Three scientists who produced atom-by-atom maps of the mysterious, life-giving ribosome won the Nobel Prize for chemistry on Wednesday. Israeli Ada Yonath and Americans Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas Steitz shared the 10 million Swedish crowns (1.42 million United States dollar) prize for showing how the ribosome, which produces protein, functions at the atomic level. The Nobel prizes are handed out annually for achievements in science, peace, literature and economics. This was the third of this year's Nobel prizes, following awards for medicine or physiology on Monday and for physics on Tuesday. A pioneer in fibre-optics and two scientists who figured out how to turn light into electronic signals -- work that paved the way for the Internet age -- were awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for physics. Charles Kao, a Shanghai-born British-American, won half the 10 million Swedish crown (0.7 million United States dollars) prize for research that led to a breakthrough in fibre-optics, determining how to transmit light over long distances via optical glass fibres. Willard Boyle, a Canadian-American, and George Smith of the United States shared the other half for inventing the first successful imaging technology using a digital sensor. Three U.S scientists won the 2009 Nobel prize for medicine or physiology for their discovery on how chromosomes are copied and protected, work that casts light on cancer and the ageing process. Australian-born Elizabeth Blackburn, British-born Jack Szostak and Carol Greider won the prize of 10 million Swedish crowns (1.42 million United States dollars). The institute said the three had solved a major problem in biology, namely how chromosomes were copied completely during cell division and protected against degradation.
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