meisa's lagoon

i was reading in the paper yesterday that bono is one of the 166 nominees for a nobel prize. i mentioned this to khalid and he brought up an interesting point. he goes "notice how they said 'nobel prize' instead of 'nobel peace prize'? most people out there think of the nobel prize as being only the nobel peace prize. they typically aren't aware of the prizes given out for the sciences." i have a hard time believing this could be true. he did mention his ex with whom he knew this to be true (let's lay aside here that she is an idiot. we'll just pretend that she is representative of your average person who is not a scientist).
i know i am in a very tight knit community of scientists in my program, but do people really not take interest in the prizes for chemisty, physics, and medicine? i mean, you don't get a nobel prize unless your work has made a HUGE impact on the world. the world. not just scientists.
as a side point, but still on the subject, i'd just like to say that i really hope that the chemistry nobel prize this year goes to a chemist, not a biologist which seems to be the trend of late. come on already, get your own prize category!