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When the Nobel committee makes its annual wake-up calls to scientists to tell them they have won science's top prize, researchers in most areas of biology don't lose any sleep. There are no Nobel Prizes for biology other than medicine and physiology. As a result, some of the greatest biologists of the 20th century have no chance of making the trip to Stockholm. One of the most renowned, however, this week garnered an award designed to make up for this oversight: Evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr was given the prestigious Japan Prize by the Committee on the International Prize for Biology.
Mayr, age 90, is the Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology, Emeritus, at Harvard University, and was recognized for his groundbreaking work in systematics: defining the evolutionary relationships among organisms. Other scientists are...