Eight Scientists Split $3 Million in Prizes

This year’s winners of the Kavli Prize, one of the most lucrative awards in science, were announced Thursday. Eight scientists split the awards of $1 million each in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience, and neuroscience. Included in the three-way win for the astrophysics prize is Jerry Nelson, an astronomer and physicist who constructed the planet’s largest telescope mirror. The nanoscience prize will be split between two scientists, including Nadrian Seeman, who builds robots out of DNA by programming strands of it to meld into complex shapes. The neuroscience prize goes to a team of three scientists for their work on neurotransmission. The prizes are doled out by the Norwegian Kavli Foundation every other year.