US psychiatrist and neurologist Karl Deisseroth and his German colleagues Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel have been awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work in the field of optogenetics. Their research has helped scientists learn more about the inner workings of the brain, to better understand how the human mind works. The Nobel Committee praised the trio for laying the foundation of a new era in neuroscience by revealing how to switch on and off neural circuits behind “specific memories, feelings, and behaviours relevant for neurological and psychiatric disorders”.
Scientist who hunts mysterious ghost particles in the Antarctic ice wins Nobel Prize for physics
Belgian-born scientist Francis Halzen won the Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for his efforts to demystify a rare group of neutrinos, tiny cosmic particles that researchers believe offer clues to how the universe evolved…
Neutrinos are tiny cosmic particles with no electric charge and extraordinarily small mass, making them difficult to detect. Yet they are everywhere: They spew from stars like the sun, and trillions zip through our bodies every second.
Scientists cannot glimpse the mysterious ghost particles zooming around on their own, so they measure what happens when the particles collide with other bits of matter. Neutrinos bump into other particles only rarely, so scientists build large detectors to improve their odds of catching collisions.
Halzen had the idea to turn the vast Antarctic ice into such a detector. The Nobel committee said his work was instrumental to the construction of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica, which glimpsed the first high-energy neutrinos from faraway galaxies.
Their work hinges on the concept of chirality: that the structure of molecules can be a mirror image of each other, a little like our hands. In nature, most molecules almost always only occur in one variety – a phenomenon known as homochirality, which has long puzzled scientists.
“Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai have provided a solution to a chemical mystery that is over a century old: how homochirality can emerge spontaneously. The chemical reactions they have developed are spectacular,” said Heiner Linke, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry in a statement.
Wow – the neutrino detectors are buried under 2.5 kilometers of Antarctic ice, and …
“We actually detect 3,000 charged particles every second, and in these 3,000 a second, we have to find one every day, then like one a month we are totally sure of. That is the mathematics of the problem.”
No single item underlies the award. It’s rather that IceCube has pioneered an entirely new field of astronomy and astrophysics, with some particle physics thrown in. The diffuse extragalactic high-energy neutrino flux (first seen by IceCube a little over a decade ago) is now studied in earnest in an astrophysical context. Detected high-energy neutrino point sources provide insight into the nature of extreme “cosmic accelerators” and the origin of high-energy cosmic rays more generally (something not so possible with charged particles due to deflection en route, nor possible with electromagnetic signals for sources embedded in relatively dense regions). Intragalactic neutrino sources and their directionality (or lack thereof) connect to dynamics of other astrophysical objects and to the density of scattering centers. The extreme energies or (at lower energies) extreme interaction rates has allowed for a number of leading searches for physics beyond the Standard Model. Cosmic neutrinos are also an avenue for indirect dark matter detection.
Point-source “multi-messenger” astronomy is a hot topic today – combining signatures from neutrinos, gamma/X-rays, optical photons, and/or gravitational waves simultaneously for specific observed events.
The full detector came online fifteen years ago, but new science output certainly continues. Impressive upgrades have been very much on the table, but science funding is in shambles at the present moment.
Nobels are usually given for research which was done twenty to thirty or so years ago. Committees often wait for overwhelming confirmation that a discovery truly transformed its field before awarding the prize.
Born in Toronto in 1950, Carson is known for work that moves freely between poetry, prose and translation, drawing heavily on the literature and mythology of the ancient Greek world. She has been a professor of classics at various institutions including Princeton, New York University and McGill University in Montreal. She is the 19th woman to win, out of 123 literature laureates.
Carson’s first book, Eros the Bittersweet, was published in 1986 and combined literary criticism with an exploration of desire and the ancient Greek tradition.
Her best-known work is Autobiography of Red, a 1998 novel in verse inspired by the fragments of the ancient Greek poet Stesichorus. It reimagines the myth of Geryon, the red-winged monster killed by Herakles, as the story of a modern teenage boy navigating heartbreak and desire.
2 American economists win Nobel for overturning assumptions about how to deal with economic shocks
American economists Robert E. Hall and Michael Woodford won the Nobel memorial prize in economics on Monday for their work on models that have helped governments and central banks manage economic shocks, such as energy crises and inflation.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the winners in Stockholm, saying the two were being honored for work that has helped policymakers deal with economic fluctuations.
“The laureates’ research has made it possible to manage major macroeconomic crises far more effectively than before,” the Nobel committee wrote. “It has been hugely beneficial during the pandemic and the energy crises of recent years.″