Host: OK, the phone rings, really early in the morning. The caller ID says the call’s from Sweden. If you’re an academic or scholar, even if you’re on 1)furlough, especially this week, you know you’d better pick up the phone, because it could be this guy.
Staffan Normark: 2)The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institute has today decided to award the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly to James Rothman, Randy Schekman, and Thomas Südhof.
Host: Typically, a Nobel Prize winner gets the call early in the morning...very early if the recipient is here in the U.S. And Staffan Normark might be the guy on the other end of the line. He’s the permanent secretary with the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and it’s his job to call recipients to tell them they’ve won a Nobel Prize in one of three fields, physics, chemistry, and economics.
So, Staffan, you’ve making these calls for the past few years. Is there a typical reaction from
a winner?
Staffan: There’re m a n y…m a n y reactions. Erm…it’s usually not the 3)laureate that is answering, usually it’s the wife. But the reaction is, of course, extremely different. Some of the laureates just get completely silent. In other cases, it could be “Oh my God,” or if they are strolling around somewhere in Europe, that they have to sit down on a bench and, you know, just get some fresh air. So it’s very, very different reactions, I must say.
Host: You ever got like a 4)toddler on the line who doesn’t know what the call’s about and then just puts the phone down and hangs up?
Staffan: Er…We try to be very precise. When we phone up, we might have little 5)tad of Swedish accent, saying for example, “This is an important call from Stockholm.” And usually then they don’t hang up.

Host: Are there any rules like the announcement that we heard earlier? Was that announcement made after the call was already made to the laureate? Or how does it work?
Staffan: It works so that we make a decision in the Academy usually in the morning, and then after that, we go into a separate room, me and the secretary, and then we make the phone calls.
Host: I mean, as…as we suggested earlier, that your phone calls can be pretty darn early in the morning if the winner happens to be in California. What happens if you don’t get through though? I mean, you’re not just gonna leave a message, are you?
Staffan: Usually, we get hold of them. But it has happened that they don’t. And then, what we do is, we are sending an email at the same time that he or she has been awarded the Nobel Prize. And then it becomes public a little bit later.
Host: What is the best, most memorable, reaction you’ve ever gotten to calling somebody and telling they’re, they were a Nobel laureate?
Staffan: I think, you know, one of the excitements is of course when…when perhaps the laureate is not expecting anything, it’s a total surprise for the individual. And I made such calls and it’s fantastic. You, you can hear children noises in the background, and you just enter with your telephone call a normal day, somewhere, with a very, very unexpected call. I must say that is [an] extremely 6)gratifying task to be able to do so.
Host: Yeah, definitely. Staffan Normark with the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. If you ever get a call from him from Sweden, be polite. Chances are he’ll have good news for you.

主持人:好,電話響了,是在早上很早的時段。來電顯示表明電話來自瑞典。如果你是一名研究人員或者學者,即使你是在休假,如果這周你接到這個電話,你也明白你最好接電話,因為打電話來的有可能是這家伙。
斯塔凡·諾馬克:卡羅林斯卡學院諾貝爾大會今天決定把2013年的諾貝爾生理學與醫學獎共同頒給詹姆斯·羅斯曼、蘭迪·謝克曼及托馬斯·蘇德霍夫。
主持人:通常,諾貝爾獎的獲獎者會在一大早接到這個電話,如果獲獎者是在美國的加利福尼亞州的話,就真的會很早。而斯塔凡·諾馬克可能就是在電話另一頭的人。他是瑞典皇家科學院常任秘書長,他的工作就是給諾貝爾獎獲獎者打電話,通知他們,他們獲得了以下三個獎中的一項:物理、化學,或經濟學。
好了,斯塔凡,在過去的幾年里,你一直在打著這類通知電話。有沒有哪種反應很具代表性?
斯塔凡:獲獎者的反應有許多……許多種。呃……接電話的通常不是獲獎者本人,而是他的妻子。但獲獎者的反應當然是非常不一樣的。有些獲獎者完全陷入沉默。有些人呢,“老天爺啊”就是他們的反應,或者說如果有人正好在歐洲的某地漫步,他們得在長椅上坐下來,你知道,要緩過氣來。所以我得說,人們的反應很不一樣。
主持人:有沒有發生過這樣的事情:接電話的是還不懂事的小孩子,根本弄不明白怎么回事,接著就把電話掛了。
斯塔凡:呃……我們會盡量做到言簡意賅。我們在打電話的時候,會用有一點瑞典口音的英語說,比如說,“這是一個來自斯德哥爾摩的重要電話”。