<story><title>A 2017 Nobel laureate says he left science because he ran out of money</title><url>https://qz.com/1095294/2017-nobel-laureate-jeffrey-hall-left-science-because-he-ran-out-of-funding/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>etiam</author><text>Reminds me of a rather heart-breaking interview with a man who should have been a laureate.&lt;p&gt;(I wish I had saved this at the time, but now I&amp;#x27;m unable to give a link to the video material)&lt;p&gt;The Chemistry prize in 2008 was awarded for fluorescent proteins, which can be used to label interesting biological structures and functions. 
One of the laureates&amp;#x27; guests at the ceremony was a former colleague, whom they were careful to point out had been absolutely critical for the discovery, implying that he should have been sharing the prize.&lt;p&gt;A TV reporter caught this colleague for interview for a while during the festivities after the main banquet dinner, and found, in addition to congratulations to his friends and background on his contribution, a story of extreme academic pressure and not getting enough money to sustain himself and the research. To make ends meet, he left science and started driving long haul bus transports, and that&amp;#x27;s how he had earned his living ever since. He looked sad about it, but also resigned - claimed the pay is better and it&amp;#x27;s a lot less stressful. You got to pay the bills and at least it&amp;#x27;s some financial security.
I found it a very moving story, and the reported seemed shaken at that point too.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;But you were doing Nobel Prize quality research!&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Well. That makes me a very overqualified bus driver, doesn&amp;#x27;t it.&amp;quot;</text></comment>
<story><title>A 2017 Nobel laureate says he left science because he ran out of money</title><url>https://qz.com/1095294/2017-nobel-laureate-jeffrey-hall-left-science-because-he-ran-out-of-funding/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>mcguire</author><text>&amp;quot;&lt;i&gt;He also said that these stars [that “have not really earned their status”] have boasted to him that they almost never send their articles to “anywhere but Nature, Cell, or Science“—among the three most prestigious science journals. “And they are nearly always published in one of those magazines—where, when you see something you know about, you realize that it’s not always so great,” he continued.&lt;/i&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I subscribed to &lt;i&gt;Science&lt;/i&gt; for a while (the only benefit I can see of AAAS membership), and I was surprised by the work published there. I&amp;#x27;m a computer jockey, and not into the biology that &lt;i&gt;Science&lt;/i&gt; mostly publishes, but I had expected it to be major, ground-breaking papers. Instead, it seemed like the same kind of minimum publishable unit that goes on everywhere.</text></comment>