Revealing secrets on a tiny scale

Microscopes play a key role in advancing research, in part thanks to the work of Nobel Prize laureates whose breakthroughs have allowed the tool to evolve.

How microwaves let us tune into one another – and the universe

Nobel Prize-awarded work on microwaves revolutionised our ways of communicating and helped us understand the origins of the universe.

Image of beams of light depicting the cosmos, combined with a wave symbol.

Discoveries 50 years ago: the 1976 Nobel Prizes

Nobel Prize in Literature 1976

Innovator of the American novel

Listen to Saul Bellow talk about his memories from 1920’s Chicago, the city where he grew up and used as a backdrop for his stories.

Nobel Prize in Physics 1976

A new elementary particle

The discovery of a new heavy particle, J/psi, opened a new field of research.
Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1976

Studies on boranes

This work improved our understanding of how atoms bind together within molecules.
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1976

Origin of infectious diseases

Their work defined completely new principles for the behaviour of infectious diseases.
Banquet menu

Curious to know what was served at the 1976 Nobel Prize banquet dinner? Browse the banquet menu archive.

Nobel Peace Prize 1976

Building peace from below

A deadly tragedy motivated Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan to found a movement to put an end to the conflict in Northern Ireland.
Prize in economic sciences 1976

Founder of monetarism

An influential economist of the second half of the 20th century, Milton Friedman became one of the leaders of the Chicago school of economics.

How X-rays and crystals revealed the true nature of things

Read the story behind the 100-year-old discovery that continues to render Nobel Prizes.

Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1960

The clock that starts ticking when something dies

A help in solving crimes and a revealer of history’s secrets: radiocarbon dating is one of the keys that unlocks our world.

Montage showing a frog on a bamboo stick, a separate frog skeleton, and a countdown clock

Five spellbinding works by Nobel Prize laureates

Much like fairy tales, magical realism novels blur the lines between fantasy and reality.

Learn more

“The Castle by Kafka remained, until today, the most beautiful secret in literature for me”

Listen to 2025 literature laureate László Krasznahorkai talk about the book that made him become a writer.

Stories of literature prize-awarded women

Nobel Prize in Literature 2015

She makes young protesters’ voices heard

Svetlana Alexievich’s new book tells the stories of young people who took to the streets in Belarus in 2020, protesting the election that was widely regarded as rigged.

Nobel Prize in Literature 2024

“Imagination is the wonderful ability of humans”

Han Kang on imagination, how writing has changed her and what books mean to her.
Nobel Prize in Literature 1993

“Once upon a time there was an old woman”

Read and listen to Toni Morrison’s Nobel Prize lecture.
Nobel Prize in Literature 1996

”I prefer exceptions”

Read Possibilities and more poetry by Wisława Szymborska.
Nobel Prize in Literature 1945

Voice for the marginalised

Gabriela Mistral crossed over from teaching to politics and became one of Chile’s most celebrated poets.

For curious learners

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1930

Finding the key to safe blood transfusions

Today, we take it for granted that people have different blood types. But not so long ago, it was believed that all blood was the same – a fatal misunderstanding.

Close up of A positive blood in bag.

Credit: ER Productions Limited/Getty Images

Nobel Peace Prize documentaries

International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Nobel Peace Prize 1917, 1944 and 1963

He gives hope to those who lost a limb

Makur Diet lost his leg to a bullet in war-damaged South Sudan.

UNHCR, Nobel Peace Prize 1954 and 1981

Helps reunite families

Kamal Hussein is a beacon of hope for Rohingya families torn apart by violence and ethnic cleansing.
ICBL, Nobel Peace Prize 1997

Clears the land of mines

For the all-female team of Yazidi deminers, one wrong move means certain death.
IPCC, Nobel Peace Prize 2007

Human effects on nature

Follow one team’s extraordinary mission to help understand how climate change is affecting our planet.
Nelson Mandela, Nobel Peace Prize 1993

Overcoming violence

This orchestra uses the power of music to help South Africa overcome decades of violence and division.

High hopes for quantum technologies

Applications of quantum technologies are anticipated to improve our daily lives and contribute to solving global challenges.

Women who changed science

Explore the contributions, careers and lives of women who have been awarded Nobel Prizes for their scientific achievements.

A woman in a laboratory — Photo: Johns Hopkins Medicine

The unseen enemy: navigating antimicrobial resistance

The hunt is on to find new antibiotics with the potential to save millions of lives.

More Nobel Prize-awarded work in medicine

Fighting polio

Follow Ishrat Rahim who vaccinates children against polio in Pakistan.
A century of medical breakthroughs

Over the years, Nobel Prize-awarded advances in medicine show that remarkable progress is possible.
Their work revolutionised cancer care

Read about how scientists found ways to use the immune system to treat cancer.

Spotlight on diabetes

“This is a death sentence for those who get amputated”

Despite the Nobel Prize-awarded discovery of insulin and advances in diabetes treatment, amputations continue to devastate communities around the world. Follow Dr Foluso Fakorede, who fights to save lives in the Mississippi Delta.