A guide to who won this week's awards and why
Monday: Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Won by
Ralph Steinman
Rockefeller University, New York
Bruce Beutler
Scripps Research Institute, California
Jules Hoffmann
National Centre for Scientific Research, France
What did they win it for?The researchers made important discoveries about how the body detects bugs.
Can you be more precise?Steinman's key finding dates back to 1973, when he discovered dendritic cells, which engulf invading pathogens, then wake up other parts of the immune system. This knowledge is now used to improve the vaccines we use. The work of Hoffmann and Beutler, from the later 1990s, focuses on an early starter switch for the immune response, called Toll-like receptors. They are a big research area today, particularly at TCD.
Anything else?Nobels may be given only to the living; unbeknown to the prize committee, Steinman had died of cancer just before the announcement. The committee bent the rules and allowed the award to stand. Dick Ahlstrom
Tuesday Nobel Prize in Physics
Won by
Saul Perlmutter
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, California
Brian Schmidt
Australian National University, Canberra
Adam Riess
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore
What did they win it for?
It is not often in science you get to say a discovery has revolutionised our understanding, but it is true for this year’s physics prize. Working in two groups, the three winners completely changed the way astrophysicists view the universe.
Can you be more precise?Using exploding stars as a way to measure distances, they proved that the universe continues to expand at a faster and faster rate. Conventional wisdom held that gravity would eventually halt this expansion or even make things collapse back inwards. This then poses the question of what is causing this acceleration of space-time. Scientists don't know, but in the 13 years since the discovery they have come up with the notion of dark energy, a kind of anti-gravity force that makes the universe grow and grow.
Anything else?This will leave us all in the dark over time, as neighbouring stars get too far away for us to see them any more and old stars gradually wink out.
The expansion of the universe began with the big bang, 14 billion years ago, but slowed down during the first several billion years. Eventually it started to accelerate. The acceleration is believed to be driven by dark energy, which in the beginning constituted only a small part of the universe. But as matter got diluted by the expansion, the dark energy became more dominant. Dick Ahlstrom
Wednesday: Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Won by
Daniel Shechtman
Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa
What did he win it for?An exotic paradigm shift in chemistry that changed the way scientists think about crystals – and, along with making an amazing discovery that has brought us a new solid state, may have ended up helping you fry the breakfast eggs.
Can you be more precise?The prize went to a single recipient, bucking the trend seen in recent years in many of the Nobel's science-related categories. Perhaps Shechtman deserved it given that he had to battle his peers for two years before they would accept his findings – small wonder, looking at what he discovered: crystals that aren't crystals and yet they are. Generally, there are two solid states, one where crystals form, as in salt, sugar or many minerals, and one were there are no crystals, as in glass, rubber or plastics. The atoms in crystals form rigidly regular patterns, but Shechtman in 1982 cooked up something new, quasicrystals. Their atoms form regular patterns but never repeat themselves, like the aperiodic mosaics of the Alhambra palace, in Spain.
Anything else?Happily, quasicrystals deliver tough, nonstick substances that have applications from frying-pan surfaces to LEDs. Dick Ahlstrom
Thursday: Nobel Prize in Literature
Won by
Tomas Tranströmer. Sweden
What can you tell us?Bob Dylan was a late and perhaps surprising favourite with the bookies, but the 2011 prize went to Tomas Tranströmer, an 80-year-old Swedish poet who has been tipped for years as a contender – reporters have traditionally gathered outside his apartment in Stockholm on the day the prizes are announced, in case his time had come. This year the poet finally got the news they had been waiting for. The Nobel committee says that "through his condensed, translucent images, he gives us fresh access to reality".
Anything else?He studied poetry and psychology, and published his first book, 17 Poems,in 1954. He worked as a psychologist for many years, particularly with young offenders in prison, and drug addicts. In 1990, a year after his 10th book came out, he had a stroke. Since then he has been largely unable to speak, and the right-hand side of his body has been paralysed. As he had loved to play the piano, Swedish composers have since written pieces for him to be played with the left hand. His work has been translated into 50 languages – an accolade for any writer, but much more of a rarity for a poet. His latest book was published in 2004. Rosita Boland
Friday Nobel Peace Prize
Won by
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf
President of Liberia
Leymah Gbowee Women Peace and Security Network Africa
Tawakkul Karman Yemen
What did they win it for?"Their nonviolent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work."
Can you be more precise?Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Liberia's president (and Africa's first female president, right), has been rebuilding a country devastated by civil wars from 1989 to 2003, in which up to 250,000 people were killed. Leymah Gbowee, a social worker and a mother, is executive director of Women Peace and Security Network Africa, and mobilised women against Liberia's civil war by organising a "sex strike". Inspired by the Arab Spring, Tawakkul Karman, a human-rights activist from Yemen, helped organise protests against the rule of Ali Abdulla Saleh.
Anything else?"Women today are the ones who suffer the most during conflicts and wars," said Thorbjoern Jagland, head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. "It's the same theme that became important during the Arab Spring: if women aren't part of the democratisation process, one can't obtain full democracy."
And your benefactor is . . . Who was Alfred Nobel?
1833 Born in Stockholm, Sweden
1850-52 Works in Paris laboratory of T Jules Pelouze
1862 Starts experiments with nitroglycerin; year later obtains first patent on it as industrial explosive. Develops and patents a detonator.
1865-66 Sets up Alfred Nobel Co factory near Hamburg and the US Blasting Oil Company. After explosion at the plant, makes and patents more stable product, dynamite.
1881 Buys estate and laboratory at Sevran, outside Paris.
1887 Obtains patent for blasting powder, ballistite, in France.
1891 Settles in Italy after dispute with French government over ballistite.
1896 Dies in San Remo, Italy, on December 10th.
