I’m always interested to hear who won the latest Physics Nobel Prize, and today’s announcement was particularly exciting: John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks.” Is it surprising? Is it controversial? Apparently yes. I predicted Hopfield in response to a friend’s poll a few … Continue reading The 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics — Yes, Physics!
I’ve thought more about CRISPR and genome editing over the past year than ever before, ending up devoting a chapter to it in my upcoming popular science biophysics book. The ability to cut, paste, and edit strands of DNA inside living cells is truly amazing, an advance that deserves all the hype that it’s received … Continue reading CRISPR, the Nobel Prize, and the “Forgotten Man”
I was thrilled yesterday morning to learn that super-resolution microscopy is the subject of a Nobel Prize this year. (Or more accurately, that Eric Betzig, Stefan Hell, and William E. Moerner were awarded the Nobel Prize “for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy.”) Super-resolution microscopy is wonderful, as I’ve written before. In all its various … Continue reading The 2014 Nobel Prizes: Switched at Birth?
I was delighted to hear that this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine went to James Rothman, Randy Schekman and Thomas Südhof for uncovering the molecular machineries that govern cargo trafficking in cells. Trafficking is a fascinating and hugely important topic, and it’s one that has influenced my own work as well. For a … Continue reading Vesicle Trafficking, and the Nobel Prize
The Eighteenth Elephant 