The Nobel Week in Stockholm began the day before, it was traditionally opened by the announcement of the winners of the prize for research in the field of physiology and medicine. The winners are James Ellison from the USA and Tasuku Honjo from Japan for the discovery of a new type of therapy in the treatment of oncological diseases.
The size of the Nobel Prize this year is 9 million crowns (slightly more than $1 million).
In a conversation with RBC, Nikolai Kolachevsky, director of the Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, noted that the methods of scientists for which the Nobel Prize was received have been used in laboratories for a long time. “These are the workhorses that are used both in Russia and abroad, and in commercial devices. This is a whole large layer of practical work behind these methods,” he said.
According to him, optical tweezers are used in biology, medicine, research related to chemistry. “[Optical tweezers] This is a method that allows you to capture small particles, sensors, sensors and objects in a focused laser beam that can be embedded in some kind of tissue or liquid and knead them in the right way,” says Kolachevsky. According to him, the method turned out to be very promising. “Then it turned out that it is possible to capture not one, but several particles, creating some light structures, and of a rather complex shape, that is, you can draw an asterisk or some kind of lattice using a laser,” he explained.
Working on a method for generating high-intensity ultrashort optical pulses, scientists have long tried to create the most powerful light pulse. “It would seem that there are laser amplifiers that allow you to amplify power, but from some point, if the power is already very high, the amplifying medium itself begins to break down,” he explained.
According to Kolachevsky, scientists came up with the idea of splitting the pulse into colors, making a rainbow out of it, “by driving it through amplifiers several times.” “And then [you need] to compress it with the reverse process. This results in extremely high-intensity high-power laser pulses, which can then be used in a wide range of applications. There are many research tasks in chemistry, areas of biology adjacent to chemistry. This is a huge layer of medical, biological and technological tasks,” he said.
The prize in the field of physics was awarded 111 times, 207 people received it, the first in 1901 was William Roentgen (Germany) for the discovery of radiation named after him. Among the laureates are 12 physicists from the USSR and Russia, as well as scientists who were born and educated in the Soviet Union, and then received a second citizenship. In 2010, Andrei Geim and Konstantin Novoselov received awards for the creation of graphene (the world's thinnest material). In 2003, Alexey Abrikosov and Vitaly Ginzburg, together with Anthony Leggett (Great Britain), received the award "for their innovative contribution to the theory of superconductors". In 2000, Zhores Alferov was awarded the prize for developing the concept of semiconductor heterostructures and its use in optoelectronics and high-speed electronics.
Last year, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to US scientists Kip Thorne, Rainer Weiss and Berry Berish. They received the award "for their decisive contribution to the project of the laser-interferometric gravitational-wave observatory and the observation of gravitational waves." And the only scientist to win the Physics Prize twice was John Bardeen: in 1956 for the invention of the bipolar transistor (with William Bradford Shockley and Walter Brattain), and in 1972 for the fundamental theory of conventional superconductors (with Leon Neil Cooper and John Robert Shriffer).
The Nobel Committee keeps the names of contenders for the award secret until the last moment. Among the possible winners in physics, researchers from Clarivate Analytics, analyzing the citation rating of scientists' articles in the Web of Science database, this year named American scientists David Oushalom and Arthur Gossard - for the discovery of the Hall effect in semiconductors, which explains the behavior of electrons in magnetic fields; astronomer and astrophysicist Sandra Faber from the USA - for studying the mechanisms of galaxy formation and the evolution of the large-scale structure of the Universe and for the theory of cold dark matter; American professor Yuri Gogotsi, Rodney Ruoff from South Korea and Patrice Simon from France - for discoveries in the field of carbon materials and supercapacitors. Physics World magazine named Lene Howe (Denmark) for experiments on reducing the speed of light using Bose-Einstein condensate, Yakir Aharonov (Israel) and Michael Berry (Great Britain) for the discovery of a number of quantum phenomena.
. Next in line are the spheres of chemistry, economics, peace, literature and economics. The awards are held annually, awards are given for outstanding achievements in certain areas. Together with receiving the most prestigious scientific award, the laureates become millionaires - the cash prize is more than a million dollars.IT.TUT.BY has prepared its own list of the most significant achievements in three scientific categories - chemistry, physics, medicine and physiology.
Physics
X-rays, 1901
X-rays were discovered by Wilhelm Roentgen at the end of the nineteenth century. The German scientist became the first Nobel Prize laureate in the field of physics "in recognition of the exceptional services he rendered to science by the discovery of the remarkable rays subsequently named after him." Roentgen's discovery quickly found application in the fields of physics and medicine.
