Countdown to the 2014 Chemistry Nobel Prize

Every fall, as announcement of the Nobel Prizes approaches, speculation about that year’s likely winners of the science prizes reaches fever pitch both online and in-person at watercoolers and in laboratory breakrooms.

To bring the chemistry community together for prognostication and conversation, Chemical & Engineering News this year hosted its second Google Hangout about the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Held on Sept. 30, the live web broadcast is the first in a series of three Nobel prediction discussions, each hosted by a different magazine.

The chemistry hangout, dubbed “Countdown to the Chemistry Nobel Prize!” was hosted by C&EN Deputy Assistant Managing Editor Lauren K. Wolf and Senior Editor Carmen Drahl. The magazine staffers discussed likely front-runners for this year’s chemistry Nobel and the finer points of prize prediction with three guests: Neil Withers, Features Editor for Chemistry World magazine; Stuart Cantrill, Chief Editor of the journal Nature Chemistry; and David Pendlebury, a citation analyst for media and information firm Thomson Reuters, which regularly publishes Nobel predictions.

The group accepted questions during the 30-minute broadcast via Twitter, at the hashtag #chemnobel. All five participants took a stab at guessing the winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, to be announced on Wednesday Oct. 8.

The Nobel prognostication web series continues on Thursday, Oct. 2nd. A physics Nobel Google Hangout hosted by Smithsonian magazine will take place at 1 PM Eastern U.S. time, followed by a physiology/medicine Nobel Google Hangout hosted by Science News at 3 PM Eastern U.S. time. Discussion on Twitter for those hangouts will take place using the hashtags #physnobel and #mednobel, respectively.

The archived chemistry broadcast, located on YouTube, is embedded above.