"The Silicon Valley aristocrats Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin and Yuri Milner have jointly established the most lucrative annual prize in the history of science..."

"... to reward research into curing diseases and extending human life. The newly created Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences Foundation on Wednesday announces the first 11 winners of an award intended to inject excitement into the sometimes lonely, underfunded quests to understand and combat cancer, diabetes, Parkinson's disease and other maladies. Zuckerberg, who founded Facebook; Brin, who co-founded Google; and Milner, a venture capitalist, have dipped into their fortunes to sponsor awards worth $3m each, compared with a Nobel prize's monetary value of $1.1m."

"I had to sit down on the floor for a while. I thought it must be a practical joke or a Nigerian scam," said Cornelia Bargmann, 51, who has pioneered work on neural circuits and behaviour at the Rockefeller University. "The scale of this is so outsized I think it will have a huge impact on the life sciences." Asked how she would spend the money she hesitated. "It's so far outside my normal planning I don't know. Get the car fixed?"...

Titia de Lange, 57, who researches cell biology, genetics and cancer at Rockefeller university, said the award felt surreal. "I'm not used to having a lot of money. I don't really have possessions." Two women from a list of 11 fairly reflected the percentage of women working at that level, she said. "One would like it to be higher of course."

Young women! Enter the sciences. Silicon Valley aristocrats are dying to give you $3 million. The gender balance must be achieved. No sooner is this wonderful, generous prize announced than the criticism rolls in, gently at first, but you know there is a problem. The aristocrats want the honor of handing out honor and they must comply with the ethical structure of the Silicon Valley culture where they reign. There must be women recipients. 11 prizes? 6 should go to women!

So, ladies, get on it. There's big money here! And yet, women are apparently not so motivated by money. Oh, I don't know, get the car fixed. Gotta sit down on the floor. I don't really have possessions....

So funny. It's men who are offering big money as an incentive. But what if monetary incentives are a male thing, working mostly on men? And yet you have to include the women, equally, because even if women don't care so much about actually getting the money, they care immensely about equality and fairness. And everyone's watching. The symbolism counts, not just the effect of motivating improvements in life for the rest of us. What do you want more — cures for diseases or the appearance of gender equity?

"Leaning to the Left Makes the Eiffel Tower Seem Smaller."

The name of a study that won the Ig Nobel prize for psychology.

The literature prize went to the US Government General Accountability Office for "a report about reports about reports that recommends the preparation of a report about the report about reports about reports."

There are 8 more Ig Nobel prizes, so click the link.

"I did think of it all on my own."

Jack Andraka, age 15. Watch him get the $75,000 Intel prize...



... and don't click off before you get to the part where he explains — with brilliant clarity — what he invented. And read the article. I love the stuff about his parents:

When he was in grade school, his father, a civil engineer, bought him and his older brother a plastic model river with running water. The boys would throw all kinds of foam boats and objects down the river and see which ones would drown and how different objects would impede the flow. His parents, he says, never really answered any of the questions they had. Go figure it out for yourself, they would say. “I got really into the scientific method of developing a hypothesis and testing it and getting a result and going back to do it again.”

Do you have the nerve to treat your kids like that? Figure it out for yourself!

I love that kid... and his parents (who follow a child-rearing approach that my parents used).

The "Slumdog Millionaire" scenario...

... plays out in real life.

"Does this writer's capacity for language expand my capacity to think and to feel?"

The test — proposed by Jeanette Winterson — for what counts as literature.

We are nervous about anything that seems elitist or inaccessible, and we apologise for the arts in a way that we never do for science.

Nobody blames maths for being difficult – and it isn't difficult – but it is different, and demands some time and effort. It is another kind of language. Literature is also another kind of language. I don't mean literature is obscure or rarefied or precious – that's no test of a book – rather it is operating on a different level to our everyday exchanges of information and conversation.

From an essay involving an controversy about who won and who didn't win a literary prize, something I really don't care about. But the test... the test is interesting. I don't know whether it's right, and actually I don't care. What difference does it make, the definition of "literature"? Unless you care about the prize. But it seems interesting, even though I don't care if it succeeds in testing what it purports to test. And frankly, I think it's quite silly to care about the 2 capacities. It's a double aptitude test, looking backward at the capacity the writer brought to the project of writing the thing and forward to the increased capacity the reader took away from reading it. What about the reading itself?

Feminist on a panel that chooses winners of the Man Booker International prize withdraws when the panel picks Philip Roth.

