2014 Nobel Prize

#1

#Announcements

Physiology or Medicine:

  • Announced Monday 6 October
    Physics:
  • Announced Tuesday 7 October
    Chemistry:
  • Wednesday 8 October, 11:45 a.m. CET at the earliest
    Literature:
  • Thursday 9 October 1.00 p.m.
    Peace:
  • Friday 10 October, 11:00 a.m. CET
    Economic Sciences:
  • Monday 13 October, 1:00 p.m. CET at the earliest

#Medicine

The 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with one half to John O´Keefe and the other half jointly to May-Britt Moser and Edvard I. Moser for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning
system in the brain.

How do we know where we are? How can we find the way from one place to another? And how can we store this information in such a way that we can immediately find the way the next time we trace the same path? This year´s Nobel Laureates have discovered a positioning system, an “inner GPS” in the brain that makes it possible to orient ourselves in space, demonstrating a cellular basis for higher cognitive function.

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2014/press.html

#Physics

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2014 to Isamu Akasaki (Meijo University, Nagoya, Japan and Nagoya University, Japan), Hiroshi Amano (Nagoya University, Japan) and Shuji Nakamura (University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA).

This year’s Nobel Laureates are rewarded for having invented a new energy-efficient and environment-friendly light source – the blue light-emitting diode (LED). In the spirit of Alfred Nobel the Prize rewards an invention of greatest benefit to mankind; using blue LEDs, white light can be created in a new way. With the advent of LED lamps we now have more long-lasting and more efficient alternatives to older light sources.

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2014/press.html

#2

#Chemistry

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2014 to Eric Betzig (Janelia Farm Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, VA, USA), Stefan W. Hell (Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen, and German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany) and William E. Moerner (Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA) “for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy”.

For a long time optical microscopy was held back by a presumed limitation: that it would never obtain a better resolution than half the wavelength of light. Helped by fluorescent molecules the Nobel Laureates in Chemistry 2014 ingeniously circumvented this limitation. Their ground-breaking work has brought optical microscopy into the nanodimension.

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2014/press.html

#3

#Literature

The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2014 is awarded to the French author Patrick Modiano “for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation”.

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2014/press.html

Anyone read anything by him?

#4

#Peace

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2014 is to be awarded to Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzay for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education. Children must go to school and not be financially exploited. In the poor countries of the world, 60% of the present population is under 25 years of age. It is a prerequisite for peaceful global development that the rights of children and young people be respected. In conflict-ridden areas in particular, the violation of children leads to the continuation of violence from generation to generation.

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2014/press.html

#5

#Economic science

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for 2014 to Jean Tirole (Toulouse 1 Capitole University, France) “for his analysis of market power and regulation”.

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/2014/press.html