Comments on: “Life Ascending” Wins the Royal Society’s Science Book Prize

By: Jennifer Welsh

Jennifer Welsh — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 17:54:54 +0000

Thanks, Eliza and Arancaytar! That definitely makes more sense!

Jen

By: Eliza Strickland

Eliza Strickland — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 15:59:06 +0000

@ Arancaytar:

Right you are, thanks for the correction. Last week’s BBC article had the date wrong, and we repeated that wrong info. I fixed the post.

– Eliza, DISCOVER online news editor

By: Arancaytar

Arancaytar — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 10:44:48 +0000

> It lost its sponsor, pharmaceutical company Aventis, in 1997, and has run out of funds.

Something is off there; Aventis didn’t exist by that name until 1999.

In fact, the sponsorship ended in 2006, according to this BBC article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4985892.stm – the prize was funded by the Royal Society itself starting 2007 (which was when it was renamed from the Aventis Prize to the Royal Society Prize).

Also, the sponsorship did not come from the company directly (which was acquired by Sanofi in 2004) but by the Aventis Foundation (originally endowed by the company, but possibly no longer financially or structurally related, since it wasn’t renamed after the acquisition).

By: NewEnglandBob

NewEnglandBob — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 20:12:55 +0000

Congratulations to Nick Lane. This is a superb book. I read it twice. I rated it 4.7 out of 5.0.