The Guardian reports on the sensibilities of Camern Callil:

Dismissing the Pulitzer prize-winning author, Callil said that "he goes on and on and on about the same subject in almost every single book. It's as though he's sitting on your face and you can't breathe"....

"I don't rate him as a writer at all. I made it clear that I wouldn't have put him on the longlist, so I was amazed when he stayed there. He was the only one I didn't admire – all the others were fine... Roth goes to the core of [the other judges'] beings. But he certainly doesn't go to the core of mine ... Emperor's clothes: in 20 years' time will anyone read him?"

He's sitting on your face. Sitting on your face!

Grigory Perelman, math genius, living in a tiny apartment in St. Petersburg, doesn't want that $1 million prize.

Please take the prize, Dr. Perelman.

The mathematician is reported to have said "I have all I want".... speaking through the closed door of his flat.

He also turned down the Fields Medal:

"I'm not interested in money or fame," he is quoted to have said at the time.

"I don't want to be on display like an animal in a zoo. I'm not a hero of mathematics. I'm not even that successful; that is why I don't want to have everybody looking at me."

He seems to be so wrong, but he is so much smarter than we are. Should we not absorb his opinion with awe and respect?

"Leaping wolf snatches photo prize."

A headline that had me picturing the wolf doing a dramatic Kanye West move on some awards show.

Live-blogging the Oscars.

Hang out and watch with me.

7:28: I'm loving Tim Gunn gushing over the lady actors.

7:28: Hugh Jackman, he can sing and run around desperately on the stage, and oh! that gorgeous white foam in the corners of his mouth.

7:43: Best Supporting Actress ... a stripper need never take off her dignity with her clothes... blah blah... bullshit. Ugh! this is boring. So so stilted. But yay! Penélope Cruz, won. I love her.

7:52: "They're making the announcing of the nominees into a religious ceremony," IMs Chris (my son). Yes. Indeed. Good lord, it's deadly. This may go down as the most embarrassingly bad Oscars show of all time.

7:58: "Milk" wins original screenplay, and we get some mawkish bilge about the gays.

9:02: Sorry, my interest flagged...

9:09: Heath Ledger wins Best Supporting Actor and everyone acts all sanctimonious and morosely glum. Seriously, folks: Don't encourage suicidal behavior. The man had some talent. He performed a role. And he threw it all away. How about rewarding the living? I'm taking a break. Carry on without me. I find tonight's Oscars insipid and sickly. I'd rather live than sit through this embalming.

9:45: I went off and lived the real life for over an hour. Came back to the TiVo and found Jerry Lewis maundering about himself.

10:11: The Parade of the Dead. Marching to the tune of Queen Latifah singing "I'll Be Seeing You." She doesn't have the pipes for this song. It's painful. But take heart. The dead can't hear her. The agonizing death of this song has me rethinking my beliefs about euthanasia. Finally, we get to Paul Newman. We hear the only spoken word in the death sequence. The big difference between people, Paul says, is between those who have had "pleasure in love" and those who haven't. True enough. So turn off the fucking television and love somebody.

10:18: Danny Boyle wins Best Director. Appropriate. I agree. He hops up and down. He says it's in "the spirit of Tigger."

10:30: Best Actress. It's torture listening to presenting actresses' leaden praise of the actresses who longingly ache for the little gold man. The presenters are hogging camera time by talking slow slow slow. Thank God the Oscar goes to Kate Winslet because we're all tired as hell of hearing about how Kate Winslet has not won the Oscar yet. She gives a cheeseball speech about how as a little girl she pretended to do her Oscar acceptance speech with a shampoo bottle.

10:40: Now, the religious ritual for the Best Actor. Oh! It's so slow and dumb. This is the worst Oscar show ever. I have some things to do, but I'm hanging on to the end (after fast-forwarding through the whole rotten (I presume) center. Come on, give Mickey or Sean the damned man. And it's Sean! I approve!

10:44: "You commie, homo-loving sons of guns," says Sean. I'm going to pack it in now. I'm going to assume "Slumdog Millionaire" gets the Best Picture, and if it doesn't, I'll find out in the morning. So carry on without me, my friends.

"I'd like to say: I'm bewildered. In the old days, we would have called this selling out. But I think it's a good way to spend a Sunday."

Thanks, Robert Plant, for summing up the lameness of today.

There's a big difference between Kate Winslet and Sigourney Weaver.

They both won 2 Golden Globes in one year, and Sigourney Weaver then failed to win an Oscar — but that's not going to happen to Kate.

