The Nobel Prizes for 2008 have recently been given. These are the prizes and their winners:
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Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine (Monday, October 6th) to French researchers Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier for their discovery of human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, in 1983.They shared the award with Harald zur Hausen (Germany) for his discovery that the human papilloma viruses (HPV) causes cervical cancer, the second most common cancer among women.
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Nobel Prize in physics (Tuesday, October 7th) to Japanese Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa and American Yoichiro Nambu for theoretical advances that help explain the behaviour of the smallest particles of matter.
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Nobel Prize in chemistry (Wednesday, October 8th) to Japanese Osamu Shimomura (a Japanese working in USA) and to Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien (both USA) for discovering and developing green fluorescent protein, or GFP, which has helped researchers watch the tiniest details of life within cells and living creatures.
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Nobel Prize in literature (Thursday, October 9th) to French Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio for being an «author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization» (focused on the environment, especially the desert).
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Nobel Peace Prize (Friday, October 10th) to Former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari for his efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts.
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The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (Monday, October 13th) to American Paul Krugman for his analisys of how economics of scale affects trade patterns and where economic activity takes place.