One really could have seen it coming, but the fact that every single Nobel Prize winner is from the US this year gives food for thought and makes one feel queasy.

Looking at the overall ranking, every non-American researcher is bound to break into tears. Since 1901, the US has taken home 228 prizes -- followed by Britain with 75 awards and, well, Germany with 65. But most of the latter medals date back to the first half of the last century.

So far, at least one other nation was represented each year -- the Netherlands, Switzerland, Israel, Japan and Mexico come to mind. But this year, there's no point in trying to justify or play down what happened. The US now clearly is the world's science superpower -- and not because it has better researchers.

Getting people excited

No. Definitely not. But they are much better at making themselves heard. They don't hide in their ivory towers, but advertise visions and innovations for medical and technological advancement.

They are not afraid to attend talk shows and get people excited for topics that collect dust behind thick, gray walls of institutes and laboratories elsewhere. US researchers publish like there's no tomorrow. They appear in the press -- even in lifestyle magazines. People know them, while humble, demure and sometimes condescending researchers go into hiding in other parts of the world.

Einstein's legacy

Those, who have worked in the US for a longer period of time and later return to Germany, are all too aware of the difference. But even Germany had its dazzling science stars -- idols, role models that everyone knew and who also received Nobel Prizes: Wilhelm Röntgen, Paul Ehrlich, Otto Hahn -- not to mention the unique Albert Einstein.

He mastered what was lost at some point: To show that science and research is of enormous societal importance, that it's exciting and fulfilling and extraordinarily entertaining on top of it. How else can one explain why the world went crazy about a mathematical formula -- the theory of relativity -- that almost no one understood?

Einstein clearly was and remains the exception. Nonetheless, our top level scientists -- and we have lots of them -- would benefit from a little courage to be popular. More money for institutes and laboratories, for young researchers, for applied sciences and fundamental research -- for the path to science stardom would be the result -- just like in the US.

Judith Hartl, a trained biologist, is in charge of a new weekly science show for DW-RADIO's German program that's meant to be "exciting and comprehensible for everyone who enjoys these topics." (win)