Nobel Prize is no longer dynamite

The science prizes bring cash and cachet, but the criteria are dated, says robert matthews

Some very clever people are about to get a phone call from Sweden telling them they have won a prize of more than £750,000 for breakthroughs in three areas of science - physics, chemistry and medicine. Curiously, it won't be the money that sets their hearts racing, but the name of the award that goes with it: the Nobel.

In theory, the awards will go to those whose breakthroughs have "conferred the greatest benefit on mankind" over the past year, as stipulated by Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite whose bequest funds the prizes. But if recent history is any guide, the prizes will reward work carried out years ago whose main beneficiaries are other academics.

Last year's prize for physics, for example, went for esoteric discoveries made more than a decade ago about microwaves from the Big Bang, while the chemistry prize was