The Academy Awards are fun, but there’s another Award ceremony that honors those that are far more than entertaining. The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) will honor 15 people for their incredible scientific achievements at its 143rd annual meeting on April 23, 2006.

Each winner is noteworthy, but following are a few of my favorites:

Psychology:

Connecting the conscious and unconscious to perception.

Marvin M. Chun, professor of psychology at Yale University and Frederick M. Rieke, associate professor of physiology and biophysics at the University of Washington were given Troland Research Awards for their work.

Chun was recognized for his “creative use of behavioral, brain-imaging, and neuropsychological evidence to elucidate the interplay of conscious and unconscious processes in perception, memory, and learning.” Rieke, on the other hand, was chosen “for experimental and theoretical analyses of information coding in the central nervous system and its relation to perception.”

Chemical Science:

Understanding chemical sciences for the betterment of mankind.

Samuel J. Danishefsky, professor of chemistry at Columbia University, was given the NAS Award in Chemical Sciences for his innovative research that “contributes to the better understanding of the natural sciences and to the benefit of humanity.”

Danishefsky is specifically honored for “his wide-ranging accomplishments in natural products total synthesis and for his pioneering chemical synthesis of carbohydrates for the development of anticancer vaccines.”

Nuclear War (Prevention of):

Perhaps the coolest award ever given . . .

Robert Jervis, Professor of International Politics, department of political science at Columbia University received the NAS Award for Behavioral Research Relevant to the Prevention of Nuclear War. The prize is awarded every three years to someone who uses “rigorous formal and empirical methods to advance our understanding of issues relating to the risk of nuclear war.”

Jervis was chosen “for showing, scientifically and in policy terms, how cognitive psychology, politically contextualized, can illuminate strategies for the avoidance of nuclear war.”

[via National Academy of Sciences]

(Image: National Academy of Sciences)