Nobel Prize in Economics awarded to Harvard professor, for pay differences for women

 The last Nobel, for economics, was awarded today to Claudia Goldin, a Harvard professor, for her groundbreaking work in understanding the historical reasons and consequences of the gender gap in payment for work. She went through a study of 200 years of data to understand how women's roles in the labor market have evolved, and the reasons why they evolved the way they did. To this day, this is a topic of much debate and political and economic activity, as record numbers of women are becoming educated and are working on careers. 

This is also historic, since Dr. Goldin is just the 3rd woman to win the Nobel in economics. 

Nobel Prize in Chemistry for Quantum Dot discovery

 Three scientists are sharing the Nobel in Chemistry for their discovery and applications of quantum dots. 

Moungi Bawendi (MIT), Louis Brus (Columbia U), and Alexei Ekimov (industry, NY), discovered these tiny bits of matter in their nanotechnology work. When materials shrink in size, at some point the laws and weirdness of quantum mechanics take over. Quantum dots are nanomaterials that are so small, this happens - effectively they are the smallest particles in nanoscience. 

Researchers and doctors use these for everything from television images on flat screens to LED lighting to surgeons using them to help remove tumors. 

Nobel Prize in Physics for attosecond laser pulses - and only 5th woman to win a Physics Nobel!

 Here's a metric unit one does not see very often - atto. This is one quintillionth (10^-18)! Three physicists figured out how to create attosecond pulses of light in order to study and measure electron activity and processes. It revolutionized how scientists can view and measure the shortest processes one can imagine, and that occur in the quantum realm on a regular basis. 

The winners are Pierre Agostini (French, at Ohio State), Ferenc Krausz (Hungarian), and Anne L'Huillier (French). This is historic, as well, since Dr. L'Huillier is only the 5th woman to ever win a Nobel for Physics...in 117 years! The technique of creating attosecond laser pulses opened a new type of physics and can be used to observe and measure chemical reactions, molecular and atomic processes in new ways.

Nobel Prize in Medicine & Physiology, 2023

 The Nobel Prize was jointly awarded to a Hungarian-American and an American for their work in developing messenger RNA vaccines. Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman will share the Prize for their groundbreaking work that was used to develop the COVID-19 vaccines, which have been credited for saving millions of lives the past 3 years. Both are professors at the University of Pennsylvania, and will split the nearly $1 million prize.