Make That 63...

Nobel prize season is upon which makes me a little giddy, along with the rest of the science community. So far prizes in medicine, physics, and chemistry have been handed out, with literature, peace, and economics still to come.

Today three Americans were rewarded for their work on Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP), which I'll try to get to later this week (damn development exam tomorrow). Well one of those winners, Martin Chalfie, made quick work to put his name on the list of laureates who have signed an open letter in support of Obama's presidential aspirations.

Just today Martin was announced as one of the winners of the Chemistry prize and he called up his friend and fellow laureate Robert Horvitz (Medicine, 2002) in order to join the list.

"I said, 'Bob, the one thing I really want to do is, I understand there’s a list of Nobel Prize winners supporting Barack Obama, and I want to get my name on the list.’”

That takes the count from 61 to 63 as shortly after the letter was published Murray Gell-Mann (Physics, 1969) came forward to add his name to the list.

This is by far the largest number of top Nobel laureates to ever endorse a candidate. I have yet to hear of any putting their support behind McCain, but I could be wrong, or they could be scared to be shunned by the scientific community.

I am interested to see if any other winners of this year's prize add their name to the list, and tomorrow I'll have the opportunity to talk with one of the 2008 awardees in physics, Yoichiro Nambu from the University of Chicago, to discuss his thoughts on the presidential race! I am honored to be able to share a bit of time with him and look forward to being able to share first hand experience here on stifledmind with one of the brightest minds on the planet.


Here's the link to the updated Nobel endoresement letter.

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