Daily briefing: The Nobel Prizes' most prestigious rivals

"The Nobel prizes are the most iconic awards in science - but are they the best? In recent years, a flurry of other prizes have emerged as rivals, filling subject area gaps left by the Nobels, such as technology and climate science, or offering a bigger financial reward. These alternatives are gaining traction, "but for now, a Nobel prize is just so far ahead of the others", says planetary scientist Sara Seager, who won the 2024 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics. And no prize totally makes up for the Nobels' flaws - many still award individuals, not teams, and women are underrepresented among winners."

"In the face of soaring rates of antimicrobial-resistant infections, researchers are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence (AI) to help think up the next generation of antibiotics. Some promising AI-designed candidates are in the early stages of development, but the process can come with strings attached. Some AI-designed antibiotics are chemically unstable and can't be synthesized. Others take too many steps to make and would be too costly and time-consuming to produce commercially."

"This bird spotted in Texas (b) is the first recorded wild hybrid of a male blue jay ( Cyanocitta cristata) (a) and a female green jay ( Cyanocorax yncas). It "joins a growing list of increasingly unexpected outcomes" from shifting habitats caused by global warming, write two ecologists who described the find. ( CNN | 6 min read) Reference: Ecology and Evolution paper (B. R. Stokes, T. H. Keitt/ Ecology and Evolution (CC BY 4.0))"

Alternative science prizes have emerged to rival the Nobel Prize, addressing gaps such as technology and climate science and sometimes offering larger financial awards. These prizes are gaining traction while the Nobel Prize remains the most prestigious. Many alternatives inherit Nobel limitations by favoring individuals over teams and underrepresenting women. Rising antimicrobial resistance has driven researchers to employ artificial intelligence to design new antibiotic candidates, though many AI-generated molecules are chemically unstable, hard to synthesize, or too costly and time-consuming to produce. Shifting habitats linked to global warming allow novel species interactions, exemplified by a first recorded wild blue jay × green jay hybrid in Texas.

Read at Nature