The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895. The prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace were first awarded in 1901. Each Nobel Prize is regarded as the most prestigious award in its field. The Nobel Prize winners for this year have been announced. A unique incident even occurred this year. Normally, Nobel Prizes are not awarded posthumously. However, one of the winners of this year’s Nobel Prize passed on three days before he was announced a winner.
Medicine or Physiology
The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet announced on 2011-10-03 that the 2011 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology shall be divided, with one half jointly to Bruce A. Beutler and Jules A. Hoffmann for their discoveries concerning the activation of innate immunity and the other half to Ralph M. Steinman for his discovery of the dendritic cell and its role in adaptive immunity.
We are continuously threatened by invading pathogenic microorganisms such as bacteria, fungi virus and parasites. The body is however equipped with a powerful defense mechanism known as the immune system. This year's Nobel Laureates have revolutionized our understanding of the immune system by discovering key principles for its activation. Their work has opened up new avenues for the development of prevention and therapy against infections, cancer, and inflammatory diseases.
Medical Use
The discoveries that are awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize have provided novel insights into the activation and regulation of our immune system. They have made possible the development of new methods for preventing and treating disease, for instance with improved vaccines against infections and in attempts to stimulate the immune system to attack tumors. These discoveries also help us understand why the immune system can attack our own tissues, thus providing clues for novel treatment of inflammatory diseases.
Medical Use
The discoveries that are awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize have provided novel insights into the activation and regulation of our immune system. They have made possible the development of new methods for preventing and treating disease, for instance with improved vaccines against infections and in attempts to stimulate the immune system to attack tumors. These discoveries also help us understand why the immune system can attack our own tissues, thus providing clues for novel treatment of inflammatory diseases.
Confusion in Awarding Prize
The Nobel Foundation was thrown into confusion when it discovered that Ralph M. Steinman died three days before he was announced as one of the winners of the Nobel Prize. The committee's rules state that "work produced by a person since deceased shall not be considered for an award". However, it continues, "if a prizewinner dies before he has received the prize, then the prize may be presented".
The closest precedent was the award of the economics prize in 1996 to William Vickrey, who died two days after the announcement that he had won. Vickrey clearly retained the prize, as he is still listed as the winner for that year.
In Steinman's case, however he died before rather than after the announcement. The award could therefore be said to be posthumous – and so against the rules. The foundation however decided that the late Steinman retain the award. The foundation said in a statement: "The events that have occurred are unique and, to the best of our knowledge, are unprecedented in the history of the Nobel Prize. It said the award had been made "in good faith, based on the assumption that the Nobel Laureate was alive. This was true - though not at the time of the decision - only a day or so previously".
Nobel Prize in Physics
In a similar vein, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2011 with one half to Saul Perlmutter and the other half jointly to Brian P. Schmidt and Adam G. Riess as announced on 4th October, 2011.
Written in Stars
"Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice..." What will be the final destiny of the Universe? Probably it will end in ice, if we are to believe this year's Nobel Laureates in Physics. They have studied several dozen exploding stars, called supernovae, and discovered that the Universe is expanding at an ever-accelerating rate. The discovery came as a complete surprise even to the Laureates themselves.
In 1998, cosmology was shaken at its foundations as two research teams presented their findings. Headed by Saul Perlmutter, one of the teams had set to work in 1988. Brian Schmidt headed another team, launched at the end of 1994, where Adam Riess was to play a crucial role.
The research teams raced to map the Universe by locating the most distant supernovae. More sophisticated telescopes on the ground and in space, as well as more powerful computers and new digital imaging sensors (CCD, Nobel Prize in Physics in 2009), opened the possibility in the 1990s to add more pieces to the cosmological puzzle.
The teams used a particular kind of supernova, called type Ia supernova. It is an explosion of an old compact star that is as heavy as the Sun but as small as the Earth. A single such supernova can emit as much light as a whole galaxy. All in all, the two research teams found over 50 distant supernovae whose light was weaker than expected - this was a sign that the expansion of the Universe was accelerating. The potential pitfalls had been numerous, and the scientists found reassurance in the fact that both groups had reached the same astonishing conclusion.
For almost a century, the Universe has been known to be expanding as a consequence of the Big Bang about 14 billion years ago. However, the discovery that this expansion is accelerating is astounding. If the expansion will continue to speed up the Universe will end in ice.
The acceleration is thought to be driven by dark energy, but what that dark energy is remains an enigma - perhaps the greatest in physics today. What is known is that dark energy constitutes about three quarters of the Universe. Therefore the findings of the 2011 Nobel Laureates in Physics have helped to unveil a Universe that to a large extent is unknown to science. And everything is possible again.
Nobel Prize in Chemistry
On 5th October 2011 the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2011 to Dan Shechtman of Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel, "for the discovery of quasicrystals"
A Remarkable Mosaic of Atoms
In quasicrystals, we find the fascinating mosaics of the Arabic world reproduced at the level of atoms: regular patterns that never repeat themselves. However, the configuration found in quasicrystals was considered impossible, and Dan Shechtman had to fight a fierce battle against established science. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2011 has fundamentally altered how chemists conceive of solid matter.
On the morning of 8 April 1982, an image counter to the laws of nature appeared in Dan Shechtman's electron microscope. In all solid matter, atoms were believed to be packed inside crystals in symmetrical patterns that were repeated periodically over and over again. For scientists, this repetition was required in order to obtain a crystal.
Shechtman's image, however, showed that the atoms in his crystal were packed in a pattern that could not be repeated. Such a pattern was considered just as impossible as creating a football using only six-cornered polygons, when a sphere needs both five- and six-cornered polygons. His discovery was extremely controversial. In the course of defending his findings, he was asked to leave his research group. However, his battle eventually forced scientists to reconsider their conception of the very nature of matter.
A periodic mosaics, such as those found in the medieval Islamic mosaics of the Alhambra Palace in Spain and the Darb-i Imam Shrine in Iran, have helped scientists understand what quasicrystals look like at the atomic level. In those mosaics, as in quasicrystals, the patterns are regular - they follow mathematical rules - but they never repeat themselves.
When scientists describe Shechtman's quasicrystals, they use a concept that comes from mathematics and art: the golden ratio. This number had already caught the interest of mathematicians in Ancient Greece, as it often appeared in geometry. In quasicrystals, for instance, the ratio of various distances between atoms is related to the golden mean.
Following Shechtman's discovery, scientists have produced other kinds of quasicrystals in the lab and discovered naturally occurring quasicrystals in mineral samples from a Russian river. A Swedish company has also found quasicrystals in a certain form of steel, where the crystals reinforce the material like armor. Scientists are currently experimenting with using quasicrystals in different products such as frying pans and diesel engines.
Story Source: The above story is reprinted with editorial adaptations with materials provided by Nobel Foundation.
