October 2018 Nobel notes

Beyond the awards, it is worth noting that the number of women awardees is even sparser than it seems at first glance

October, as always, is Nobel month. The science prizes this year are shared, (as usual), with three winners in Physics, three in Chemistry, and two in Medicine. The Chemistry Prize was shared by Frances H Arnold awarded half the money “for the directed evolution of enzymes” and the other half went jointly to George P Smith and Sir Gregory P Winter “for the phage display of peptides and antibodies”.

The Physics Prize was “for groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics”. Half of the prize went to Arthur Ashkin “for optical tweezers and their application to biological systems”, while the