Do you know what this molecule is? Acetylcholine is a chemical used to transmit messages between nerve cells. #Onthisday# in 1914 Henry Dale published a paper on the action of the molecule. He received the 1936 medicine prize for his work on its role in our nervous system.

#OTD# in 1982 laureate James Allison published a paper in the Journal of Immunology identifying the protein structure of the T cell receptor, a previously mysterious ignition switch for immune response. His research led to a new way to treat cancer by using our own immune systems.

Did you know Philip Noel-Baker is the only person to have both an Olympic and Nobel Prize medal? He won a silver medal for the 1,500 metres during the 1920 Summer Olympic Games. Thirty-nine years later he followed it up with the Nobel Peace Prize.

Can you guess which Nobel Prize laureate is here in disguise? Hiding beneath the costume is Maria Goeppert Mayer who would go on to receive the physics prize for her work on the nuclear shell model. Learn more about Goeppert Mayer: #HappyHalloween#

What makes something truly scary? Horror stories can range from terrifying ghosts, eerie hauntings and supernatural possessions, to the deadly wrath of humans being unleashed in unspeakable ways. Here are four suggestions for your next read this Halloween season, authored by some of our favourite Nobel Prize laureates. 1. The Empusium, written by Olga Tokarczuk (2018 literature prize) The story is set in 1913 in south-western Poland. Mieczysław Wojnicz, a young engineering student from Lwów, has newly arrived at a sanatorium looking for a healthy lifestyle to treat his lungs. Amidst his odd daily routine with the other patients, shocking revelations begin to emerge. Someone, or something, seems to be watching them. Blending horror, comedy, folklore and feminist parable, Olga Tokarczuk leads you into a world of eeriness. 2. Beloved, written by Toni Morrison (1993 literature prize) Set in 1873 after the American Civil War, this novel tells the story of Sethe, a formerly enslaved woman, and her 18-year-old daughter, Denver. Their Cincinnati home is haunted by the malevolent spirit of Sethe’s nameless baby whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: ‘Beloved’. The story explores how Sethe’s horrific past as a slave continues to torment her life. Through poetic prose and spellbinding suspense, Morrison brings to light the abyss of slavery and its effects. 3. A Rose for Emily, written by William Faulkner (1949 literature prize) An intriguing Southern Gothic tale written in 1930, this short story revolves around a seemingly cold, aristocratic woman named Emily Grierson. Her life in Jefferson, governed by her strict father, is examined through the voice of one of the many townspeople who judge her every move until her death. With a bone-chilling twist, the plot becomes a commentary of social structure and individualism. Faulkner uses a non-linear narrative style and psychological allegory to create a macabre fictional tale of determinism. 4. The Curse of the Fires and of the Shadows, written by William Butler Yeats (1923 literature prize) This dark historical story is a retelling of the burning down of Sligo Abbey by Puritan soldiers under Sir Frederick Hamilton in 1642 during the Irish Confederate Wars. It follows five soldiers who shoot the monks and are cursed by the dying abbot. The supernatural dread that follows gives way to bloody premonitions and fatal haunting. Blending Irish folklore, historical fiction and fantasy, Yeats spins a vengeful, gothic horror that is unforgettable. Learn more about the literature prize here:

This Halloween, take five minutes to learn about ‘ghostly messengers’ from the cosmos. Francis Halzen was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica, detecting the spooky particles. Learn more:

#DidYouKnow# there is a particle so elusive it is known as the ghost particle? The neutrino hardly ever interacts with matter – about 100 billion neutrinos pass through your thumbnail every second without you even noticing. The sun is the source of most of the neutrinos on earth.

“When I moved to Sweden, I discovered the pleasure of teaching, which provides a nice balance to research.” – Anne L’Hullier. “I have taught optics, laser physics, light-matter interaction, and atomic physics, mostly at the Master’s level. A few years ago, I was asked to teach atomic physics to third-year students in physics engineering. I truly enjoy this course, and it is students from the 2023 intake of this course who were in the lecture room when I received the call from Stockholm: They will always remain special in my memory.” L'Huillier was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 2023 for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter. Learn more about her life and work:

Neutrinos are everywhere, but they do not make themselves known. They pass all the way through the Earth and through our bodies without us noticing. This year’s physics laureate Francis Halzen realised that ice at the South Pole could be used to track these secretive particles. His vision, first presented in the late 1980s, led to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, that covers an entire cubic kilometre and was finished in 2011. Researchers soon discovered the first high-energy neutrinos and, a few years later, could publish their discovery of neutrinos that must originate far outside our solar system. “By detecting these neutrinos, we can learn something about cosmic sources which otherwise would not be accessible to us,” said Mark Pearce, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics. Listen to him explain more about the 2026 physics prize:

