At this time of the year, the Nobel Prizes are announced. We cover them here.

But first, what’s a Nobel Prize (here’s a quick intro, but you can read all about it here – it’s an interesting story)

The Nobel Prize is named after a person called Alfred Nobel – who was a rich Swedish businessman, chemist, engineer, inventor, and also a philanthropist, who was best known for inventing a high explosive called dynamite. Nobel later regretted inventing the dynamite (because it killed people) and decided to set up a foundation that would give awards to people every year who have done something to benefit people.

The Prizes have been awarded since 1901.

So, Nobel Prizes are awards given in six categories by the Nobel Foundation. They are given for outstanding achievement in the fields of Chemistry, Literature, Physics, and Physiology or Medicine. While these above category prizes are awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo, Norway. The sixth Nobel Prize, for Economics was created by Swedish National Bank in 1968 and named after Alfred Nobel as well. The Nobel Prize comes with a diploma, medal, and cash award.

The prize money this year will be $1.1 million (more than 7 crore Rupees!)

Here are the awards that have been given this year:

• The Nobel Prize for Medicine – given to three scientists for their contribution in the discovery of a virus called Hepatitis C. The scientists are Harvey J. Alter and Charles M. Rice, who belong to U.S., and Michael Houghton who is from the U.K. (read this in detail, here)
  
• The Nobel Prize in Chemistry – awarded jointly to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna for developing a method for genome editing.
  
• The Nobel Prize in Literature – awarded to American poet Louise Gluck. She is currently an English professor at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut (USA)

Here’s the official site for the Nobel Prizes