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awarded for even older research into something called eucaryotic transcription (don't ask).

It was not always thus. The first physics Nobel, awarded in 1901, went to Wilhelm Roentgen for the life-saving discovery of X-rays, and for years the list of prize-winners read like a Who's Who of the giants of science, featuring the likes of Rutherford, Curie (pictured previous page) and Einstein. Now the Nobel Committee has to scrabble around for candidates even remotely fitting the criteria laid down by the founder of the prizes.

Their problem is not a decline in the quality of research. It's that the cutting edge of science and technology has moved on since the days of Alfred Nobel, but his world-renowned prizes haven't.

Back in his day, it seemed obvious that the key advances would take place in physics, chemistry and medicine. Ever since, the Nobel Committee has been compelled to stick to these three areas.

The irrelevance of the Nobels is underlined by the emergence of other big prizes

But a century on, science and technology have broadened far beyond - and across - these disciplinary boundaries, leaving Nobel's prescription looking hopelessly restrictive. Under the current rules, for example, the Nobel Committee has to ignore such key inventions as the world wide web.

The creeping irrelevance of the Nobels is underlined by the emergence of other lucrative academic prizes with no such constraints. In 2004, Britain's Tim Berners-Lee (left) won the £700,000 Millennium Prize for inventing the web, while last year Sir John Houghton bagged the £200,000 Japan Prize for his work on climate change.

The Nobels may still have more cachet, but unless they are revitalised soon, they will become as relevant as handing out prizes for alchemy and steam engineering.

FIRST POSTED OCTOBER 8, 2007

Nobel Prizes 2007: Medicine is announced today; Physics tomorrow; Chemistry on Wednesday. The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday.

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