Archive by category | Awards

Kavli prizewinner on this “century of neuroscience”

As the year 2008 draws to a close, excitement and an expectation of change hang in the air, and not least in the field of neuroscience, according to the Editorial in the December issue of Nature Reviews Neuroscience (9, 885; 2008). From the Editorial:  … Read more

Lasker medical research awards 2008

The Lasker Awards recognize major advances in the understanding, diagnosis, prevention and treatment of disease. This year, the Lasker Foundation honours the contributions of Victor Ambros, Gary Ruvkun, David Baulcombe, Akira Endo and Stanley Falkow. Read their freely available commentaries, written in celebration of the award, exclusively in Nature Medicine. Not only is the Lasker Foundation celebrating the contributions of these five scientists, it is also acknowledging the leadership and long-term advocacy of these prizes by Daniel Koshland and Michael DeBakey (both of whom are sadly now deceased), by naming two of the Lasker awards after them. For more information about these new tributes, the Lasker awards in general, and to access all the essays as separate PDFs or as a downloadable supplement, please visit the Nature Medicine website.  Read more

2008 Nature mentoring awards to be held in Germany

This week sees the launch of the 2008 Nature Awards for Mentorship in Science. This year the competition will be held in Germany. If you wish to nominate outstanding mentors working in Germany, please visit our special website for the purpose. The deadline for nominations is 4 July. The winners, who each receive a cash prize of €10,000 (US$ 15,450), will be announced in October. Nominees for an award may be working in any discipline within the natural sciences; and nominees should be resident in Germany at the time of the nomination.  Read more

No takers for prize to “prove” the paranormal

From Nature 451, 235 (2008): Challengers for the US$1-million prize offered by the James Randi Educational Foundation for proving paranormal powers have just over two years left to claim the cash. Randi has announced that the paranormal-activity challenge, in which contestants must demonstrate their powers ‘under proper observing conditions’, will end on 6 March 2010 — exactly 12 years after he first offered up the prize money.  Read more

Method of the year and methods to watch

Owing to my end-of-year holiday, I am a little late bringing you news of the Nature Methods’ Method of the Year 2007, which is next-generation sequencing. The journal is publishing in its January 2008 issue a series of free articles showcasing how these novel sequencing methods came into their own in 2007 and the incredible impact they promise to have in a variety of research applications.  Read more

Nature’s prize donated to philanthropic fund

Nature Publishing Group (NPG) has announced that it will be contributing the cash received by winning the Principe de Asturias Award to a philanthropic fund, NPG Awards. Philip Campbell, Editor-in-Chief of Nature, and Annette Thomas, CEO of Macmillan, accepted the 2007 Principe de Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities at a recently held ceremony in Oviedo, Spain. The award was made jointly to NPG’s flagship title, Nature, and the journal Science.  Read more