As members of bioethics commissions, both Blackburn and Greider held progressive views on human embryonic stem cell research, and in Blackburn’s case those views had consequences.

Then-chairman Leon Kass appointed Blackburn to the President’s Council on Bioethics in 2001 as one of the original 18 members. Three years later, her membership on the Council was not renewed. [CORRECTION: This post originally stated, incorrectly, that Blackburn was dismissed from the Council.] In her dissenting opinions to the Council’s 2002 report, “Human Cloning and Human Dignity: An Ethical Inquiry,” she disagreed with the Council’s recommendation for national moratorium on somatic cell nuclear transfer. SCNT is a process of “therapeutic cloning” that could be used to produce lines of human embryonic stem cells. She argued that SCNT research is important, and that a ban would slow stem cell science while patients continued to suffer.

Furthermore, she argued that the Council intentionally omitted from their report the results of pertinent experiments indicating the value of SCNT for treatment of disease. Despite the reassurances she received from Kass and others that the science would be fairly represented, Blackburn has stated that, “the best possible scientific information was not incorporated and communicated clearly in the council’s report, suggesting that the presentation was biased.”

Apparently voicing ideas contrary to those of Kass and President Bush was grounds for terminating her Council service. Dean Clancy, the executive director of the Council, claimed that the non-renewal was not politically motivated. However, Blackburn took the opportunity to openly share her criticisms of the Council in the New England Journal of Medicine and in PLoS Biology. Blackburn recalled that, “In a telephone call from the White House one Friday afternoon in February, I was told that my services were no longer needed. The only explanation I was offered was that ‘the White House has decided to make some changes in the bioethics council.’”

Carol Greider, as a member of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, lent her input to a 1999 report recommending that the federal government not fund SCNT research at the time, but that “scientific progress and the medical utility of this line of research should be monitored closely.”

Until the discoveries of Blackburn, Greider, and Szostak, it had remained a mystery how a cell’s genes could be replicated without also losing the genetic information contained at the very ends of the chromosomes.

Telomeres are “cap-like” ends of chromosomes, which consist of strands of DNA. When cells divide, copying the genetic material in their chromosomes, telomeres diminish in length. Telomerease is an enzyme that can prevent this erosion, lengthening the life of many cancer cells. The scientists’ work is significant for understanding aging and cancer.

The aging process (and eventual death) of a cell, which corresponds with the shortening of its chromosomes and resultant inability to carry out its specified function, is caused by diminished levels of telomerase. One might therefore hypothesize that the key to a cell’s “immortality” lies in the maintenance of optimally high levels of telomerase—yet such conditions are the mark of a cell stricken with cancer. Thus, their findings not only advanced our understanding of basic cell operation, but have potentially laid the groundwork for breakthroughs in both anti-cancer and anti-aging research and treatment.

Hannah Zale is an intern with the Progressive Bioethics Initiative at the Center for American Progress.

As Federation of American Scientists points out in a press release today, “At a time when the scientific community is feeling threatened by political forces seeking to undermine its credibility it is tragic that one of the icons of modern science has cast such dishonor on the profession.”

Watson is not the first scientist of stature to use his or her notoriety to advance spurious ideas that fly in the face of scientific research. But when professional science already faces so many politically-motived obstacles, it is all the more unfortunate that a Nobel laureate would parade personal prejudice as scientific fact.

Science Progress: What is the significance of awarding the peace prize for an environmental issue?

Joseph Romm: I think it’s significant that it’s the Peace Prize. The Vice President and many others have said that climate change is a security issue because it will create millions of environmental refugees and will lead to water scarcity that can cause conflict. Conflicts like those in Darfur have environmental roots and need environmental solutions, along with political and economic solutions.

Gore is trying to prevent a humanitarian crisis; he is trying to prevent regional wars that will be driven by resource scarcity. This isn’t the first time that a major environmental issue has won the peace prize. Winning this Prize proves this isn’t an ordinary environmental issue. It is one of the most important issues of our time. It would be good if this award were part of a trend.

SP: Will this award help to spur a change in U.S. climate change policy?

JR: We’re still stuck with the Bush administration policies. This award will give moral authority to the people pushing for action; it underscores that it is a moral issue. But in a practical sense, if the president of the U.S. won’t agree to mandatory controls, then there’s not much to be done.

There is a lot of legislation in front of Congress addressing climate change, and hopefully this will light a fire under Congress to vote on that legislation. A national plan to address global warming is a major vote. People will be remembered for decades to come for how they vote, or how they filibuster.

SP: What is the significance of giving the Peace Prize to 2,000 scientists as well as the former Vice President?

JR: It’s important that the Nobel committee gave the award to a group of scientists. There have been other scientists, such as Linus Pauling, who received the peace prize, but this is rare. The IPCC has come under much unjustified criticism for supposedly being too political, whereas the rest of us know that they don’t oversell global warming. If anything, they underplay some of the impacts. A lot of IPCC scientists toil away in anonymity and if they say anything, they get attacked. Hopefully this will give them the courage to speak up.

The Nobel committee cited Ertl “for his studies of chemical processes on solid surfaces.”

AFP, AP, and Reuters hit on the implications of his work for understanding rust, fuel cells, catalytic converters, damage to the ozone layer, and the Haber-Bosch process for generating fertilizer.

The Wired Science Blog proclaims that “The surfaces of solids are one of the most important frontiers of modern science.”

Terra Sigilliata drives home the importance of understanding corrosion, which is “the term for these normally unwanted chemical reactions and is as important in industry as it is in everyday life.”

It seems hard to over-emphasize the importance of the Haber-Bosch process on modern agriculture. In The Pipeline offers technical details and Nature News quotes Andrea Sella, who declared it “the industrial process which can safely be said to have had the widest impact on mankind.” Good thing we know how it works.