The 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine will be awarded to Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles M. Rice for the discovery of the Hepatitis C virus. The three scientists have made a decisive contribution to the fight against blood-borne hepatitis, the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet announced.

Agricultural scientists and engineers at the University of Adelaide have identified a potential new tool for screening cereal crops for frost damage.

In a new study published neuroscientists at Oxford University have found that raised blood pressure and diabetes in mid-life alter brain structure to slow thinking speed and memory.

By measuring brain signals, a neuroscience research group at the University of Tübingen has demonstrated for the first time that corvid songbirds possess subjective experience. Simultaneously recording behavior and brain activity enabled the group headed by Professor Andreas Nieder to show that crows are capable of consciously perceiving sensory input.

A molecule that can mimic the function of zaxinone, a natural growth-promoting plant metabolite, has been designed and fabricated by an international team led by Kaust and the University of Tokyo. Their successful mimic may have wide-reaching applications in plant biology and agriculture.

Scientists at Hokkaido University and colleagues in Japan have demonstrated a quick and effective mass testing approach using saliva samples to detect individuals who have been infected with Covid-19 but are still not showing symptoms.

For the first time, scientists successfully extracted genetic material from insects that were embedded in six- and two-year-old resin samples. DNA – in particular, DNA from extinct animals – is an important tool in the identification of species.

Three Laureates share this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics for their discoveries about one of the most exotic phenomena in the universe, the black hole. Roger Penrose showed that the general theory of relativity leads to the formation of black holes. Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez discovered that an invisible and extremely heavy object governs the orbits of stars at the centre of our galaxy. A supermassive black hole is the only currently known explanation.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Prof. Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier, Scientific and Managing Director of the newly established Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens in Berlin for her groundbreaking work on the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology. She shares the prize with Jennifer Doudna from the University of California, Berkeley, USA.

A team of researchers from Swedish KTH have found a way to fully control capillary action, and they’ve designed a device that harnesses it for possible use in biotech applications such as biomolecular analysis and body fluid handling.