I'm live-blogging The Golden Globes.

6:00: Come hang out with me. I'm watching Nancy O'Dell on the red carpet interviewing the Jonas Brothers. They seem like nice young men, but boring. I guess they don't need to be interesting, as they are obviously loved for whatever it is they do — which I've never experienced.

6:05: Commenting on her success, Miley Cyrus says she's not a big planner, but "God has a plan." She looks pretty there in her very long drapey white dress, with her dad who's flat-ironed his hair as much as a man possibly can.

6:15: Steve Carrell bows down to Ricky Gervais.

6:27: Gah! I screwed up the title line. Fixed. Sorry. The red carpet stuff is made less glamorous by the presence of TV folk, who seem especially interested in getting camera time. Meanwhile, we see Kate Winslet lurking over there, looking splendid.

6:29: Vanessa Hudgens's hair doesn't just look like a wig, it looks like a play wig. Jessica Lange is escorting Drew Barrymore. They are holding hands. I love Drew's hair — it seems to be inspired by Marilyn Monroe after a long night of drinking. Blah! Now it's Jeremy Piven whining about his ailment that no one believes he has.

6:41: Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio together again. This time he's the one who looks ever so slightly bloated. She's wearing a black dress and looks so good wearing red lipstick that maybe all of us women will be wearing red lipstick tomorrow.

6:47: Is that Tom Cruise's phone ringing? He's moved off to the side so Nancy O'Dell can get to Robert Downey Jr. — who's wearing dark sunglasses and looks very unkempt, yet brags about his sobriety — and then Sting — who's very red and bloated and bearded. He needs to go on Tom Cruise's diet, because Tom looks radically rejuvenated, all sharp edges.

6:50: Marisa Tomei promotes her movie — "The Wrestler" — which she says is "very verité."

7:01: Jennifer Lopez is handing out the Best Supporting Actress movie award. And it's... Kate Winslet. She's acting flustered, which she attributes to her "habit of not winning things." She's glistening with sweat. And maybe the rest of us women will try to be glistening with sweat tomorrow. She's thanking the movie makeup people for "making me look so old." [LATER: Ricky Gervais says he told her if she did a Holocaust film she'd win. This is a reference to the first episode of "Extras," where Winslet plays herself as an actress who is doing a Holocaust film in order to win an Oscar.]

7:07: Best Song. I was going to say I don't care, but then I see that the "Gran Torino" song is up. And there's Bruce Springsteen, who bellyached his way through a typical Bruce Springsteen song for "The Wrestler." And damned if he doesn't win. "This is the only time I'm going to be in competition with Clint Eastwood. That's for sure."

7:19: Supporting TV Actor. I guess Ben Franklin will win. Yeah. Tom Wilkinson. One of these days I'll finish watching the episodes of "John Adams." It wasn't my favorite sort of thing, but Wilkinson was good in it. He's acting quite geezerly now.

7:22: Supporting TV Actress. The only one I know is Laura Dern from "Recount." And she wins. She played Kathrine Harris — very amusingly. Oh, now, she's blabbering about the election and looking forward to "amazing change in this country." I hope that doesn't make anyone else think now would be a good time to talk politics. At least, her little TV movie was about a presidential election.

7:31: Best TV Actor is Gabriel Byrne, but he's not there. So on to Best TV Actress. Anna Paquin wins for "True Blood." Remember how cute she when she won an Oscar -- as a little girl? By the way, the presenters are the 2 young actors who are playing Captain Kirk and Spock in some new "Star Trek" project. They look interestingly like William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy — but handsomer — younger and handsomer.

7:40: "Wall-E" wins for animated movie, and the guy accepting the award thanks his kids and says they inspire every emotion he tries to capture on film. That sounds nice until you think about it for about 2 seconds.

7:45: Best Actress in a Comedy/Musical goes to Sally Hawkins, and I'm sorry I didn't see "Happy-Go-Lucky." She beat Meryl Streep, who detains her on the way to the stage. Bow to the Streep. She beat Emma Thompson too. And Frances MacDormond. That's some major ass-kicking.

7:56: Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore are still holding hands. They're presenting the Best TV Mini-Series or Movie. Unsurprisingly, "John Adams" wins. Surprisingly, the award is accepted by Tom Hanks. He could use some makeup.

8:01: Best Supporting Actor in a movie. Heath Ledger wins. He's not there to accept the award... needless to say. The director Christopher Nolan accepts the award. They show the "You complete me" clip.

