Voting begins today for October Madness, Sigma Xi's just-for-fun, public Nobel Prize prediction contest! We're kicking things off with the Sweet 16 round. Please click the links below to vote for who you think will win this year's Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine, Chemistry, and Physics.
Voting ends for this round at midnight EDT on Monday, August 31. We will announce our top picks from each round and kick off the following round of voting every Tuesday until September 29. On that day, we will announce our most popular choices for this year's Nobel Prizes.
Thank you to everyone who submitted nominations. Let the voting begin!
Physiology or Medicine
Vote here for your predictions for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The October Madness physiology or medicine Sweet 16 match-ups are:
1.
Craig Venter, Francis Collins, and Eric Lander for the human genome sequence
VS.
Graeme Clark, Ingeborg Hochmair, and Blake S, Wilson for the cochlear implant
2.
Arthur Horwich and Ulrich Hartl for protein folding
VS.
Pierre Chambon, Ronald Evans, Björn Vennström for nuclear hormone receptors
3.
Dennis J. Salmon for discovery of HER2Neu gene
VS.
Nicholas Lydon, Brian J. Druker, and Charles L. Sawyers for development of chronic myelogenous leukemia treatments
4.
Shoukhrat Motallipov for spindle-chromosomal complex transfer
VS.
Joseph Altman and Elizabeth Gould for adult neurogenesis
5.
Giacomo Rizzolatti, Leonardo Fogassi, and Vittorio Gallese for the discovery of mirror neurons
VS.
Kazutoshi Mori and Peter Walter for unfolded protein response pathway
6.
Myron Essex, Robert Gallo, and Luc Montagnier for the discovery of HIV
VS.
Mark Ptashne for molecular studies of gene recognition
7.
Robert S. Langer for drug delivery/tissue engineering
VS.
David J. Julius for investigations on the molecular basis for pain and thermosensation
8.
Alim-Louis Benabid and Mahlon R. DeLong for Parkinson's disease research
VS.
Ronald D. Vale for work on molecular motor proteins kinesin and dynein
Chemistry
Vote here for your predictions for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
The Otober Madness chemistry match-ups are:
1.
Sir Edwin Southern for the Southern blot
VS.
Mildred Dresselhaus for carbon chemistry
2.
Sir Alec Jeffreys for DNA profiling
VS.
Ruslan Medzhitov for discovery of mammalian Toll-like receptors
3.
William Moerner, Michael Orrit, Richard Zare for single-molecule spectroscopy & application of lasers
VS.
Harry Gray, Stephen Lippard, Richard Holm for work in bioinorganic chemistry
4.
Marvin Caruthers and Leroy Hood for techniques in DNA synthesis
VS.
John B. Goodenough for lithium-ion batteries
5.
Ching W. Tang and Steven Van Slyke for organic light emitting diodes
VS.
Maximilian Haider, Harald Rose, and Knut Urban for transmission electron aberration-corrected microscopy
6.
Jean M. J. Frechet and C. Grant Willson for chemically-amplified photoresists
VS.
Christopher Walsh and JoAnne Stubbe for mechanistic enzymology
7.
Michael Grätzel for solar cells
VS.
Takeshi Oka for work in astrochemistry
8.
Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier for the CRISPR gene editing tool
VS.
Carlos Bustamante for Single Molecule Kinetics
Physics
Vote here for your predictions for the Nobel Prize in Physics
The October Madness physics match-ups are:
1. Stephen Hawking for black hole death
VS.
Vera Rubin and Kent Ford for dark matter
2.
Sir Michael Berry and Yakir Aharonov for quantum mechanics
VS.
Lene Hau for electromagnetically induced transparency
3.
Deborah Jin for fermion condensates
VS.
Margaret Geller for mapping the universe
4.
Roberto Peccei and Helen Quinn for the Peccei-Quinn Theory
VS.
Alain Aspect, Anton Zeilinger and John Clauser for quantum entanglement
5.
Allan Guth for the Inflation Theory
VS.
Rob Schoelkopf and Michel Dvoret for superconducting qubits and microwave photons
6.
Nicola Spaldin for multiferroics
VS.
Geoffrey Marcy, Michael Mayor and Dider Queloz for discovery of extrasolar planets
7.
Art McDonald for neutrino oscillations
VS.
Atsuto Suzuki for the Super-Kamiokande experiment
8.
John Pendry, David Smith and Ulf Leonhardt for discovery of negative refraction
VS.
John R. Clay for ionic current mechanisms underlying neuronal bistability
Heather Thorstensen is the manager of communications for Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society.