Radioactivity, 1903
The couple Marie and Pierre Curie investigated the phenomena of radiation and in 1903 shared the Nobel Prize with Antoine Henri Becquerel, who discovered the phenomenon of spontaneous radioactivity. The Curies discovered radioactivity while working with uranium salts. For some unknown reason, the photographic plates were illuminated. Becquerel, interested in the phenomenon, after a series of tests, determined that the pictures are destroyed by radiation unknown to science. 
Pierre Curie died in 1906: he slipped on a wet road and fell under a cart. Marie Curie continued her scientific work and in 1911 became the first two-time Nobel Prize winner.
Neutron, 1935
James Chadwick discovered a heavy elementary particle, which was called the neutron - "neither one nor the other" in Latin. The neutron is one of the main components of the atomic nucleus.
In 1930, the Soviet scientists Ivanenko and Ambartsumian refuted the then current theory that the nucleus consists of electrons and protons. Research has shown that the nucleus must contain an unknown neutral particle discovered by James Chadwick.
Higgs boson, 2013
Peter Higgs proposed the existence of an elementary particle in 1964. At that time, there was no equipment capable of confirming or refuting the physicist's hypothesis. Only in 2012, during an experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, a previously unknown particle was discovered.
Six months later, researchers at CERN (European Center for Nuclear Research) confirmed that the Higgs boson had been found. The Higgs boson is responsible for the inertial mass of elementary particles, it is also called the "God particle".
Peter Higgs received the Nobel Prize with François Engler in 2013 "for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that helps us understand the origin of the mass of subatomic particles, confirmed recently by the discovery of the predicted elementary particle in the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN."
Medicine and physiology
Insulin, 1923
The hormone for lowering the concentration of glucose in the blood, without which the life of diabetic people would be much more difficult and shorter, was discovered by Canadian scientists Frederick Banting and John McLeod. Banting is still the youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology, having received the award at the age of 32.
An open hormone called insulin regulates glucose metabolism. In people with diabetes, this hormone is produced in small quantities, which is why glucose is poorly processed in the body. Experiments on the isolation of insulin have been carried out for a long time, but it was McLeod and Banting who discovered it.
Blood types, 1930
Austrian physician Karl Landsteiner took six different tubes of blood, including his own, and separated the serum from the red blood cells in a centrifuge. Then he mixed sera and erythrocytes from different samples. As a result, it turned out that the blood serum does not give agglutination (precipitation of homogeneous substances) with erythrocytes from one tube.
Landsteiner discovered three blood groups - A, B and 0. Two years later, students and followers of Landsteiner discovered the fourth group - AB.
Penicillin, 1945
Penicillin is the first plant-based antibiotic. The substance is released from molds on mushrooms. The laboratory of the scientist Alexander Fleming was not entirely clean. The researcher studied staphylococcus bacteria. Returning to the lab after a month's absence, he found that the bacteria had died on the moldy plate, while they were alive on the clean plates. Fleming became interested in this phenomenon and began to conduct experiments.
It wasn't until 1941 that scientists Ernst Cheyne, Howard Flory, and Alexander Fleming were able to isolate enough purified penicillin to save a man. The first patient to recover was a 15-year-old teenager with blood poisoning.
The Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology was awarded to three scientists "for the discovery of penicillin and its curative effects in various infectious diseases."
Structure of DNA, 1962
DNA is one of the three main macromolecules along with proteins and RNA. It is responsible for the storage, transmission from one generation to another and the creation of a genetic program for the development and functioning of living organisms.
The structure was deciphered in 1953. Scientists Francis Crick, James Woton and Maurice Wilkins received the Nobel Prize "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and their importance for the transmission of information in living systems."
Chemistry
Polonium and radium, 1911
The Curies have determined that uranium ore waste is more radioactive than uranium itself. After several years of experiments, Pierre and Maria succeeded in isolating the two most radioactive elements: radium and polonium. The discovery was made in 1898.
Radium is an extremely rare element. More than a hundred years have passed since its discovery, and only one and a half kilograms have been mined in its pure form. The element is used in medicine for the treatment of malignant diseases of the nasal mucosa and skin. Polonium, discovered simultaneously with radium, is used to create powerful neutron sources.
The second Nobel Prize for "outstanding achievements in the development of chemistry: the discovery of the elements radium and polonium, the isolation of radium and the study of the nature and compounds of this wonderful element" was received only by Marie Curie: the award is not awarded posthumously, and her husband was not alive by that time.
Atomic mass, 1915
Theodore William Richards was able to accurately determine the atomic mass of 25 elements. The scientist began by "weighing" hydrogen and oxygen. To do this, Richards used his own method, burning hydrogen with copper oxide. The remaining moisture was used by the researcher to determine the exact weight of the element.For further experiments, devices of our own invention were used. Richards found that the mass of lead in radioactive minerals is less than that of ordinary lead. This was one of the first confirmations of the existence of isotopes.