8:05: Here's a list of all the nominees, in case you're wondering who the losers are. Now, here's Tom Brokaw. Why? Oh, he's introducing the clips for "Frost/Nixon." Funnily spoofed on "SNL" last night as "Frost/Other People."

8:09: Best Foreign Film. Oh! Israel won. "Waltz with Bashir." The producer accepts and says he hopes when his kids watch the film some day, the war it depicts will be something from the past.

8:13: Actress in a TV Mini-Series/Movie goes to Laura Linney — Abigail Adams — and it's no surprise. She's wearing an ugly dress and that hairstyle that mainly consists of not brushing.

8:22: Movie Screenplay. "Slumdog Millionaire." Excellent!

8:24: Best TV Actor. Alec Baldwin. I don't watch his show, but maybe I should.

8:33: Actor in a TV Mini-Series/Movie. Of course, it will be Paul Giamatti, right? Yes.

8:38: Best TV Comedy series. Obviously, it will be "30 Rock." I've never watched it. Heard it's good.

8:45: Original Movie Score. Gotta be "Slumdog." Yeah. A lot of movie music is just background emotional mainipulation, but "Slumdog" had some really exciting stuff. The composer thanks the "billion people from India."

8:48: Everyone seems to know that Tina Fey will win Best TV Actress, and she does. She's got a dress cut all the way down to the waistband, but don't get nervous. It's clearly glued on. She's bitching about the internet. She's telling specific bloggers — I think they're bloggers, they sound like bloggers — they can "suck it." It's nice to know the celebs read what the bloggers say about them and that it can bug them.

9:03: I'm not interested in watching the honoring of Steven Speilberg. It's not about this year's movies. It's such a drag. I hate all the shots of actresses faces — all that admiration. I imagine them all thinking about whether they look pretty giving the impression of caring.

9:15: A big one: Best Director. I say out loud: Danny Boyle. And that's right. It's Danny Boyle. I loved "Slumdog Millionaire" — saw it twice. Apparently, everyone in India is watching. That would be 1 billion people. Maybe some of them are watching TVs in shop windows, like the people in "Slumdog."

9:21: Colin Farrell wins the Best Actor in a Comedy/Musical. He says things like "Ignorance is nemesis."

9:32: Sacha Baron Cohen is riffing on the subject of economic hard times. "Even Madonna has had to get rid of one of her personal assistants. Our thoughts go out to you, Guy Ritchie." The audience sighs with disapproval... and also laughs. The award he's presenting is Best Musical/Comedy. Ah! "Vicki, Christina, Barcelona." Nice to see a Woody Allen movie win.

9:40: Best Drama Actress. This is the one where the GG website seemed to reveal that Anne Hathaway had won. But no! It's Kate Winslet!!!! Our Kate! She's won twice! "Okay. Gather." "I want to thank my beautiful agents."

9:46: Best TV Drama: "Mad Men."

9:53: Best Drama Actor. Mickey Rourke! I'm glad he won over Sean Penn simply because he's there and Sean is not. He gets a big, enthusiastic standing ovation. He looks really cool — sleazy cool — with stringy, highlighted hair, a mustache, light sunglasses, dark spray-on tan, dark satin lapels, and a dark sequined scarf. It shows that he really wanted it. He's touchingly pleased and genuinely humble.

10:00. Tom Cruise is here to give the Best Drama award, and I think we know it's going to be... it is... "Slumdog Millionaire."

10:03: The producer accepting the award, getting rushed to wrap up, says "Oh, fuck!" and the audio is removed. So we know it was tape delayed, and I wonder if this will affect the Supreme Court's "fleeting expletives" case. See? It's not hard to snip out the fleeting expletive. And here it is so conspicuously demonstrated. (And now, I can put the "law" tag on this post.)

10:07: Ah, finally, it's over. Highlights: Kate winning twice. Mickey Rourke. All the kudos to "Slumdog."

"Look seans an old friend of mine and i didnt buy his performance at all..."

“... thought he did an average pretend acting like he was gay besides hes one of the most homophobic people i kno"

Mickey Rourke, lusting for the Oscar, texts about Sean Penn.

ADDED: You know, if I wanted to argue that the movie "Milk" is homophobic, I could think of a good 6 points.

"I'm told by Academy members that David Fincher would have a better shot at Best Director... if only he wasn't considered such a jerk...."

