So, we’re mid-way through Nobel Week, with prizes now handed down for Medicine, Chemistry and Physics.
…and I, uh, don’t really understand what these scientists are doing, but I feel like it’s important.
More on the winners after the jump.
First off is Medicine: John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka pulled the top honor for discovering “that mature, specialized cells of the body can be reprogrammed into stem cells—a discovery that scientists hope to turn into new treatments” that could work for “diseases like Parkinson’s and for studying the roots of diseases in the laboratory.”
Okay, okay. I think I can get you there. Make cells do other things to further the advancement of medical experimentation. I’m with you.
After that, we’ve got Physics, where David Wineland and Serge Haroche were bestowed the prize, who “managed to measure and control fragile quantum states that were previously thought to be impossible to observe directly.”
…um. What? I looked around until someone told me what it meant: the discovery “has led to the construction of extremely precise clocks” and “the first steps toward building superfast computers.”
Oh, thank God. Okay. You lost me for a second.
And then today, we’ve got Chemistry. The winners “identified receptors on the surface of the cells that sense the presence of adrenaline and set off actions within the cell.” Which translates to figuring out how the body talks to itself at the cellular level. Which is freaky.
No, I didn’t look it up. I totally understood what they were saying.
Tomorrow and Friday will be the Nobel Prize for Literature and then for Peace. Stay tuned for the winners on that.
Question: Who do you think should win the Peace Prize?
