Category Archives: Science prizes

Nobel Foundation reverses decision to invite Russian ambassador to awards

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Foundation backtracks on earlier announcement that representatives from Russia, Belarus and Iran would be invited

The Nobel Foundation has reversed its decision to invite ambassadors from Russia and Belarus to this year’s Nobel awards ceremony in Stockholm after the invitation sparked anger.

In 2022, the Nobel Foundation, which organises the annual Nobel prize ceremony and banquet in Stockholm, decided not to invite the Russian and Belarusian ambassadors to the awards event because of the war in Ukraine.

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Swedish geneticist wins Nobel prize for Neanderthal research

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Svante Pääbo receives 2022 award in physiology or medicine for genome discoveries including Neanderthals

A Swedish geneticist has been awarded the 2022 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine.

Svante Pääbo won the 10m Swedish kronor (£867,000) prize announced on Monday by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm.

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Upside down rhinos and nose-clearing orgasm studies win Ig Nobel prize

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Research from the more unusual realms of science is recognised every year at this alternative awards ceremony

Groundbreaking studies into how well beards soften punches to the face, the benefits of transporting rhinoceroses upside down, and orgasms as a nasal decongestant were honoured on Thursday night with one of the most coveted awards in science: the Ig Nobel prize.

Not to be confused with the more prestigious – and lucrative – Nobel awards, to be announced from Stockholm and Oslo next month, the Ig Nobels celebrate the quirkier realms of science, rewarding research that first makes people laugh and then makes them think.

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Three scientists share Nobel prize in physics for work on black holes

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Roger Penrose says win, shared with Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez, ‘is in some ways a distraction’

Three scientists have won the 2020 Nobel prize in physics for their work on black hole formation and the discovery of a supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy.

Sir Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez together scooped the 114th Nobel prize in physics.

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Frozen poo and narcissists’ eyebrows studies win Ig Nobel prizes

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Gongs also awarded for research into vibrating earthworms, French kissing and bellowing alligators

The annals of science brim with researchers who pushed the boundaries of sense and good taste in a laudable quest for knowledge. With the unveiling of the 30th annual Ig Nobel awards, another case shall be added.

To test the validity of a story in a work of ethnographic literature, Metin Eren, an anthropologist at Kent State University in Ohio, made a knife from his frozen faeces. He then set about butchering an animal hide, an endeavour that ended in failure.

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Nobel winner Peter Handke avoids genocide controversy in speech

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Literature laureate accused of supporting Slobodan Milošević gives inaugural lecture

The controversial 2019 Nobel literature laureate, Austrian author Peter Handke, gave his inaugural lecture on Saturday night in front of the Swedish Academy and in the face of intense criticism of his selection for the honour.

Handke, 77, who is perhaps best known for the novel Wings of Desire, is accused of supporting the genocidal Serbian regime led by Slobodan Milošević and of denying the extent of Serbian terror and killing during the 1990s in the former Yugoslavia.

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Nobel prize in physics awarded to cosmology and exoplanet researchers

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James Peebles, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz honoured for for ‘improving our understanding of evolution of universe and Earth’s place in the cosmos’

Three scientists have been awarded the 2019 Nobel prize in physics for groundbreaking discoveries about the evolution of the Universe and the Earth’s place within it.

The Canadian scientist James Peebles has been awarded half of the 9m Swedish kronor (£740,000) prize for his theoretical discoveries about the evolution of the universe. A Swiss duo of astronomers, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz, will share the other half of the prize for their discovery of the first planet beyond our solar system.

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Study of French postmen’s testicles is an Ig Nobel winner

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Nappy-changing machine and saliva calculation also triumph in annual science prize

There comes a time in a scientist’s life when the surest route to global fame involves a bevy of naked French postmen with thermometers taped to their testicles.

At least that is the case for Roger Mieusset, a fertility specialist at the University of Toulouse, whose unlikely studies have earned him one of the most coveted awards in academia: an Ig Nobel prize.

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