Scientists launched a scathing attack Saturday on a leading US academic for spending thousands of dollars on newspaper advertisements to denounce the Nobel Prize committee for ignoring his work.
In one of the most vitriolic acts of academic indignation on record, Raymond Damadian -- a pioneer of magnetic resonance imaging -- last week bitterly criticized the committee for giving the prize for medicine to Britain's Peter Mansfield and America's Paul Lauterbur, to be presented in Stockholm on Wednesday.
But the suggestion that the Nobel committee had behaved improperly has infuriated the scientific community. Far from being a maverick genius who created brain and body scanners years ahead of anyone else, Damadian played only a peripheral role in developing magnetic resonance imagers, they argue.
"Damadian's claims have tarnished Peter Mansfield's superb achievements for Britain," said Peter Morris, professor of physics at Nottingham University. "Yes, Damadian did some good work, but he is claiming ownership of the whole field. In fact, it was Mansfield and Lauterbur who did the crucial research."
This view was shared by Mick Brammer, professor of neuro-imaging at King's College, London.
"This is just a very expensive way of expressing sour grapes. He may have done good work, but he didn't develop MRI in the way Mansfield did. Thanks to Mansfield, we can see people's brain centers switch on as they carry out different mental tasks."
Equally dismissive was Colin Blakemore, head of Britain's Medical Research Council.
"Frankly, it is quite extraordinary to petition for a Nobel Prize on your own behalf. The development of these scanners involved input from thousands of scientists. The committee has looked at those and concluded that Mansfield and Lauterbur stand out, and I trust their decision and expertise."
As another MRI expert put it: "This is simply an attempt to buy a Nobel Prize. You can't do that."
No one doubts the importance of Damadian's work. In 1970, he discovered that differences between cancerous and normal tissue could be identified using nuclear magnetic resonance. But it was the work of Lauterbur and Mansfield which allowed the development of machines that used radio waves to "tune" hydrogen atoms in different parts of the body and detect the resulting emissions in scanners, thus allowing doctors to monitor mental and bodily functions in living patients.
The first MRI scanners were made in the 1980s. Last year, 22,000 were used to perform 60 million operations.
Damadian owns several patents for scanners, which have made him a rich man. His company, Fonar Corporation, has paid an estimated ?290,000 (US$502,000) for his adverts, in which he claimed the omission was "a flagrant violation" of the principles of the Nobel award. "Had I never been born, there would be no MRI today," he said.
However, his prospects of changing the committee's minds are remote. Despite a history of furious condemnations of awards, it has never rescinded a decision. The row adds a chapter to the already bulging book of controversies that have dogged the Nobel Prize.
British cosmologist Fred Hoyle played a key role in explaining how elements formed in the early universe. He was excluded from a Nobel Prize, even though his co-workers, who played less pivotal roles, were honored.
Hoyle was famously intemperate in his views about the committee and they repaid this by ignoring him. Now Damadian -- a creationist who believes the world is only 6,000 years old -- is claiming he is also being shunned for his beliefs.
Few scientists sympathize. As one said on Saturday: "He should practise what he preaches and turn the other cheek."
An American scientist convicted of lying to US authorities about payments from China while he was at Harvard University has rebuilt his research lab in Shenzhen, China, to pursue technology the Chinese government has identified as a national priority: embedding electronics into the human brain. Charles Lieber, 67, is among the world’s leading researchers in brain-computer interfaces. The technology has shown promise in treating conditions such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and restoring movement in paralyzed people. It also has potential military applications: Scientists at the Chinese People’s Liberation Army have investigated brain interfaces as a way to engineer super soldiers by boosting
Jailed media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai (黎智英) has been awarded Deutsche Welle’s (DW) freedom of speech award for his contribution to Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. The German public broadcaster on Thursday said Lai would be presented in absentia with the 12th iteration of the award on June 23 at the DW Global Media Forum in Bonn. Deutsche Welle director-general Barbara Massing praised the 78-year-old founder of the now-shuttered news outlet Apple Daily for standing “unwaveringly for press freedom in Hong Kong at great personal risk.” “With Apple Daily, he gave journalists a platform for free reporting and a voice to the democracy movement in
PHILIPPINE COMMITTEE: The head of the committee that made the decision said: ‘If there is nothing to hide, there is no reason to hide, there is no reason to obstruct’ A Philippine congressional committee on Wednesday ruled that there was “probable cause” to impeach Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte after hearing allegations of unexplained wealth, misuse of state funds and threats to have the president assassinated. The unanimous decision of the 53-member committee in the Philippine House of Representatives sends the two impeachment complaints to deliberations and voting by the entire lower chamber, which has more than 300 lawmakers. The complaints centered on Duterte’s alleged illegal use and mishandling of intelligence funds from the vice president’s office, and from her time as education secretary under Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Duterte and the
As evening falls in Fiji’s capital, a steady stream of people approaches a makeshift clinic that is a first line of defense against one of the world’s fastest-growing HIV epidemics. In the South Pacific nation — a popular tourist destination of just under a million people — more than 2,000 new HIV cases were recorded last year, a 26 percent increase from 2024. The government has declared an HIV outbreak and described it as a national crisis. “It’s spreading like wildfire,” said Siteri Dinawai, 46, who came to be tested. The Moonlight Clinic, a converted minibus parked in a suburban cul-de-sac in Suva, is
RSS