Five Contests That Recognize The Science Achievements of the Everyman
You Won't Get Merit Badges For Winning These Contests, But You Will Get Money Pixelgarden.com There's a long tradition of offering big cash prizes to entice talented and creative individuals to solve problems that have stymied industry and governments for decades. For example, in 1810, French cook Nicolas Appert won a 12,000-franc government prize for a food preservation method to help feed Napoleon's army. His demonstration of putting food in airtight glass jars and sterilizing them with heat led to canning techniques that are still used today. Recently, such contests have blossomed, with many geared toward particle physicists and backyard tinkerers alike. Each year now, innovators are awarded some 30,000 prizes, worth in total about $1 billion. Here are our picks for the five most accessible. Postcode Lottery Green Challenge The Challenge: Create a marketable, user-friendly technology to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. To win the Dutch lottery's prize, your invention should be refined...