Noble prize 2016 in sciences

Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos
The award should also be seen as a tribute to the Colombian people, said the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
The Nobel Peace Prize for 2016 has been awarded to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos for his efforts to end his country's 50-year civil war.

Mr Santos negotiated a peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) guerrilla group but the peace deal was rejected by a narrow majority of Colombians when it was put to referendum.
“The award should also be seen as a tribute to the Colombian people who, despite great hardships and abuses, have not given up hope of a just peace, and to all the parties who have contributed to the peace process,” said a statement by the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
”Thank you from the bottom of my heart and in the name of all the Colombians, especially the victims.” President Santos said on being awarded the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize.
On hearing the news, President Santos immediately emphasised that he received the award on behalf of his fellow citizens. We reached him straight after he had received the call from the Norwegian Nobel Committee: ”It’s simply a matter of believing in a cause and there is no better cause for any society, for any country, than living in Peace.”
One of the five prizes instituted by Alfred Nobel, the Peace Prize is awarded to those who have “done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”
Last year’s Peace Prize went to the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet for “for its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution of 2011.”

Physics Nobel awarded to three
They get the award "for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter."
The Nobel Prize in Physics for 2016 has been divided, one half awarded to David J. Thouless, the other half jointly to F. Duncan M. Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz "for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter."

Announcing the Prize on Tuesday in Stockholm, a statement by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said that “This year’s Laureates opened the door on an unknown world where matter can assume strange states. They have used advanced mathematical methods to study unusual phases, or states, of matter, such as superconductors, superfluids or thin magnetic films. Thanks to their pioneering work, the hunt is now on for new and exotic phases of matter.”
Last year, Physics Nobel was awarded to Takaaki Kajita and Arthur B. MacDonald for their work with neutrinos.

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Why the Nobel Prize winning discovery of autophagy matters
Disruption of autophagy processes of the cell has been linked to Parkinson’s disease, type 2 diabetes.
Nobel laureate Yoshinori Ohsumi’s work on mechanisms underlying autophagy — a fundamental process of degrading and recycling cellular components — has generated much interest in the science behind the biological process. In this article, we will aim to explain the significance of this discovery and the earlier work in this area.
What is autophagy?
The word autophagy originates from Greek words auto, meaning “self”, and phagein, meaning “to eat”, according to the release put up on the Nobel Prize website. The concept emerged during the 1960s, when researchers first observed that the cell could destroy its own contents by enclosing it in membranes – autophagosomes - for degradation.
Scientists discovered during the 1950s that the cell contained specialised compartments, with enzymes that digest proteins, carbohydrates and lipids. These compartments also helped with degradation of cellular constituents. During the 1970s and 1980s, researchers explained the working of a system used to degrade proteins.
Experiments on autophagy
Professor Ohsumi started working on protein degradation in the vacuole (the fluid-filled pocket found in the cell) in 1988. At that time scientists used yeast cells as a model for human cells. But he faced a major challenge; yeast cells are small and their inner structures are not easily distinguished under the microscope and thus he was uncertain whether autophagy even existed in this organism.
But he reasoned that if he could disrupt the degradation process in the vacuole while the process of autophagy was active, then autophagosomes should accumulate within the vacuole and become visible under the microscope. He cultured mutated yeast lacking vacuolar degradation enzymes and simultaneously stimulated autophagy by starving the cells. Within hours, the vacuoles were filled with small vesicles that had not been degraded. His experiment proved that authophagy existed in yeast cells. He had also figured out the method to identify and characterise key genes involved in this process. This was a major breakthrough.
Within a year of his discovery of autophagy in yeast, Professor Ohsumi had identified the first genes essential for autophagy. He studied thousands of yeast mutants and identified 15 genes that are essential for autophagy. Subsequently, he characterised the proteins encoded by these genes according to their function. The results showed that autophagy is controlled by a cascade of proteins and protein complexes, each regulating a distinct stage of autophagosome initiation and formation.
Professor Ohsumi studied the function of the proteins encoded by key autophagy genes. He outlined how stress signals initiated autophagy and the mechanism by which proteins and protein complexes promoted distinct stages of autophagosome formation.
Physiological functions
Autophagy can rapidly provide fuel for energy and building blocks for renewal of cellular components, and is, therefore, essential for the cellular response to starvation and other types of stress. After infection, autophagy can eliminate invading intracellular bacteria and viruses. Autophagy contributes to embryo development and cell differentiation. Cells also use autophagy to eliminate damaged proteins and organelles, a quality control mechanism that is critical for counteracting the negative consequences of aging.
Disruption of the autophagy processes of the cell has been linked to Parkinson’s disease, type 2 diabetes and other disorders that appear in the elderly. Mutations in autophagy genes can cause genetic disease. Disturbances in the autophagic machinery have also been linked to cancer. Efforts are on to develop drugs that can target autophagy in various diseases.
If not for ProfessorOhsumi’s research in the 1990s, the world would not have known the fundamental importance of autophagy in physiology and medicine.
Japanese scientist Yoshinori Ohsumi smiles as he answers a reporter's question after learning that he won this year's Nobel Prize in medicine at the Tokyo Institute of Technology campus in Yokohama, south of Tokyo, on Monday.

Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to builders of molecular machines

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences says molecular machines "will most likely be used in the development of things such as new materials, sensors and energy storage systems".

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2016 has been awarded to Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Sir J. Fraser Stoddart and Bernard L. Feringa for developing molecular machines.

Announcing the Prize on Wednesday in Stockholm, a statement from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said,"The development of computing demonstrates how the miniaturisation of technology can lead to a revolution. The 2016 Nobel laureates in Chemistry have miniaturised machines and taken chemistry to a new dimension."

They have developed molecules with controllable movements, which can perform a task when energy is added... Molecular machines will most likely be used in the development of things such as new materials, sensors and energy storage systems," it said.