Much has been made in the Japanese press about the commercial ramifications of the research in palladium- catalyzed cross couplings in organic systems that won Eiichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki the Nobel Prize in chemistry this year. The long-term studies by the pair and an American colleague, Richard Heck, have been used in a wide range of applications in both the electronics and pharmaceutical fields.

When asked why he never applied for patents for his discoveries, Negishi told Japanese reporters that he believed these technologies should be freely used in order to benefit society.

Suzuki, however, had a slightly different take on the matter. "Patents require a lot of time and money to maintain," he told Asahi Shimbun, and basically he was too busy, and too broke, to pursue them. Age before beauty: Aging pompadoured rocker Joji Takahashi has lately secured a comfortable position as a TV personality. As with many such tarento, he didn't gain attention because of his main gig but rather through ancillary image-tinkering. In 1999, Takahashi married Mika Mifune, the daughter of late actor Toshiro Mifune. Mika is 24 years his junior. In fact, she was 16 when they wed. They eventually became a topical couple who say their affections are still as strong as they were when they first met, and are thus irresistible to producers and advertisers.