OSLO — Eight scientists from the U.S., Britain and Germany shared three awards worth $1 million each Thursday for work that has helped humans explore distant corners of the universe and the tiniest particles on Earth.
The biennial Kavli Prizes honor research in three categories: astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience.
The award for astrophysics was shared by American Jerry Nelson of the University of California, Santa Cruz; British scientist Raymond Wilson of the European Southern Observatory and formerly of Imperial College, London; and Roger Angel of the University of Arizona. Angel has British and U.S. citizenship.
Working separately, Nelson and Angel improved the structure of telescopes, providing higher-resolution images. Wilson’s work helped astronomers gaze farther into space by using computers to correct for the distorting effects of gravity, wind and temperature.
The neuroscience prize was given to German Thomas Suedhof of Stanford University and Americans Richard Scheller of the biotechnology firm Genentech and James Rothman of Yale University.
Americans Nadrian Seeman of New York University and Donald Eigler of IBM’s Almaden Research Center won the nanoscience prize.
