Have you heard of the inventor of the knock-knock joke? They just won the no-bell prize! But what are the Nobel Prizes?
The Nobel Prizes have been awarded to individuals since 1901 who have provided a tremendous contribution to humankind. It is considered a great honor to win this prize. There are several fields that are able to win a Nobel Prize, which are Physics, Chemistry, Physiology, Literature, Peace, and Economic Sciences. These prizes originated from a man named Alfred Nobel. According to the Nobel Prize website, he was “an inventor, entrepreneur, scientist and businessman” who had “left 31 million Swedish kronor (SEK) to fund the prizes.” Many people look forward to seeing who is awarded the Nobel Prize every year, and the winners were announced a couple of days ago.
The Nobel Prize in Physiology was awarded on Oct. 7, 2024 to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for “the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation.” Ambros and Ruvkun studied worms, specifically two mutant strains of worms called lin-4 and lin-14. Through these studies, they found that microRNA turns off lin-14 by binding to certain sequences in mRNA, which then prevents the lin-14 protein from being made. This discovery of theirs has opened the doors to a whole new area of gene regulation and will be instrumental in studying how organisms develop.
The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded on Oct. 8, 2024 to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks.” The two Nobel Laureates used tools from the field of physics to create the foundation of machine learning. Hopfield created “an associative memory that can store and reconstruct images” while Hinton “invented a method that can autonomously find properties in data.” Their contribution towards AI will become increasingly important as the demand for artificial intelligence grows.
The Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded to David Baker, Demis Hassabis, and John Jumper on Oct. 9, 2024 for their contribution towards the study of proteins. Baker, a professor at the University of Washington was given the Nobel Prize “for computational protein design” where he was able to build new kinds of proteins. On the other hand, Hassabis and Jumper were given the Nobel Prize “for protein structure prediction” as they created an AI model that was able to predict the structure of proteins. Each of these discoveries holds extreme potential in the field of Chemistry, and it is exciting to see what will happen in the future.
The Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to South Korean author Han Kang on Oct. 10, 2024 for “her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.” She is the first literature laureate from South Korea and in an interview with Jenny Rydén, she expresses that anyone who wants to read her work should first start off with her novel We Do Not Part.
The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Japanese organization Nihon Hidankyo on Oct. 11, 2024 for “its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.” After the two bombs that were dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War 2, around 120,000 people were killed. The 650,000 survivors were known as Hibakusha and they formed the Nihon Hidankyo. This organization was meant to “promote the social and economic rights of all Hibakusha” and to “ensure that no one ever again is subjected to the catastrophe that befell the Hibakusha.” Through their extensive work on the consequences of nuclear warfare, the Nihon Hidankyo have helped to establish a nuclear taboo and prevent any other person from becoming a Hibakusha.
The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2024 was awarded on Oct. 14, 2024 to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson for “studies of how institutions are formed and affect prosperity.” Their research has helped people to understand why certain nations are more prosperous than other nations, and part of that boils down to a country’s societal institutions. A society with low-quality “rule of law and institutions that exploit the population do not generate growth or change for the better.” With this research, the challenge of reducing the differences between countries has become so much closer to being achieved.
The prizes will be awarded on Dec. 10, 2024. It is a day that many people will be looking forward to. Afterall, the world will be witnessing history.
