Nobel Prize

[Gerald]

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Britain’s Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel of Germany and U.S. scientist Andrea Ghez won the 2020 Nobel Prize for Physics for their discoveries about one of the most exotic phenomena in the universe, the black hole, the award-giving body said on Tuesday.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-n...-idUSKBN26R1MZ



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'Nobel Prize for Medicine goes to Hepatitis C discovery'

Three scientists who discovered the virus Hepatitis C have won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology.

The winners are British scientist Michael Houghton and US researchers Harvey Alter and Charles Rice.

The Nobel Prize committee said their discoveries ultimately "saved millions of lives".

The virus is a common cause of liver cancer and a major reason why people need a liver transplant.

In the 1960s, there was huge concern that people receiving donated blood were getting chronic hepatitis (liver inflammation) from an unknown, mysterious disease.

The Nobel Prize committee said a blood transfusion at the time was like "Russian roulette".

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-54418463

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Scientists win historic Nobel chemistry prize for 'genetic scissors'

Two scientists have been awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing the tools to edit DNA.

Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna are the first two women to share the prize, awarded for their work on the technology of genome editing.

Their discovery, known as Crispr-Cas9 genetic scissors, is a way of making specific and precise changes to the DNA contained in living cells.

They will share the prize money of 10 million krona (£861,200; $1,110,400).

The technology has been transformative for basic science research and it could also potentially be used to treat, or even cure, inherited illnesses.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54432589