After “covering” the IgNobel Prizes, I feel it’s my duty to write about the “real thing” as well. So let’s take a look at the scientific Nobel Prize winners of 2013!

Nobel Prize in Physics 2013

The Nobel Prize in Physics was won by François Englert and Peter Higgs who independently came up with the idea of how subatomic particles acquire mass. Their theory has been confirmed recently when the “Higgs boson” (a.k.a. Higgs particle a.k.a. “God” particle) was discovered at CERN.

 

Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2013

Unlike the winners of the Physics category, the Nobel Prize laureates in Chemistry: Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel (awarded  “for the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems” ) were not part of any big, well publicized scientific discovery. Nevertheless modern chemistry (and biology and physics) would be unimaginable without the computer based modelling and simulation methods, which they pioneered.

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2013

Another well deserved and probably unexpected win in this category. The winners: James E. Rothman, Randy W. Schekman and Thomas C.  Südhof got awarded for figuring out how the “transport system” of the cell works. Check out this great interview with Dr. Rothmann, he talks about lots of interesting things, including scientific funding (or the lack of it) for foundational research.