Nobel Prizes announcements kick off in Stockholm

Monday kicked off Nobel Prize week in Sweden, when the country enjoys international coverage of the awards , the pinnacle of achievement, left to the world by the Swedish inventor of Dynamite Alfred Nobel back in 1896 to reward scientific and literary development.

In his will, Nobel wrote that his huge fortune and it's generated interest "shall be annually distributed by a foundation in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind."

Five categories were specified, physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and peace, with a sixth, economics, set up the Swedish Central Bank in 1968.

Back on Monday, the Nobel Prize for Medicine was shared between two American researchers, Craig Mello and Andrew Fire, for their research into the role of RNA molecules as explained by the prize awarding committee's Professor Bertil Fredholm

“RNA interference is a completely new way in which the genes that we all carry can be regulated. It also provides a new way fro experimentalists and perhaps also doctors to alter the processes in the cell so that we can find out what is going on and perhaps cure the disease. The Nobel committee and the Nobel assembly at the Karolinska Institute are convinced that this will have major therapeutic benefits.”

The next day, another two Americans, John C. Mather and George F. Smoot won the Physics prize for work that helped shed more light on the beginning of the universe, and the origin of galaxies and stars. Here's what the two winning space scientists had to say, John Mather, and first George Smoot..

Smoot: “It’s a pretty wonderful feeling! I can look out my window and see the bright lights of the city – and it seems like nice day to be winning the Prize….” Mather: “We knew the work that we had done was wonderful – we knew that it was important – But when I look at what has also been done in the world of science, there is so many magnificent accomplishments everywhere…(interviewer: So what will you do now?) I’ll spend most of my day on the phone I think…”

The noble prizes are not always shared, and can run in the family. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded on Wednesday to American Roger D Kornberg for his discoveries about how information in genes is copied. Kornberg's father also won a Nobel for medicine in 1959. Kornberg was asked by Swedish public service radio how much his father’s career affected him.....

“I have wanted to be a scientist for as long as I can remember. From before he received the prize and for my period of education and work in science to this time. I can’t say that his receiving the prize had a direct influence. What I doubtless acquired from him was a passion for science.”

Well the United States clean sweep of the science prizes provoked some adverse reaction in some Swedish newspapers but more critical comment was saved for the discrepancy between male and female winners. Only 33 of the 763 Nobel laureates have been women with Marie Curie, the first, a two time winner. There's always next week of course when the Economics prize is awarded on Monday, followed by the peace prize on Friday. The Nobel Prize for literature, always the subject of hot debate, will be awarded at a later date. All the prize winners will descend on Stockholm on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death for the awards dinner, hosted by the King and Queen of Sweden

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