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The Nobel Prizes, named for chemist and engineer Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite and activist for humankind’s advancement, were handed out in Stockholm today. Wolfram|Alpha can tell us that the winners include Brian Kobilka and Robert Lefkowitz for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Chemistry in particular is a very exciting field, and this year’s prize to Kobilka and Lefkowitz for studies on G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) is especially fascinating. On a personal level, though, I’m curious who the previous winners were, and what they achieved.
It seems that recent years have seen a large number of American winners. I also see there’s only one chemistry winner in the past couple decades from New Zealand. Let’s find out how many total Nobel Prize winners are from the Pacific’s triple star.
It’s a small list, but its winners include the man who split the atom, one of the men who discovered the structure of DNA, and the man who discovered and developed conductive polymers. Truly, Nobel Prize winners accomplish the sort of achievements that are, if nothing else, humbling. And awesome.