In light of today's announcement by President-elect Barack Obama that Dr. Steven Chu is his choice for secretary of energy, we got this question from Mark Bernkopf of Arlington, Va.:

When was the last time that a Nobel laureate (other than a Nobel Peace Prize laureate) sat in the Cabinet? Has this even been the case?

Chu, a professor of physics and molecular and cellular biology at the University of California, Berkeley, was awarded the Nobel Prize for physics in 1997. Chu may indeed be the first Nobel laureate to enter the Cabinet. Henry Kissinger received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 for his efforts to end the war in Vietnam, but he was already in the Cabinet (secretary of state) at the time.

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