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Nobel Prize Committee: 4 ideas worth knowing

4 ideas from Nobel Prize Committee, each explained in a minute and credited to the original work. Free on Savvy.

• Your cells recycle their own broken parts, and one scientist mapped exactly how

  Yoshinori Ohsumi spent years watching ordinary yeast cells under a microscope and identified the genes driving autophagy — the process by which a cell encloses and digests its own …

  — Nobel Prize Committee, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2016

• Three scientists found the actual molecular gears of your body's 24-hour clock

  Working with fruit flies, Jeffrey Hall, Michael Rosbash, and Michael Young isolated the 'period' gene and showed how its protein builds up at night and breaks down by day, driving …

  — Nobel Prize Committee, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2017

• Chili peppers led scientists straight to the molecule that tells you something is hot

  David Julius used capsaicin, the compound that makes chili peppers burn, to isolate the exact nerve-cell receptor that detects painful heat. Ardem Patapoutian separately found the …

  — Nobel Prize Committee, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2021

• Your brain has its own built-in GPS, made of cells that fire in one exact spot

  John O'Keefe discovered hippocampus neurons that activate only when an animal occupies a specific location — 'place cells.' May-Britt and Edvard Moser later found neighbouring 'gri…

  — Nobel Prize Committee, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2014

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