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This has just surfaced -- seems worth passing on.<br><br>
Dion Giles<br><br>
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<dd>Nobels face 'daring' rivals.<br>
<dd>ABC News Online</b> <br><br>
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<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200505/s1358393.htm">http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200505/s1358393.htm</a>]</font>
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<dd>Last Update:</b> Tuesday, May 3, 2005. 8:41am (AEST)<br><br>
<dd>The Nobel prize judges are sometimes criticised for not encouraging scientific dreamers. (File photo) (AFP) <br>
<dd><img src="http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200505/news/img/spacer.gif" width=1 height=1 alt="[]"><br><br>
<dd><h1><b>Nobels face 'daring' rivals</b></h1>
<dd>The prestigious Nobel science prizes are to face a "more daring" rival from 2008, with $1.3 million awards for research into everything from the big bang to the brain.<br><br>
<dd>Fred Kavli, a physicist who left Norway in 1955 with $385 and turned it into a $430 million fortune in California, says he is setting up three prizes for astrophysics, neuroscience and nanotechnology - the use of molecule-sized devices.<br><br>
<dd>Mr Kavli already funds 10 science institutes - nine at US universities including Stanford, Yale and Cornell and one at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.<br><br>
<dd>Three scientists linked to the institutes won Nobel prizes last year.<br><br>
<dd>"We want to spread the word of science and get more students interested," Mr Kavli said of his award scheme.<br><br>
<dd>"In many parts of the world that's a problem, from Norway to the United States."<br><br>
<dd><h2><b>Dreamers</b></h2>
<dd>Mr Kavli says he thinks his awards will "be more daring" than the Nobels because they will seek to reward scientific breakthroughs more quickly than the conservative Nobel system.<br><br>
<dd>Guardians of Nobel science prizes, first awarded in 1901, are sometimes criticised for rewarding elderly professors for work long ago even though founder Alfred Nobel once said he wanted to encourage "dreamers" who lacked funding.<br><br>
<dd>The new awards, to be made every second year from 2008, will rival some of the annual $1.8 million Nobel prizes - for physics, chemistry, medicine, economics, literature and peace - and other science prizes.<br><br>
<dd>The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters will pick laureates for the new awards with help from experts around the world.<br><br>
<dd>The prizes will be handed out in mid-September in Oslo, a month before the Nobel awards are announced.<br><br>
<dd>Mr Kavli made his fortune with his Kavlico Corp, a California firm making sensors used for flight control on military and civilian aircraft.<br><br>
<dd><h2><b>'Never run out of questions'</b></h2>
<dd>Kavlico branched out into sensors on cars, including monitoring the mixture of air and fuel in engines.<br><br>
<dd>He sold out in 2000 for $430 million and he said the cash would fund the prizes and research institutes.<br><br>
<dd>Asked about areas where he most wanted scientific progress, he mentioned understanding the origins of the universe - widely believed to have started in a 'big bang' - life on other planets, dark matter and a unifying 'theory of everything'.<br><br>
<dd>"I think these fields will bring great discoveries in future," he said. "We will never find all the answers, never run out of questions."<br><br>
<dd>Last year, David Gross and Frank Wilczek, linked to Kavli Institutes at the University of California at Santa Barbara and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology respectively, were two of three winners of the Nobel Physics prize.<br><br>
<dd>Richard Axel, a Columbia University professor and a Kavli Institute investigator, was one of two winners of the Medicine prize.<br><br>
<dd>-Reuters<br><br>
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