On September 30, 2011, Ralph Steinman, brilliant scientist, discover of dendritic cells, Jew, did a very unfortunate thing.

He died.

Why was it so unfortunate, other than, you know, the obvious? In three days, Steinman was to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine, and they don't give Nobels to dead people.

Well, fortunately (and we use the term very loosely) for Steinman, the Nobel Committee has not moved into the 21st century yet. They still gave him his prize (co-shared Bruce Beutler, Jew, and Jules Hoffmann)... because they were not aware that Steinman was dead.

We can only imagine the (pardon the pun) dead silence in the Nobel office when they tried to call Steiman to congratulate him. At the end, they did the right thing, letting him keep his prize... on a technicality, saying it was awarded in "good faith", and obviously aware of a huge shit storm that would have followed if they recanted.

So it all ended well.

Not that Steinman cares at this point.