Cmmunicating information between nerve cells occurs at breathtaking speed. To allow an electrical impulse to pass from one cell to another, chemical neurotransmitters are released at the nerve end, cross the narrow gap, or synapse, that separates the cells, pass on the message to the next cell – be it a nerve cell, muscle cell…

The nervous system behaves like a series of microscopic generators, with electrical pulses repeatedly created and fired along nerve cells in response to a stimulus, such as touch or heat. By showing how these impulses are generated and transmitted, the three scientists who received an equal share of the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physiology or…

In the mid-to-late 1940s, scientists began to suspect that the molecules that are responsible for heredity were not proteins, but in fact DNA, short for deoxyribonucleic acid. But how could a molecule long considered to be simple and inert hold the secret of life? The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962 was awarded…

The immune system is charged with the task of recognizing and destroying a host of foreign and dangerous agents, but what prevents it from attacking any cells and tissues that belong to its host? The breakthroughs awarded the 1960 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine revealed how self-discrimination is learned at the biological level, through…

When it comes to sending electrical nerve signals, some messages are more urgent than others. Our muscles need to be activated quickly when we are attacked, for instance, while our receptors for chronic pain do not require such a rapid response. To meet these various delivery requirements, nerve fibres differ considerably in the way they…

Creating and sculpting cells and organs that develop in the embryo requires the construction signals to be delivered at the right place and the right time. It was long presumed that the main cues come from molecular signals produced and sent out from distant and specialised glands, but as it turns out, this process also…

In the mid 20th century, economists found themselves in need of a new theoretical framework with which to tackle the comparison of fundamentally different types of economic organization, such as capitalist and socialist institutions. Discussions between the likes of Oskar Lange and led to the development of the idea that economic institutions could be viewed…

In a remarkably succinct, ten-page article published in 1979, Paul Krugman proposed a new trade model that changed the way economists view the international exchange of goods. At the heart of the model lay two concepts that reflected the general twentieth century trend towards having more: the increased production of goods, leading to economies of…

The 2009 Sveriges Riksbank Prize for Economic Sciences is concerned with the basic question of where best to conduct transactions; in the open market, within firms, or among self-regulating groups of individuals. Elinor Ostrom has made extensive studies of the management of common property by groups of common owners, contrasting that with management by state…

If you have ever tried to find a job, or to buy or rent a house, you will know that such undertakings are not without their ‘inefficiencies’, or, as economists like to term them, their frictions. The same goes for those trying to fill jobs, or sell homes: although the perfect employee or buyer might…