When it all comes together

What if a vaunted name in prizes tried to start a new philanthropic prize in an emerging technology field, promising Hollywood-level buzz and money?

It would all be a hoax.

A hoax documented by professional journalists, even while those involved were Googling or Wikipedia-ing all kinds of information that would have encouraged them to continue talking with Michael Nobel, Great-Grandnephew of Alfred (Nobel, of Nobel Prize fame), about a new prize for nanotechnology.

Media, prizes, celebrity, new technology, old journalism - I almost thought I was making this up as I read it in the paper today. (I'm six days into a course of antibiotics and pain meds, so strange things are likely). And just to make things weirder, I could not find the article on the paper's Internet site, but only in hard copy, The New York Times, print copy, National Edition, p c6. Here is a news post about the whole thing from the Nano Science and
Technology Institute.

Tags: philanthropy, prizes, media, technology