Nobel prizes are usually linked with groundbreaking research bettering mankind, but the awards have also honored some quite unhumanitarian inventions such as chemical weapons, dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) and lobotomies.
Numerous Nobel prize controversies have erupted over the years: Authors who were overlooked, scientists who claimed their discovery came first, or Nobel Peace Prizes that divided public opinion. However, some of the science prizes appear in hindsight to be embarrassing choices by the committees.
When the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize went to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, it was perhaps a way of making up for the Nobel “war prize” it awarded to German chemist Fritz Haber in 1918.
Haber was honored with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on the synthesis of ammonia, which was crucial for developing fertilizers for food production.
However, Haber, known as the “father of chemical warfare,” also developed poisonous gases used in trench warfare in World War I at the Battle of Ypres, which he supervised himself.
Following Germany’s defeat in that war, “he didn’t expect to win a prize. He was more afraid of a court martial,” Swedish chemist Inger Ingmanson, who wrote a book about Haber’s prize, told reporters. “Some saw it as a Germanophile prize. There were people who had wanted Sweden to join the war alongside Germany.”
The prize remains one of the most contested Nobels ever awarded — the jury had to be aware of Haber’s role in, and the effects of, chlorine gas being used in the trenches. However, he had also brought the world revolutionary fertilizers.
The 1918 controversy might have encouraged the Stockholm jury to think carefully about the laureates they choose after a conflict.
However, in November 1945, just three months after atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry honored the discovery of nuclear fission.
The laureate was another German, Otto Hahn, whose 1938 discovery was crucial to the development of atomic bombs.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences’ choice is bewildering, especially given its apparent urgency right after the damages just wreaked by the bombs.
Portuguese neurologist Egas Moniz won the 1949 Nobel Prize in Medicine “for his discovery of the therapeutic value of leucotomy in certain psychoses.”
Today the brain surgery procedure is known as a lobotomy and is only used in rare circumstances. The Nobel Foundation’s Web site notes soberly that the surgery was “controversial.”
In addition, there are the laureates blasted by environmentalists.
One year before Moniz, the medicine prize jury honored Swiss scientist Paul Mueller for his discovery that DDT could be used to kill insects that spread malaria.
DDT was later banned worldwide, after it was discovered to pose a threat to humans and wildlife.
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
SEEKING ORDER: Rodrigo Paz said that ‘anyone who wants to destroy the nation will have to deal with this president and the full force of the constitution’ Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Wednesday said that the nation was at a “breaking point” after nearly a month of protests that have caused shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Paz, who took office six months ago amid the worst economic crisis there in four decades, is battling a groundswell of fury over his policies. The political capital, La Paz, has been besieged by low-income workers and members of the indigenous majority calling for his resignation. “The country needs order and is reaching breaking point,” the 58-year-old said at a public event in La Paz, renewing his appeal for dialogue. On Tuesday, the Bolivian
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
RSS