The Prize in Economic Sciences 2021 This year’s Laureates – David Card, Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens – have shown that natural experiments can be used to answer central questions for society, such as how minimum wages and immigration affect the labour market. They have also clarified exactly which conclusions about cause and effect can…

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2021 Chemists can create new molecules by linking together small chemical building blocks, but controlling invisible substances so they bond in the desired way is difficult. Benjamin List and David MacMillan are awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2021 for their development of a new and ingenious tool for molecule…

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2021 Three Laureates share this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics for their studies of complex phenomena. Syukuro Manabe and Klaus Hasselmann laid the foundation of our knowledge of the Earth’s climate and how humanity influences it. Giorgio Parisi is rewarded for his revolutionary contributions to the theory of disordered and…

The Prize in Economic Sciences 2020 Every day, auctions distribute astronomical values between buyers and sellers. This year’s Laureates, Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson, have improved auction theory and invented new auction formats, benefitting sellers, buyers and taxpayers around the world. The quest for the perfect auction Auctions have a long history. In Ancient Rome,…

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020 Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna are awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020 for discovering one of gene technology’s sharpest tools: the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors. Researchers can use these to change the DNA of animals, plants and microorganisms with extremely high precision. This technology has revolutionised the molecular life…

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2020 Three Laureates share this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics for their discoveries about one of the most exotic phenomena in the universe, the black hole. Roger Penrose showed that black holes are a direct consequence of the general theory of relativity. Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez discovered that an…

The Prize in Economic Sciences 2019 What is the best way to design measures that reduce global poverty? Using innovative research based on field experiments, Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer have laid the foundation for answering this question that is so vital to humanity. Research to help the world’s poor Over the last…

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2019 The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2019 is awarded to John B. Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino for their contributions to the development of the lithium-ion battery. This rechargeable battery laid the foundation of wireless electronics such as mobile phones and laptops. It also makes a fossil fuel-free…

With numerous new technologies it became possible to look rapidly at many stars and analyse the results on site. Optical fibres could carry the starlight without distorting it and better digital image sensors, increased the machine’s light sensitivity. More powerful computers allowed scientists to develop custom-made software for digital image and data processing.

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2011 “Some say the world will end in fire;Some say in ice…” *What is the fate of the Universe? Probably it will end in ice if we are to believe this year’s Nobel Laureates. They have carefully studied several dozen exploding stars, called supernovae, in faraway galaxies and have concluded…