# 2026 Nobel Prizes

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2026-nobel-prizes/1033598>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Tags:** breaking-news, science-math\
**Created:** [October 5, 2026, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2026-nobel-prizes/1033598 "2026-10-05T16:39:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\
**Post date:** [October 5, 2026, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2026-nobel-prizes/1033598/1 "2026-10-05T16:39:21Z")

</div>

Nobel prizes are coming out this week:

> 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](https://www.nobelprize.org/) 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”.
> 
> In clinical medicine, researchers are using the method to try to [restore sight in people with visual impairment](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57226572).

> **[Nobel Prize for Medicine for showing inner workings of the brain](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5ev3ypmzly8o)**
>
> US psychiatrist and neurologist Karl Deisseroth and his German colleagues Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel have been awarded for their work.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mozchron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@mozchron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mozchron)\
**Post date:** [October 5, 2026, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2026-nobel-prizes/1033598/2 "2026-10-05T16:57:52Z")

</div>

I’ve been expecting Deisseroth to win for the past 5 years. Was just a matter of time.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![JacobSwan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@JacobSwan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JacobSwan)\
**Post date:** [October 6, 2026, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2026-nobel-prizes/1033598/3 "2026-10-06T11:23:11Z")

</div>

I’ve been unable to find out via google, but is Georg Nagel any relation to Thomas Nagel and his ‘what’s it feel like to be a bat’?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\
**Post date:** [October 6, 2026, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2026-nobel-prizes/1033598/4 "2026-10-06T14:53:54Z")

</div>

**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](https://apnews.com/article/jiangmen-underground-neutrino-observatory-china-6955b6bc37acdace04d8632c2e27f3f9), tiny cosmic particles that researchers believe offer clues to how the universe evolved…
> 
> Neutrinos are [tiny cosmic particles](https://apnews.com/article/high-energy-neutrino-ghost-particle-c8177a5eabdcab2fd045d92e872e1fb1) 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.

[https://apnews.com/article/nobel-prize-physics-sweden-47d0ab2b92f3512eb09ed44ceb6006d8](https://apnews.com/article/nobel-prize-physics-sweden-47d0ab2b92f3512eb09ed44ceb6006d8)