X Prize, Meat Edition

First the X Prize goaded aerospace geeks into racing to build the first sub-orbital citizen spacecraft by offering prize money. Then DARPA did something similar for its Grand Challenge, getting robotics engineers to work on self-guided trucks. Now prizes to get some specific scientific breakthrough seems to be all the rage. Certainly that's true if PETA is now offering $1 million for a perfect fake meat.

Truly, this seems to have become a viable R&D path. The X Prize folks created the Automotive X Prize to find an ecological car design.

On a smaller scale, the Web site InnoCentive is basically a prize-for-science marketplace. Companies post challenges and how much they'll pay someone if they solve it. Right now, there's a $20,000 prize for a low-cost, solar-powered wireless router. There's a $50,000 prize for a "process to improve the stability of viscous whipped food products." (Mmm.) Another $50,000 prize is awaiting someone who can come up with a "novel anti-fingerprint coating material."

Now if I only had the money to offer a prize for a martini that never produces a hangover...

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