PRESS RELEASE: Breakthrough Prize Awarded $22 Million In Science Prize

[proverbialwisdom]

https://breakthroughprize.org/News/29

Breakthrough Prize Awarded $22 Million In Science Prize

The Prizes were Presented at Live Ceremony on Sunday, Nov. 8, at 10/9c on National Geographic Channel

The 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics Awarded to Ian Agol; The 2016

Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences Awarded to Five Individual Recipients: Edward S. Boyden, Karl Deisseroth, John Hardy, Helen Hobbs, and Svante Pääbo;

The 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics Awarded to Seven Leaders and 1370 Members of Five Experiments Investigating Neutrino Oscillation: Daya Bay (China); KamLAND (Japan); K2K / T2K (Japan); Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (Canada); and Super-Kamiokande (Japan)

Three 2016 New Horizons in Physics Prizes Presented to B. Andrei Bernevig, Liang Fu, Xiao-Liang Qi; Raphael Flauger, Leonardo Senatore; and Yuji Tachikawa

Two 2016 New Horizons in Mathematics Prizes Awarded to Larry Guth and André Arroja Neves Inaugural Breakthrough Junior Challenge Winner is Ryan Chester

Laureates honored at glittering awards gala hosted by Seth MacFarlane, with live performance by Pharrell Williams, and presenters Russell Crowe, Hilary Swank, Lily Collins, and Kumail Nanjiani & Martin Starr of HBO’s Silicon Valley''


(San Francisco - November 8, 2015) – The Breakthrough Prize and its founders Sergey Brin and Anne Wojcicki, Jack Ma and Cathy Zhang, Yuri and Julia Milner, and Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, tonight announced the recipients of the 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, Fundamental Physics and Mathematics. A combined total of $21.9 million was awarded at the 3rd Annual Breakthrough Prize Awards Ceremony in Silicon Valley.

“By challenging conventional thinking and expanding knowledge over the long term, scientists can solve the biggest problems of our time,” said Mark Zuckerberg. “The Breakthrough Prize honors achievements in science and math so we can encourage more pioneering research and celebrate scientists as the heroes they truly are.”

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[proverbialwisdom]

1. Six Questions for Mark Zuckerberg on Science, Giving, and Facebook’s Role in Health

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-09/six-questions-for-mark-zuckerberg-on-science-giving-and-facebook-s-role-in-health

Six Questions for Mark Zuckerberg on Science, Giving, and Facebook’s Role in Health
The Facebook co-founder spoke to Bloomberg before the Breakthrough Prize event, a science award show he helped start.

November 8, 2015 — 6:00 PM PST

Mark Zuckerberg was video-chatting with a scientist recently and was pleased to see a familiar sculpture on display in the man’s office. It was a Breakthrough Prize, a scientific award the Facebook chief executive officer helped create with Russian billionaire tech investor Yuri Milner in 2013.

The award show is like an Oscars for scientists that attracts a mix of academics, Silicon Valley luminaries, and Hollywood stars. This year's show, which takes place Sunday night, is hosted by Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane.

In an interview with Bloomberg before the event, Zuckerberg said the awards are meant to acknowledge technical achievements in health, physics, and other scientific areas he thinks are underappreciated, and to hopefully inspire the next generation. He said scientists deserve the recognition given to celebrities, politicians, and tech CEOs, who all have their own fancy dinners and self-congratulatory events. "They may never get super wealthy themselves,'' Zuckerberg said, "but they're creating the change that really powers and pushes all of society forward over a longer period of time.''

Zuckerberg discussed his views on science, philanthropy, and other subjects in the interview. Here are six highlights:

The future of treating disease
Zuckerberg is presenting an award to Helen Hobbs, a medical professor at the University of Texas Southwestern who discovered genetic defects that can raise or lower cholesterol levels. It's a breakthrough that could advance the treatment of heart disease, which is the leading cause of death in the U.S. Zuckerberg describes her as "amazing" and said her work should help bring about an era of personalized, gene-based medicine. "The basic trend in treating disease is going from treating a population to treating individuals," Zuckerberg said. "This is exactly what people who do genomics research are trying to find."

Science awards for teens
Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan have started a new Breakthrough Junior Challenge, meant to generate excitement for science among a younger generation. "We want to incentivize and award students into getting into the fields earlier on in their lives,'' Zuckerberg said. "This is the type of thing where if you invest now, it will bear fruit in 20 years."

How becoming a dad is changing his thinking
Zuckerberg, 31, is about to have his first child. That's made him and Priscilla extra sensitive about the well-being of future generations. "It has shaped our thinking a bit in terms of wanting to make sure that we deliver, as a society, what we can for the next generation and generations after that—not just for our child but for all children," Zuckerberg said. "I just think if you believe that technology is accelerating and that things—major problems—can get solved, then I just feel like we have a moral responsibility to make those investments now."

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[Fred Sanders]

2. Science winners should be as celebrated as sports winners. That is my fantasy world.