitation, which led to the gravitational waves that were the Nobel Prize of last year, but he never received the prize for that. That's because at the moment that he suggested these theories, no one in the field believed them. So if no one believes you, then no one can nominate you for the discovery, so you'll never receive a Nobel Prize for that. Then we also have a more famous case about Francis Greek and James Watson, that many people claim that Rosalind Franklin, the person that actually took the photograph that showed that the DNA was a double helix, was actually never received the prize. And many people claim that she should, but in truth, Rosalind Franklin, by the time that this prize was awarded, she had been dead already for four years. And according to the Nobel Prize rules, you can only give the prize to living people. So I hope that with these two examples, you can understand that, yes, there are some controversies amongst the Nobel Prizes, but you really need to know where and how they come about so that you can really understand and judge if this is really a worthy Nobel Prize or not. So let's take a look now to the bad side, to some of the most controversial scientific prizes, the recent ones. So we have the Nobel Prize on Physiology or Medicine in 1993 from Philly Charpe and Richard Roberts. This prize was then for the description of the G-spicing. Now this sounds very complicated, but it's actually the way that even though all our cells in our body have the same DNA, it's how we can have cells that are for the skin and cells that are for muscles and cells that are for the brain. So we can have different cells even though the DNA is all the same. This is unprimed splicing. This was changing, completely changing the field on how we do biology today. The thing was, Luiz Chao never received the prize and she was the one that developed the technique, thought of how this experiment should be done to prove that this splicing really exists and she was the one that operated the machine to get the results. But she was a PhD student at the time so not really that well known and so no one nominated her so she never received the prize because again, if no one nominates you, you don't get the prize. Then we have in 2008 the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Osamu Shimomuro and Martin Chalfie and Roger Tseid. These people received the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the green fluorescent protein, GFP. This protein, when applied to living organisms, can be seen as a very fluorescent green color under the microscope. This is super important because it allows scientists to see in very fine details individual cells and to mark exactly which cell they want to see. So this also changed the biological field. The thing was, Douglas Parsher never received the prize. This was the person that actually discovered this gene, cloned it, and then suggested that it could be used as a marker for biological discoveries. Martin Chalfie, one of the recipients of the prize, even claimed that his work was critical and they should have just given the prize to him and to the other two and left him out of it. Then we have Reiner Weiss, Kipp Torn and Barry Parish. They received the Nobel Prize last year for the gravitational waves observation and discovery. The thing was, the paper that describes these gravitational waves has three full pages of authors of people that have contributed for this discovery and only these three people actually received the prize. This legal project involved a lot of people, but only three. Yes, they were the group leaders, but who gets to decide which one is more important than the other? Why are these different so obvious on today's science? Why so many controversies on the recent Nobel Prize? The reason is that science today is not the same science that was done when Alfred Nobel idealized these prizes. When Alfred Nobel thought about it, science was done like this. It was one single person or a couple, usually rich, that wanted to know how the science of nature works and how stuff happened from their basement. So there's not many people involved, but science today looks a bit more like this. This is Professor Frances Arnold. She received this year's Nobel Prize of Chemistry for directed evolution. You'll hear more about this from Elena in the next talk. This is how many people have been involved in developing the concept of directed evolution. There's a lot of people, only she received the prize. The point is that Nobel prizes, and today's Nobel prizes were developed at a time when science was not done the same way that it is now. Things have changed, science has evolved. Somehow the Nobel Prize has not kept up with the time. Maybe it will. Scientists say that the best way, some of the solution that they propose would be that instead of giving the prize to a living person, why not give the prize to a project like the LIGO project that discovered the gravitational waves? They also say you could also give it to an institution and in this way help other scientists that are embraced by that institution. Of course, all of these controversies may sound like Nobel prizes are a bad thing, but Nobel prizes are actually a very good thing for the scientific field. Nobel prizes are one of the very few prizes that are recognized by the public. And all this discoveries that the Nobel prize is recognized, automatic pressure, the GFP, the gravitational waves, the vaccines of anti-doxins. All of these have changed and will change the future and they are important and they should be recognized as important and life changed. They should be recognized by the science and by the scientific people that are using them all the time and aware of it. They should also be recognized by the public. And Nobel prizes do indeed help with that. So without further ado, let's move on to, I hope you, next we will discuss about the Nobel prizes that were received this year and I hope you will find interesting and you'll understand why these years Nobel prizes were so important for the discoveries that they were given. So thank you. Five minutes for the questions. If you have questions, please raise your hand. Is there an institution in Munich that can nominate or a person? Is there a person or institution that nominates? The thing is, the nominators and who they nominate is secret for at least 50 years. So we only know who was nominated who and by whom of the 50 years ago, of the prizes that were received 50 years ago. So there might be someone in Munich, we don't know. The truth is that the professors and the scientists that are selected to nominate people are supposed to be from different parts of the world to really have a broad view of the different types of science that are done everywhere. So maybe in 50 years we'll know if someone in Munich. It's a secret. It's a secret. Yes, the committee are thinking about adjusting the criteria for selecting people for the Nobel Prize. Different ways of selecting in here. So at the moment, from what I gather out of the Nobel Prize organization website, they are not very keen on changing the rules. Maybe this is a Swedish thing. No, I'm joking. But the thing is that changing the rules involves a lot of bureaucracy and things that we've learned in a certain way for a very long time. So people are not so keen to changing. But the fact that the Nobel Peace Prize can be given away to institutions has led scientists to believe that, indeed, we could also change the scientific prices. We'll see. So we have time for one more question. Yeah, please take the microphone. I wonder where this money prize comes from. Is it still a bloke into the wealth of Alfred the Nobel or there's some sort of investment? I wonder if his wealth is not finished by now. So he actually said he needs will. So 94% of his money went to these prizes. And he says on his will that his money, the fortunes, should be invested in the safe investments and all the profits, it's not really, I don't know if it's the English one, all the profits of it should be then given away as the prize. That's why the prize money is different every year because it's based solely on how much profit his fortune has made that year. So if you are receiving your prize during a recession, sorry, you get less money. Thank you, Lelena, so. Thank you.