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NOBEL PRIZES 2014

NOBEL

The Local’s guide to the Nobel Prizes 2014

After being nominated in October, the top scientists, activists, and writers selected by the Nobel Prize committees in Stockholm and Oslo this year, will pick up their prizes on Wednesday. Ahead of the ceremonies, here's a recap of the 13 new Nobel names you need to know about.

The Local's guide to the Nobel Prizes 2014
Norwegian May-Britt Moser with fellow prize-winner John O'Keefe. May-Britt Moser's husband Edvard also shares the Medicine Price. Photo: Anders Wiklund/TT/NTB Scanpix

1. Economics: Jean Tirole

"One of the most influential economists of our time", according to the Nobel Economics Award's committee, French Professor Jean Tirole receives the 2014 Economics Award for his analysis of market power and regulation.

While the economist has been making important research contributions to economics since the mid 1980s in a number of key areas, this award is a more specific response to his work shedding light on industries dominated by large, powerful firms, and monopolies. According to Tirole, such markets can lessen productivity.

Tirole takes home the Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank) Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, a relatively new addition to the five original prize categories created by Alfred Nobel.

2. Literature: Patrick Modiano

Also hailing from France, Patrick Modiano is the author of over 30 novels. A household name in his native country, he is recognized for his large array of work spanning novel writing, films, and even children's books. His works, first published when he was just 22, have been translated into over 30 languages.

Most of Modiano's books are short, less than 150 pages long. The author, who turns 70 next year, is no stranger to awards but this year receives the prestigious Nobel Literature Prize for the first time for his work on identity, memory, and loss. He beat 210 nominees to the top spot, including the likes of the US singer Bob Dylan, Syrian poet Adonis, famed Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood, and controversial British novelist Salman Rushdie.

3. Chemistry: Eric Betzig, Stefan Hell and William Moerner

These scientists receive this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their progress in understanding molecules through their work with microscopes. They have paved the way for scientists to better track and understand molecules, which in turn is expected to provide better understanding on how diseases develop.

Betzig and Moerner are both from the US while Hell is from Romania, and is a Director at the German Cancer Research organization. The three scientists join the likes of previous Nobel laureate Marie Curie, "father of nuclear physics", Ernest Rutherford, and American chemist Linus Pauling in receiving this award. 

4. Physics: Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura

These scientists' groundbreaking invention of the blue LED is expected to improve lives for over 1.5 billion people across the world. The USA and Japan-based physicists' creation marks a significant development in the area of lighting technology and is being deemed by experts to be the way of the future. They join the likes of Albert Einstein, no less, in receiving the prestigious Prize. 

5. Medicine (or physiology): John O'Keefe, May-Britt and Edvard Moser

This team of scientists gets major points for its studies on our 'inner GPS' – understanding how the human brain helps people find their way around. A timely discovery, in an age where the use of GPS technology has certainly been taking over that very instinct.

Beyond more profoundly examining the human 'sense of orientation', the scientists have helped deepen understanding of other cognitive processes, such as memory, thinking and planning. Indeed, this dream-team's ground-breaking findings are expected to further our knowledge of the mind and have a significant impact in the field of psychology, such as potentially explaining why Alzheimer's patients cannot recognize their surroundings. 

O'Keefe, a dual US-UK citizen, was born in New York and completed his studied at McGill University in Canada, while his Norwegian co-laureates (a married couple) studied together in Oslo, University of Edinburgh, and the University College London. The Mosers are the fifth married couple to be awarded a Nobel Prize and May-Britt is the 11th woman to receive the 100 year old Nobel Prize in Medicine. 

6. Peace: Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai

At just 17, Yousafzai is the youngest ever Nobel laureate. And it is certainly a well deserved win for the young advocate for children's rights, who rose to fame for her relentless campaigning for girls' education in Pakistan – and was shot in the process by Taliban gunmen, two years ago.

Now living in the UK, she is joined by 60-year-old Satyarthi from India, also a children's rights activist, who is reported to have freed over 80,000 children from servitude. Together, the Hindu Indian and Muslim Pakistani are being recognized for their sacrifices and struggles against the abuse of children and youth around the world, as well as for their efforts in furthering children's rights to education.

