Shocking discoveries dominate
the 2011 Nobel science prizes
Awards recognize findings that went against the grain
The 2011 Nobel Prizes have recognized
three very different scientific advances
that had at least one thing in common:
They shocked researchers in their fields
by overturning fundamental notions of
how the world works.
FROM TOP: COURTESY OF THE SCRIPPS RESEARCH INSTITUTE; BALZAN PRIZE; ZACH VEILLEUX/ROCKEFELLER UNIV.; ROY KALTSCHMIDT, LAWRENCE
BERKELEY NATIONAL LABORATOR Y; HOMEWOOD PHO TOGRAPH Y; BELINDA PRATTEN; TECHNION-ISRAEL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
On October 5, the chemistry prize went
to a scientist who essentially lost his job
over his discovery, only to be vindicated
when his work was later validated. Dan
Shechtman, now at the Technion–Israel
Institute of Technology in Haifa, was
working in a U.S. federal lab in 1982
when he concluded that crystal struc
tures—lattices of identical, repeated
arrangements of atoms in countless
solid materials — don’t necessarily have
to be identical or repeated. Some materi
als arrange themselves in quasicrystals,
similar arrangements of atoms that vary
slightly over space. None of Shechtman’s
colleagues believed him at first, and he
moved to a different lab. Three decades
later, quasicrystals are found in surgical
blades and may be useful as heat insula
tors in engines and electronic devices.
“He stuck to his guns, and with time
researchers found that this unique crystal
structure was actually right,” says Amer
ican Chemical Society president Nancy
Jackson, a chemical engineer at Sandia
National Laboratories in Albuquerque.
The 2011 physics Nobel went to three
researchers who turned cosmology on its
head. Work by astronomer Edwin Hubble
in the 1920s showed that the universe is
expanding: Until the end of the 20th cen
tury, that expansion was thought to be
gradually decelerating under the force
of gravity. But in 1998, astrophysicists
showed that the expansion of the uni
verse is actually speeding up, as if some
undetected source of energy were pushing
spacetime itself apart. Today that myste
rious phenomenon, dark energy, is one of
the hottest topics in theoretical physics.
Bruce A. Beutler Physiology or Medicine For discoveries con- cerning the activation of innate immunity
Jules A. Hoffmann Physiology or Medicine For discoveries con- cerning the activation of innate immunity
Ralph M. Steinman Physiology or Medicine For discovery of the dendritic cell and its role in adaptive immunity
Saul Perlmutter Physics For the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe
Adam G. Riess Physics For the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe
Brian P. Schmidt Physics For the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe
Dan Shechtman
Chemistry
For the discovery of
quasicrystals
recruit a second, more specialized wave of
cellular defenses against invaders.
Steinman died on September 30, three
days before the winners of the Nobel
medicine prize were announced. Though
Nobel rules forbid awarding the honors
posthumously, the committee that grants
the prizes has decided that Steinman’s
selection will stand. — Nathan Seppa,
Devin Powell, Rachel Ehrenberg
www.sciencenews.org
October 22, 2011 | SCIENCE NEWS | 13
