The Washington Post has an interesting comment about an usual approach to help solve the massive oil spill in the gulf, which actually worked!
Obama has also called in some of the many scientists on the federal payroll, led by Energy Secretary Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist. Chu at one point pushed the unusual idea of using gamma rays to peer into the blowout preventer to determine if its valves were closed, a technique he experimented with in graduate school while studying radioactive decay.
The suggestion at first elicited snickering and “Incredible Hulk” jokes. Then they tried it, and it worked. “They weren’t hot on his ideas,” a senior White House official said of BP’s initial reaction to Chu’s suggestions. “Now they are.”
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That’s why you get a Noble Prize in the first place: a high intelligence; a deep insight into problems; and the willingness to attempt new things. There is a huge virtue in appointing smart people who use their intelligence to look for solutions.