Japanese cabinet ministers are pooling their money to purchase a new washing machine for Shinya Yamanaka, who was recently awarded the $1.2 million Nobel prize for medicine along with a colleague.

Yamanaka had joked that he was fixing his washing machine when Oslo called to say he had won the prize for his stem cell research, conducted with British researcher John Guron. Yamanaka said he had not had time since to finish the repair.

On Friday, Japan's science minister, Makiko Tanaka, said she had presented Yamanaka with a gift certificate signed by 16 of her colleagues, with each chipping in $126 for a new washing machine.