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The Nobel Prize has been awarded since the beginning of the twentieth century. It is extremely difficult to cover all inventions and discoveries in one article. Disagree with our ten? Suggest your options in the comments.
In March 1888, Alfred Nobel read his own obituary in a newspaper. Journalists confused him with his brother and hurried to report the death of the "dealer in death." Nobel was upset because of his brother, because of the mistake of journalists, but especially because of the tone of the obituary. Then he decided to leave behind something other than dynamite and ordered the establishment of the Nobel Prize.
“All my movable and immovable property should be converted by my executors into liquid values, and the capital thus collected should be placed in a reliable bank. The income from investments should belong to the fund, which will distribute them annually in the form of bonuses to those who during the previous year have brought the greatest benefit to humanity., - bequeathed Nobel.
For more than a hundred years, the Nobel Committee unwittingly violated the will of the founder several times and mistakenly awarded the prize for not very useful inventions.
miraculous lamps
Dane Niels Ryberg Finsen was in poor health since childhood. Growing up, he noticed that after walking in the sun he felt much better.
At the university, he began to study the healing effects of ultraviolet rays. He gained popularity in the scientific world thanks to innovations in the treatment of smallpox, but later switched to lupus - tuberculosis of the skin (not to be confused with systemic lupus erythematosus - an autoimmune disease). In 1885, he bought powerful arc carbon lamps for research, which played a cruel joke on him.
Finsen irradiated lupus patients with lamps daily for two hours. As a result, after a few months, they improved, and many even got rid of ugly scars and wounds and recovered. A year later, Finsen was already heading the institute for phototherapy, which bore his name. Half of the patients who received his treatment made a full recovery, and the other half felt much better.
Outstanding results were noticed, and in 1903 Finsen received the Nobel Prize in recognition of his merits in the treatment of diseases, especially lupus.
It was later revealed that the lenses Finsen used did not transmit ultraviolet radiation at all. It was not light at all that had the therapeutic effect, but singlet oxygen, which appeared due to the sparkling carbon rods of the lamp. Nevertheless, phototherapy, which Finsen became the founder of, is really effective for some diseases.
a special oxygen molecule that has twice as much energy as normal
wedge wedge
At the beginning of the 20th century, syphilis was an incurable disease. At the most severe stages, it gave complications to the brain, and patients developed progressive paralysis - a psycho-organic disease, death from which occurred within several years. A fifth of the patients in psychiatric clinics were sick with syphilis and, as a result, with progressive paralysis.
Julius Wagner-Jauregg worked in a psychiatric clinic and was interested in the physiological causes of mental illness. He noticed that among the patients with progressive paralysis were those who survived. It was they who were examined by Wagner-Jauregg. It turned out that all of them suffered a severe fever during their illness with progressive paralysis.
First, he infected patients with tuberculosis. But the tuberculosis fever was short and weak.
The doctor began to look for ways to cause severe fever in patients with progressive paralysis. He first infected them with tuberculosis and then treated it with tuberculin. But the tuberculous fever was short and weak, so that it was not suitable for the treatment of progressive paralysis. In addition, some patients died because tuberculin did not help them.
A breakthrough in research came in 1917, when quinine was discovered to treat malaria: the malarial fever was quite strong and prolonged. Wagner-Jauregg infected patients with malaria and then treated them with quinine.
Significant improvements occurred in 85% of patients, but mortality remained high. Later, the doctor isolated a weakened strain of malarial pathogens and reduced the danger of malaria therapy. Nevertheless, he was not always able to control the course of malaria, and some patients died. But then it was considered an acceptable risk.
In 1927, Wagner-Jauregg received the Nobel Prize for discovering the therapeutic effect of malaria infection in the treatment of progressive paralysis.
His discovery is still controversial: whether malaria stimulated the immune system, or high body temperature created an unfavorable environment for syphilis pathogens, or both worked at the same time. We were saved from mass malaria therapy by the invention of penicillin, which helps to cure syphilis in the initial stages before progressive paralysis occurs in patients.
Get ready for complications
In 1948, Paul Müller received the Nobel Prize for discovering the dangerous properties of one of the most poisonous substances on earth - dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, known as DDT or dust. Müller found that DDT could be used as a powerful insecticide to control locusts, mosquitoes and other pests.
DDT was better than all known insecticides: it was considered to be of low toxicity, but it was deadly to all insects without exception. It was quite simple and cheap to produce and easy to spray on entire fields. For humans, a single dose of 500-700 mg was considered absolutely harmless, so the substance was sprayed even in populated areas.
