Well, it seems that Israelis are some of the smartest people... Look at the latest winners of the Adams award:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/137094Top Science Students Awarded
Iyar 5, 5770, 19 April 10 03:28
by Maayana Miskin(Israelnationalnews.com) Twelve of Israel's top doctoral students in the sciences have been selected to receive the prestigious Adams Award. The awards will be presented by Adams fellowship founder Marcel Adams at the Israel Academy of Sciences on April 22.
Recipients will receive stipends of $100,000 over the course of four years of doctoral studies, and will be exempt from tuition.
Marcel Adams, 90, survived the Holocaust and fought in Israel's War of Independence. He later became wealthy developing real estate, and now lives in Canada. He created the award that bears his name in 2005, and has given it to 47 young Israeli researchers to date, besides this year's 12 recipients. His own son, Dr. Julian Adams, is an accomplished scientist who created a drug to treat multiple myeloma, a form of cancer.
Among this year's recipients is Itai Roffman, a 27-year-old student at Haifa University whose doctorate focuses on the theory of evolution. He has worked with Dr. Jane Goodall, the world-famous researcher of chimpanzees.
Roffman has used his research not only to develop new scientific theories, but also to develop a unique keyboard system allowing his moderately retarded brother, Orr, to communicate with the world.
Another recipient is Avital Swisa, who is conducting research on diabetes at Hebrew University. The daughter of a hareidi-religious family from Jerusalem, Avital began her studies at a special program at Hadassah College for hareidi-religious women. When she began work in a research laboratory, her talent quickly became apparent, and she began a Masters program, then changed to a direct PhD program.
She is the first Masters student worldwide to present her work at the NIH consortium in the United States.
A third recipient, Klim Efremenko, won his first math tournament at the age of nine. He completed his high school math studies in tenth grade and became a full-time student at the Technion at age 17.