Unlike the previous five award categories, the Peace Prize is awarded annually in Oslo.

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NOBEL

US duo win Nobel for work on how heat and touch spark signals to the brain

US scientists David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian on Monday won the Nobel Medicine Prize for discoveries on receptors for temperature and touch.

US duo win Nobel for work on how heat and touch spark signals to the brain
Thomas Perlmann (right), the Secretary of the Nobel Committee, stands next to a screen showing David Julius (L) and Ardem Patapoutian, winners of the 2021 Nobel Prize for Medicine. Photo: Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP

“The groundbreaking discoveries… by this year’s Nobel Prize laureates have allowed us to understand how heat, cold and mechanical force can initiate the nerve impulses that allow us to perceive and adapt to the world,” the Nobel jury said.

The pair’s research is being used to develop treatments for a wide range of diseases and conditions, including chronic pain. Julius, who in 2019 won the $3-million Breakthrough Prize in life sciences, said he was stunned to receive the call from the Nobel committee early Monday.

“One never really expects that to happen …I thought it was a prank,” he told Swedish Radio.

The Nobel Foundation meanwhile posted a picture of Patapoutian next to his son Luca after hearing the happy news.

Our ability to sense heat, cold and touch is essential for survival, the Nobel Committee explained, and underpins our interaction with the world around us.

“In our daily lives we take these sensations for granted, but how are nerve impulses initiated so that temperature and pressure can be perceived? This question has been solved by this year’s Nobel Prize laureates.”

Prior to their discoveries, “our understanding of how the nervous system senses and interprets our environment still contained a fundamental unsolved question: how are temperature and mechanical stimuli converted into electrical impulses in the nervous system.”

Grocery store research

Julius, 65, was recognised for his research using capsaicin — a compound from chili peppers that induces a burning sensation — to identify which nerve sensors in the skin respond to heat.

He told Scientific American in 2019 that he got the idea to study chili peppers after a visit to the grocery store.  “I was looking at these shelves and shelves of basically chili peppers and extracts (hot sauce) and thinking, ‘This is such an important and such a fun problem to look at. I’ve really got to get serious about this’,” he said.

Patapoutian’s pioneering discovery was identifying the class of nerve sensors that respond to touch.

Julius, a professor at the University of California in San Francisco and the 12-year-younger Patapoutian, a professor at Scripps Research in California, will share the Nobel Prize cheque for 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.1 million, one million euros).

The pair were not among the frontrunners mentioned in the speculation ahead of the announcement.

Pioneers of messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, which paved the way for mRNA Covid vaccines, and immune system researchers had been widely tipped as favourites.

While the 2020 award was handed out in the midst of the pandemic, this is the first time the entire selection process has taken place under the shadow of Covid-19.

Last year, the award went to three virologists for the discovery of the Hepatitis C virus.

Media, Belarus opposition for Peace Prize?

The Nobel season continues on Tuesday with the award for physics and Wednesday with chemistry, followed by the much-anticipated prizes for literature on Thursday and peace on Friday before the economics prize winds things up on Monday, October 11.

For the Peace Prize on Friday, media watchdogs such as Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists have been mentioned as possible winners, as has the Belarusian opposition spearheaded by Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. Also mentioned are climate campaigners such as Sweden’s Greta Thunberg and her Fridays for Future movement.

Meanwhile, for the Literature Prize on Thursday, Stockholm’s literary circles have been buzzing with the names of dozens of usual suspects.

The Swedish Academy has only chosen laureates from Europe and North America since 2012 when China’s Mo Yan won, raising speculation that it could choose to rectify that imbalance this year. A total of 95 of 117 literature laureates have come from Europe and North America.

While the names of the Nobel laureates are kept secret until the last minute, the Nobel Foundation has already announced that the glittering prize ceremony and banquet held in Stockholm in December for the science and literature laureates will not happen this year due to the pandemic.

Like last year, laureates will receive their awards in their home countries. A decision has yet to be made about the lavish Peace Prize ceremony held in Oslo on the same day.

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