Ha ha. Oscar time again. Have you seen "The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button" yet? We have not, but will very soon. Yesterday, we saw "The Reader." I did that long post the other day -- "Kate Winslet is 'so offended' by the use of the term 'statutory rape' to describe what she does in 'The Reader'" -- and got into an exchange with Eugene Volokh about that, so that became the movie I most wanted to see. (For now, I'll just note that the Kate Winslet character, a 36-year-old woman blatantly takes advantage of the 15-year-old virgin as the story is presented in the film. More on that later.)

What movies are you seeing? Did you see "Slumdog Millionaire"?

I'm told by Academy members that David Fincher would have a better shot at Best Director for Benjamin Button if only he wasn't considered such a jerk (yes, that factors in unless a pic is the absolute frontrunner), so Slumdog's Danny Boyle is the favorite.

Oh, why give out prizes for art anyway? If you're at the level of handing out prizes, why not stiff the jerks? Even for decisions that matter, like voting for President, we stiff the jerks, don't you think? The nicer person wins. Why pretend otherwise?

The Golden Globe nominees are announced...

Here. I've seen few of these things -- and not just because many of the best movies don't play until the end of the year. It's also that I don't enjoy going to the movies these days -- for about 6 reasons.

But I did see "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," which is up for best comedy/musical. And it's got a best comedy/musical actor, Javier Bardem, and supporting actress, Penélope Cruz. I haven't seen the competition, so it's not my place to say who ought to win, but they were excellent, especially Penélope Cruz. She's in competition with Kate Winslet -- a favorite actress chez Althouse -- who is nominated for "The Reader," but Kate also has an actress in a drama nomination, for "Revolutionary Road," so both Kate and Penélope can win.

There's some interesting competition, too, in the supporting actor category:

Tom Cruise for Tropic Thunder (2008)
Robert Downey Jr. for Tropic Thunder (2008)
Ralph Fiennes for The Duchess (2008)
Philip Seymour Hoffman for Doubt (2008)
Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight (2008)

All I can say is, if you're going to give anyone extra points for drugs, give them -- the points, not the drugs -- to Robert Downey Jr. for living, not to Heath Ledger for dying.

Paul Krugman wins the Nobel Prize for economics.

Interesting... to see such a prominent political commentator win.

Mr. Krugman received the award for his work on international trade and economic geography. In particular, the prize committee lauded his work for “having shown the effects of economies of scale on trade patterns and on the location of economic activity.” He has developed models that explain observed patterns of trade between countries, as well as what goods are produced where and why. Traditional trade theory assumes that countries are different and will exchange different kinds of goods with each other; Mr. Krugman’s theories have explained why worldwide trade is dominated by a few countries that are similar to each other, and why some countries might import the same kinds of goods that it exports.

ADDED: I haven't blogged Krugman too much over the years -- click the "Krugman" tag -- but the oldest post is about this entertaining confrontation with Bill O'Reilly, back in August 2004. Those were pre-YouTube days. How satisfying to be able to dig this up so easily:



AND: One of many quotes from that clip that made me laugh: "You are the most un-objective person on the face of the earth."

"Le Clézio stood out as an ecologically engaged author."

What it takes to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

"The U.S. is too isolated, too insular. They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature."

"That ignorance is restraining."

Speaking of ignorance, can we ignore them?

***

Relatedly, I just noticed I don't have a tag for the United States. Ha ha ha. Down with the Swedish Academy!

Oscar nominations — in a few moments.

Are you excited? Vaguely interested? Actively hostile?

UPDATE: The whole list should be here soon. I'll just say that I loved Julie Christie in "Away From Her" — so I'm glad to see she got nominated, though I hope she won't win just because she played a character whose brain was not functioning properly. (The Academites reward that sort of thing too much.) And I like seeing recognition for my 2 favorite actors — Daniel Day-Lewis and Johnny Depp. Let's make a short list of movies to see before the awards ceremony: "There Will Be Blood," "No Country for Old Men," "Juno," and "Atonement." I doubt if I'll bother with them all. And if they aren't going to put on a big show... well, there's so much less reason to bother.

100 geniuses.

"The top 100 features not just brainiacs and boffins, but 19 musicians, two artists (Damien Hirst and the illustrator Robert Crumb) and one sportsman (Muhammad Ali). He is joined at number 43 by a surprise entry: Osama bin Laden."

Boffins? I don't know what the hell is going on here, but it's irking me, and why are so many of the geniuses British? Was the list compiled in Britain by any chance? In this country, when we make a thing of calling people geniuses, we give them half a million dollars.