Here is a look at this year's Nobel prize winners.
Peace: Presented jointly to India's Kailash Satyarthi and Pakistan's Malala Yousafzai for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education.
The two will split the Nobel award of USD 1.1 million.
Satyarthi, 60, gave up his job as an electrical engineer to run an NGO Bachpan Bachao Aandolan (Save Childhood Movement) in India for rescuing children from forced labour and trafficking while 17-year-old Malala survived a near-fatal Taliban attack two years ago for advocating education for girls.
Literature 2014: Given to France's Patrick Modiano "for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation".
Physics: Given jointly to Japanese scientists Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano and Japanese-born American Shuji Nakamura "for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources", a breakthrough that has spurred the development of LED technology to light up homes, computer screens and smartphones worldwide.
Chemistry: Awarded jointly to Americans Eric Betzig and William Moerner and German scientist Stefan Hell "for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy", a new method that let microscopes see finer details than they could before.
Physiology or Medicine: Divided, one half awarded to US-British scientist John O'Keefe, the other half jointly to Norwegian husband-and-wife duo Edvard and May-Britt Moser "for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain", revelations that could well lead to advances in diagnosing Alzheimer's.
Economics or The Sveriges Riksbank Prize: Presented to Frenchman Jean Tirole "for his analysis of market power and regulation", which shows how regulators can manage markets dominated by a few powerful companies to keep them from blocking competition and overcharging customers.