DDT stopped epidemics of typhus in Naples, malaria in India, Greece and Italy, increased crops and gave hope for victory over hunger in many countries. During its wide use in the world, 4 million tons of dust have been sprayed. Its benefits were obvious, and the dangerous consequences came much later.
During its wide use in the world, 4 million tons of dust have been sprayed.
In the 1950s, the first studies appeared that proved that DDT accumulates in the environment and animals and leads to irreversible changes. Of particular concern was the fact that as they moved up the food chain, DDT increased the concentration, and theoretically it could reach doses that are deadly for humans. By 1970, all developed countries had banned the use of DDT in their territories.
Millions of tons of poisonous substances continue to "walk" around the world in the bodies of birds and animals, accumulate in soil and water, concentrate in plants and again enter the organisms of animals. Today, traces of DDT are found even in the Arctic. This process will continue for several generations: the period of decomposition of DDT is 180 years, and we still do not know about all the consequences of its use.
The secret of obedience
Rosemary Kennedy - the elder sister of the President of the United States - was a difficult child. In early childhood, she pleased her mother with her complaisant character, gentleness and obedience. Over time, the girl began to lag behind her peers in development, with difficulty remembering something new, could not master the letter. When Rosemary noticed that she was different from other children, her character deteriorated: she became irritable and quick-tempered.
In 1941, a frustrated Joe Kennedy gave permission for his daughter to undergo a surgical procedure that doctors said would calm Rosemary and make her more manageable. Dr. Walter Freeman pierced the soft bones above Rosemary's eye and cut open her brain.
MOSCOW, October 3 - RIA Novosti. The discovery of the mechanism of autophagy by Nobel laureate Yoshinori Osumi may lead to the emergence of new approaches to cancer treatment and infection control, Aleksey Maschan, Deputy Director General for Research at the Rogachev Federal Research Center for Pediatric Hematology, Oncology and Immunology, told RIA Novosti.
Nobel laureate Yoshinori Ohsumi admitted that since childhood he dreamed of the prizeAt the same time, the laureate's wife, who was present at the press conference, said that her husband had never been an ambitious person, and she was first of all surprised.On Monday, the Nobel Committee announced in Stockholm that the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Japanese professor Yoshinori Ohsumi of the Tokyo Institute of Technology for discovering the mechanism of autophagy. A press release from the Nobel Committee states that "this year's laureate has discovered and described the mechanism of autophagy, the fundamental process of removing and utilizing cell components." Disturbances in the process of autophagy or cell cleansing of "garbage" can lead to the development of diseases such as cancer and neurological diseases, so knowledge about the mechanism of self-cleaning of cells can lead to a new and effective generation of drugs.
"Any open mechanism that studies cell death could potentially be useful in approaches to cancer treatment. Because the goal of cancer treatment is to destroy tumor cells as completely as possible," Maschan said.
He reported that before the discovery of autophagy, two mechanisms of cell death were known: "necrosis, when the cells swelled, swelled and burst, and the so-called apoptosis, which is exactly the opposite, when the cells shrank, the nucleus fragmented, and they died and were consumed by surrounding cells."
"But this mechanism, it is intermediate, also programmed, also regulated by a large number of genes, and it is a very interesting third mechanism of cell death. Therefore, of course, this is a very important fundamental discovery, from which really new approaches in treatment of tumors," the expert added.
At the same time, Maschan noted that this discovery can also be used in immunology, namely, to control infections and long-term support of immunity against their pathogens.
So, today we have Saturday, May 27, 2017 and we traditionally offer you answers to the quiz in the "Question - Answer" format. The questions we meet are both the most simple and quite complex. The quiz is very interesting and quite popular, but we just help you test your knowledge and make sure that you have chosen the correct answer out of the four proposed. And we have another question in the quiz - For what discovery did the Austrian scientist Karl von Frisch receive the Nobel Prize in 1973?
- A. element technetium
- B. infrared rays
- C. cure for leprosy
- D. tongue of bees
The correct answer is D - LANGUAGE OF BEE
Twerk is the closest approximation of human dances to real bee dances. Bees dance to indicate to other bees in the hive the direction in which they should fly for food, such as nectar. They move their abdomen (the back of their body) to indicate the distance they need to fly. Austrian ethologist, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate Karl von Frisch deciphered the language of bees, and now we know how it works.
To study the dances of bees, the following experiment was carried out. Not far from the beehive there were two reservoirs with a sweet liquid. The bees that found the first tank were labeled with one color, and the bees that found the second tank were labeled with a different color. Back in the hive, the bees began to dance a twerk-like dance. The orientation of the dance depended on the direction to the source of sweets: the angle by which the dance of a bee of one color had to be shifted so that it coincided with the dance of a bee of another color coincided exactly with the angle between the first source of sweets, the hive and the second source of sweets.
