If Nobel Prizes are any indicator, Trump should heed the UCs

President Trump’s brazen campaigning for the Nobel Peace Prize — and the failure of that onslaught — dominated the headlines.

- BY JAMES RAINEY

But it feels like the president and his many friends and enemies missed the most important lesson coming out of Stockholm.

I’m talking about the extraordinary showing in the sciences by researchers from the U.S. and particularly those associated with the University of California, the world’s greatest public university and also the one placed under a cloud by Trump and his minions at the Department of Education.

The Nobel judges recognized a whopping five UC researchers (some still with the university and others alums) for breakthroughs that could help produce more drinking water, absorb Earth-warming carbon, and improve cancer treatment via therapeutics connected to the wonder of T-cells.

As a UC Berkeley graduate, I long ago made it a habit of knowing how many Nobel laureates came from our proud institution. I needed to be ready to tout that number as a sort of rebuttal every time the Golden Bears lost another football game, or some USC stud won another Heisman trophy. (In other words, often.)

Berkeley and the other spinoff (sorry, I had to say it) campuses gained world renown not only because of the kind of discoveries celebrated by the Nobel Prizes but because of the culture of these places.