Nobel Prizes 2019: chemistry, physics, medicine

From the physics to the economy, from the medicine to the chemistry, passing by the effort for the peace, to the literature, etc, like every year the most brilliant minds of the planet are crowned with the one that is the most coveted prize: the Nobel. The award ceremony will be the next December, but meanwhile here you have who are the winners of this year and the discoveries and the reasons that brought to this choice.

Nobel for the medicine

The Nobel for the medicine 2019 goes to William G. Kaelin Jr., Peter J. Ratcliffe and Gregg. L. Semenza. The three, two american scientists and an english one, got the prize thanks to their researches about how the cells are able to adapt themselves to the different availability of oxygen.

All the animal organisms need the oxygen to live, but no one never shed light on the ability of adaption of them. About some animals chose different atitudes, with the consequent variation of oxygen, as their own habitat.

The studies made by the three scientists were focused right on this: how is regulated the cells’ genetic activity as answer of the oxygen variation?

The ultimate goal is survive. When the levels of oxygen changes the same cells change, giving life to alterations that affect the metabolism, the textures, the ventilation, the heart beat, etc.

We already knew that with the lack of oxygen the organism answers by producing more red blood cells which carry the oxygen. But no one was able to say how this happen, until now.

Physics

Let’s talk now about the Nobel for the physics, gave to James Peebles, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz, for their discoveries in the cosmological sector. Especially James Peebles received the prize for his studies about the evolution of the universe. His work goes through all the universe’s life, from the Big Bang until today, since when it was just a hot compact unit to its max cold expansion.

His theories includes even the study of the dark matter, which is the 95% of the universe which appears invisible.

While Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz received the prize for the discovery of an exoplanet in orbit around a solar star. Their studies opened the way for the discovery of up to 4000 thousand new exoplanets.

It was the 1995 when the two scientists discovered 51 Pegasi B, the first exoplanet that changes our vision of the universe and that allowed to change pillars of the astronomy, by helping us to better understand the universe.

Chemistry

Once again a trio for the Nobel for the chemistry, they are John B. Goodenough, M. Stanly Whittingham and Akira Yoshino. The three scientists got the prize for a product already largely spreaded on the marketplace: the lithium ion batteries. A green prize for the “older” Nobel of this year: Goodenough, infact, is 97 years old.

The lithium batteries arrived on the marketplace in the 1991 and revolutionized the world. Infact, they can be charged hundreds of times before to deteriorate and they can be supplied with renewable sources.

Nowadays we can find them in the electric cars, in the phones and in the computers, but even in the 0pacemakers. This was, without any doubt, a prize waited already for a while.

The other Nobel 2019

Together with the trio of chemistry, physics and medicine there are other big minds already awarded with the Nobel prize of this year. For the economy we find Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer for their studies about the approach to the global poverty.

Double Nobel for the literature, gave to the polish writer and activist Olga Tokarczuk and to the austrian dramatist and poet Peter Handke.

One of the most loved Nobel, the one for the peace, goes, instead, to the first minister of Ethiopia: Abiy Ahmed Ali, “for his effort to reach the peace and the international cooperation, and especially for his decisive initiative to solve the conflict on the border with the close Eritrea”.

This post is also available in: Italiano