00:00Earlier today, we asked who would take the Chemistry Nobel, and the Academy's answer
00:03surprised even the experts. The 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to Henry B. Kagan of France
00:10and Kenso Soai of Japan. Announced this morning in Stockholm by the Royal Swedish Academy of
00:15Sciences. The citation? The discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in
00:20asymmetric organic synthesis. The prize? 12 million Swedish kronor shared. Around 1 million euros.
00:26What did they actually discover? It begins with mirror images. The molecules of life,
00:32amino acids and sugars, come in mirror image forms, like your left and right hands. Yet living
00:38things use only one of the two. Where did that one-sidedness come from? Chemistry had no answer.
00:45Henry B. Kagan found the first piece, non-linear effects, showing you could reach a far larger
00:50excess of one mirror image than anyone thought possible. That insight transformed the manufacture
00:55of medicines, flavors, scents, and advanced materials. Then came Kenso Soai with one of
01:00chemistry's most spectacular experiments. He designed the first reaction in which only one
01:05of the two mirror images was ever formed. His trick is called autocatalysis. The product speeds up
01:11its own creation. A tiny initial imbalance grows, amplifies, and ends in total purity of a single
01:17mirror image. The Academy's permanent secretary, Ellen Moons, put it simply,
01:22This year's prize is about making chemistry choose its mirror image. Why does any of this
01:27matter to you? Because the wrong mirror image of a drug can be dangerous. The cautionary tale is
01:33thalidomide. One mirror image calmed morning sickness in the late 1950s. The other caused devastating
01:39birth defects. Controlling chorality, then, is not an academic puzzle. It is the difference between a
01:45cure and a catastrophe. It caps a dramatic Nobel week. Medicine to Carl Diceroth, Peter Hegeman,
01:52and Georg Nagel for optogenetics. Physics to Francis Halzen for the IceCube Neutrino Observatory.
01:59Literature tomorrow. Peace on Friday. Economic sciences next Monday.
02:03Now, to a second story, and a farewell to a Hollywood legend.
02:07Ava Marie Saint has died at her Los Angeles home, aged 102. Her family representative,
02:13Jeff Sanderson, confirmed she passed away from natural causes on Tuesday, October 6th.
02:18Her film debut was Cinema Gold, in 1954's On the Waterfront, opposite Marlon Brando,
02:24playing Edie Doyle. It was her first film, and it won her the Academy Award for Best Supporting
02:29Actress in 1955. She accepted the Oscar from Frank Sinatra while pregnant. Her son,
02:34Darrell, was born two days later. Five years later, she became Eve Kendall opposite Cary Grant
02:39in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest. Born on the 4th of July, 1924, she married Jeffrey Hayden
02:46in 1951, won an Emmy in 1990, and acted into her 90s. A century of cinema, ending as it began,
02:54in the spotlight. Every safer medicine owes a debt to Kagan's non-linear effects, and so eyes
03:00auto-catalysis. From purer drugs to better materials, this is chemistry that chooses,
03:05precisely, one mirror image. The medals are presented December 10th in Stockholm.
03:11The chemistry is already at work in laboratories and factories worldwide.
03:15From drug factories to perfume labs, their discoveries now work quietly inside products
03:20you use every day. Their names will be read aloud in Stockholm on December 10th.
03:24Chemistry's highest honor for molecules that learn to choose. Subscribe to News Plus Globe
03:30for the winners of tomorrow's Literature Prize.
