The US $3-million Fundamental Physics Prize is indeed an interesting experiment, as Alexander Polyakov said when he accepted this year’s award in March. And it is far from the only one of its type. As a News Feature article in Nature discusses, a string of lucrative awards for researchers have joined the Nobel Prizes in recent years. Many, like the Fundamental Physics Prize, are funded from the telephone-number-sized bank accounts of Internet entrepreneurs. These benefactors have succeeded in their chosen fields, they say, and they want to use their wealth to draw attention to those who have succeeded in science.

     What’s not to like? Quite a lot, according to a handful of scientists quoted in the News Feature. You cannot buy class, as the old saying goes, and these upstart entrepreneurs cannot buy their prizes the prestige of the Nobels. The new awards are an exercise in self-promotion for those behind them, say scientists. They could distort the achievement-based system of peer-review-led research. They could cement the status quo of peer-reviewed research. They do not fund peer-reviewed research. They perpetuate the myth of the lone genius.

     The goals of the prize-givers seem as scattered as the criticism. Some want to shock, others to draw people into science, or to better reward those who have made their careers in research.

     As Nature has pointed out before, there are some legitimate concerns about how science prizes—both new and old—are distributed. The Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, launched this year, takes an unrepresentative view of what the life sciences include. But the Nobel Foundation’s limit of three recipients per prize, each of whom must still be living, has long been outgrown by the collaborative nature of modern research—as will be demonstrated by the inevitable row over who is ignored when it comes to acknowledging the discovery of the Higgs boson. The Nobels were, of course, themselves set up by a very rich individual who had decided what he wanted to do with his own money. Time, rather than intention, has given them legitimacy.

     As much as some scientists may complain about the new awards, two things seem clear. First, most researchers would accept such a prize if they were offered one. Second, it is surely a good thing that the money and attention come to science rather than go elsewhere. It is fair to criticize and question the mechanism—that is the culture of research, after all—but it is the prize-givers’ money to do with as they please. It is wise to take such gifts with gratitude and grace.

答案精析：根据题干中的Higgs boson可定位至第四段第三句。根据定位句可知，诺贝尔基金会规定每项诺贝尔奖只能有三位获奖者，而且每个人都必须健在，这一限制早已不适用于现代研究的合作性质——当奖励发现希格斯玻色子的科学家时，关于哪位科学家会被忽视的问题就会不可避免地引起争论。由此可知，作者用希格斯玻色子的发现为例来证明诺贝尔奖对人数限制的要求已过时，与现代科学研究体系的协作本质相脱节，故正确答案为B。

错项排除：根据原文可知，当希格斯玻色子被发现时，备受争议的是哪位科学家会被忽略，并不是获奖者的身份，故排除A项。第四段第一句中出现了legitimate concerns，但这一内容和希格斯玻色子的发现并无关联，故排除C项。第四段第三句出现了demonstrated一词进行干扰，但此处的意思是用发现希格斯玻色子的例子证明现代研究的合作性，并不是对研究结果的论证，而且文中也并没有提到论证研究结果的相关信息，故排除D项。

长难句分析：But the Nobel Foundation’s limit of three recipients per prize, each of whom must still be living, has long been outgrown by the collaborative nature of modern research—as will be demonstrated by the inevitable row over who is ignored when it comes to acknowledging the discovery of the Higgs boson.

本句的主干为…the Nobel Foundation’s limit…has long been outgrown…。句子中间的each of whom must still be living引导非限制性定语从句，修饰three recipients。破折号后面的as引导定语从句，修饰前面的主句，定语从句中同时包含了由who引导的宾语从句和when引导的时间状语从句。

句意为：但是诺贝尔基金会规定每项诺贝尔奖只能有三位获奖者，而且每个人都必须健在，这一限制早已不适用于现代研究的合作性质——在奖励发现希格斯玻色子的科学家时，关于哪位科学家会被忽视的问题就会不可避免地引起争论。