Do you think that 'knockout mice' is a novel by Doris Lessing? Are you wondering why your iPod relies on a breakthrough in physics? Be baffled no longer. Róisín Inglepresents a bluffer's guide to this year's crop of Nobel prize winners
Medicine: Sir Martin Evans, Mario Cappechi and Oliver Smithies
If you say one thing about these three medical buffs at your dinner party tonight, let it be that the two Britons (Evans and Smithies) and the Italian (Cappechi) are the inventors of knockout mice. This may evoke images of mice wearing miniature boxing gloves so you will probably have to elaborate.
Simply explain that the work of these scientists made it possible to "knock out" or silence specific genes in mice, a development which has allowed scientists to study the influence of individual genes on disease.
They showed how stem cells could be genetically altered in the laboratory and then injected into growing mouse embryos to create offspring with changes to their DNA that would be passed on to future generations. Since these discoveries in the 1980s, thousands of knockout mice have been genetically modified to develop human diseases such as cystic fibrosis, cancer and atherosclerosis or hardening of the arteries. These mice are now a standard research tool in labs.
How to sound like a boffin:"Gene targeting in mice pervades all fields of biomedicine. Its impact on the understanding of gene function and its benefits to mankind will continue to increase over many years to come."
How to sound-off:"But what about the poor mice?"
Chemistry: Gerhard Ertl
How brilliant was Gerhard Ertl's week? On the same day he celebrated his 71st birthday, the German got the call from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to say he had scooped the Nobel Prize for chemistry. Making the victory even sweeter, he doesn't even have to share the prize - just over €1 million - with anybody else, a bonus given that most years there is more than one chemist in the mix. "It's the best birthday present, I was really speechless," he said this week.
So what did he do to be so honoured by the Academy? Well, since the 1960s he's been the master of something called surface chemistry, which is the method of describing how atoms and molecules behave when they come into contact with pure surfaces. These chemical reactions influence a whole range of processes and have led to greater understanding of the ozone layer, clean car exhausts and rusting iron.
Cerebral dinner party chat:"Ah yes, thank goodness Ertl wrote those studies on the Haber-Bosch process, where nitrogen is extracted from the air for inclusion in artificial fertiliser. The economic significance can't be overstated as everybody knows the availability of nitrogen for growing plants is often restricted. Could you pass the organic carrots, please?"
Less cerebral dinner party chat:"What do you do when you find a dead chemist? Barium."
Physics: Peter Grünberg and Albert Fert
Okay, so you know how your iPod holds, like, 40,000 songs? And how your laptop weighs hardly anything but holds more information than your average university library? And also, you know how websites such as YouTube can store millions of videos of people mooning on buses or miming along to Britney? Well you have German Grünberg and Frenchman Fert to thank for that.
They discovered that ultra-thin slices of metal have different electrical properties in a magnetic field, an effect known as "giant magnetoresistance". The Academy's citation said: "It's thanks to this technology that it has been possible to miniaturise hard discs so radically in recent years."
The development led to a breakthrough in nanotechnology which paved the way for massive amounts of data to be pushed into smaller spaces, completely transforming the way we listen to music, and use computers and the internet.
The thoughtful response:"Shouldn't Stuart Parkin at IBM's research labs in San José have also gotten the nod? After all, he was the man responsible for translating Grünberg and Fert's research into the practical applications we all use today."
The thoughtless response:"I don't know what was wrong with the cassette tape."
Literature: Doris Lessing
The picture of Doris Lessing sitting on her London doorstep, clutching bouquets from wellwishers, her grey hair tied back, was a million miles away from your usual stuffy laureate photo. Apparently, the 87-year-old gets up every day at 5am, feeds several hundred birds, has breakfast and is at her desk by 9am. "Writing," she has said with typical clarity, "is what I do".
The Academy's citation called her an "epicist of the female experience who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny". Fans say she is the master of complex narratives, seamlessly weaving political and emotional conflicts. She is best known for The Golden Notebook, the pioneering post-feminist masterpiece which did much to inform the 20th century view on the male-female relationship. Also worth reading: The Good Terrorist, The Fifth Child and Ben, in the World.
Something obscure to say at your book club:"Well, I don't know about you but my favourite Lessings are her science fiction series Canopus in Argos, the first of which, Shikasta, actually spawned a religion in America. The followers wrote to Lessing and said 'When are we going to be visited by the gods?' She wrote back telling them the book was fiction. 'Ah, you are just testing us,' they said."
Something puntastic to say at your book club:"Lessing is more."
Peace: Al Gore and the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
While Bono's name was touted by some, the former US vice-president was always the red-hot favourite to take the prize for his tireless and sometimes tiresome, it has to be said, efforts to raise awareness of climate change. The Nobel prize comes at quite a convenient time for his fans, who hope it might persuade the former presidential candidate to have another go at the White House. A group called Draft Gore organised petition drives and ran a full-page, $65,000 (€48,000) ad in the New York Times this week asking him to seek the Democratic nomination for the 2008 presidential race.
Meanwhile, the sceptics are making their voices heard, pointing to a High Court case in London where a judge said Gore's Oscar-winning film An Inconvenient Truth contained "nine errors" and "partisan political views". A recent BBC report claimed Gore knew his "alarmist" movie presented "false facts", because he feared any uncertainty in his film would only fuel opponents of global warming regulation.
Do say:"Of course I saw An Inconvenient Truth. Twice, in fact."
Don't say:"Willie O'Dea was robbed."
And a Nobel prediction:
On Monday, the Nobel prize in Economics will be announced.
Make sure to mention that informed insiders say it's a toss-up between David McWilliams and Eddie Hobbs.