To Predict Nobel Winners, Skip Vegas And Check The Fine Print

Some people like to bet on horses. Others wager on football games. And while there may not be any money in picking the next Nobel Prize winner, that's no reason not to have a little fun trying.
On Monday Oct. 6, a scientist or two, or maybe even three, will get called from Sweden with good news about the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine. Who will it be?
Some folks at Thomson Reuters have some ideas. They've essentially pored over the footnotes in scientific papers to figure out whose work has been referenced the most often in influential journals.
The analysis was a little bit more complicated than that. They crunched the numbers in databases of citations to figure out how many times possible winners got their papers cited. They also compared that number with how many times average scientists in the field got their papers cited.
The analysts, working in Thomson Reuters' intellectual property and science unit, went beyond these numbers: They handicapped the work subjectively. They gave credit to research that overturned dogma or has already made a big difference in science or medicine. As you would expect, the Nobel committee often likes that type of research.
The analysts also considered whether a Nobel has been awarded in the last couple of years for work in the same general area. If so, it's likely the prize committee would wait a while to recognize even worthy research.

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