What do you do when you feel stuck? Medicine laureate Tim Hunt shares some valuable advice on what to do when you get stuck with a scientific problem. Hear his full conversation with PhD student Paulina Tan:

Calling all teachers – teaching material on this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is ready for use. The 2026 medicine laureates developed optogenetics, a method enabling us to show how nerve cells form memories, emotions and behaviours in a living brain. This method is used by laboratories all over the world and has fundamentally changed the way we see the brain With the Nobel Prize lesson it’s easy to teach your class about this year’s medicine prize. Find a slideshow with a speaker’s manuscript and a student assignment at

When asked what sparked his interest in physics and quantum computing, John Martinis, 2025 physics laureate, mentioned that one of his motivations came from his father. Martinis' father was a fireman with a high school diploma who loved building things in the garage. From a young age, Martinis spent time watching him do this. What he learned wasn’t just how to practically construct things – it was the confidence to build and create. That early experience was one of the factors that eventually guided Martinis to study experimental physics.

Mary Brunkow, 2025 medicine laureate, was one of the first graduate students to join Princeton’s department of molecular biology. Her PhD adviser, Shirley Tilghman, remembers her as "incredibly bright and bold". At Princeton, Brunkow joined Tilghman’s lab, where she took on a project researching the mysterious H19 gene – a gene that is active in embryos but does not produce any protein. At a time when many scientists dismissed such “non-coding” genes as genetic leftovers, her findings helped demonstrate that H19 was not junk. Although largely unrelated to the work for which she has been awarded the Nobel Prize, her graduate research contributed to the current understanding of genomic imprinting – the process by which a gene can be turned on or off depending on whether it is inherited from the mother or the father. Learn about Brunkow's Nobel Prize-awarded discovery here:

Literature laureate Gabriel García Márquez’s international breakthrough came in 1967 with the novel 'Cien años de soledad' ('One Hundred Years of Solitude'). He is one of the foremost interpreters of magical realism in literature. Learn more here:

Calling all teachers! Teach your students about molecular mirror images and how they can be created. The lesson offers students the chance to learn about the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry on molecular mirror images, known as chiral molecules. All teacher material is available here:

What makes a poem speak to you? Literature laureate T. S. Eliot strongly believed poetry should represent the complexities of modern civilisation. This made him one of the most daring innovators of 20th-century poetry. Learn more about Eliot here:

“Without understanding neutrinos, we’ll never understand the universe.” Physics laureate Francis Halzen has laid the foundation for a new type of astronomy. His idea was to use naturally occurring ice, rather than water, to capture the secretive elementary particles called neutrinos. The result was the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, which can track neutrinos that originate in the distant cosmos. So, why is it interesting to capture neutrinos? These elusive particles carry with them information about their sources. Since neutrinos have no electrical charge, they’re not deflected by the magnetic field between the earth and their distant cosmic sources. When these particles are detected and captured, we can learn more about where they are produced, for example the environment around a black hole. This knowledge about cosmic sources would otherwise not be accessible to us. When a neutrino collides with an atomic nucleus, a charged particle can be produced which emits a blue light. This flash of light can be tracked by sensors in the clear glacial ice of the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. The South Pole’s ice has many advantages, as it is free from various types of interference and the area is geologically stable, with no earthquakes. Still, it was not an easy project. During the press conference, Francis Halzen commented on this: ”When I reflect on this at this moment, I have to emphasise how lucky I was. Because when we started this project, everybody realised it was a good idea, but very few thought it would work, including myself. This was kind of an adventure where success was not guaranteed. We were lucky to overcome the various challenges, partly because the talent of our collaborators and partly because of luck. It was a long journey but it finally worked.” Learn more at

Life’s chemistry is what chemists call homochiral, after the Greek words for “same” and “hand”. Like hands, all amino acids exist as two mirrored variants, but only one of them is found in the proteins in your cells. The other is rarely found in nature. For a long time, chemists wondered how homochirality can emerge. When they began to experiment with chemical reactions that can form two mirrored molecules, they always obtained equal proportions of both in their test tubes. However, chemists strived to produce only one of these mirror images, because in the development of molecules that will interact with living beings – such as in pharmaceuticals – only one mirror image will have the desired effect. This year’s chemistry laureates Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai discovered a solution to this puzzle. Their discoveries have been decisive for chemists who design reactions for the manufacture of pharmaceuticals. Learn more about the chemistry prize:

Check out Georg Nagel – the 2026 medicine prize laureate – wearing a blue helmet and a big smile, cycling into the University of Würzburg to a warm welcome full of balloons and applause from students. Check out his first reaction interview here:

“Your purpose as a scientist is to make discoveries and gift them to humanity. And those discoveries and that knowledge stays with humanity long after you are gone.” - 2022 chemistry laureate @CarolynBertozzi, awarded for developing bioorthogonal reactions.