Have the names of the Nobel Prize winners in Chemistry leaked? “Right now we are trying to understand what happened.” Science and the planet

Nobel Prize leaks are extremely rare. The various academies make every effort to keep the names of the winners confidential until the announcement. Even the list of candidates will remain secret for 50 years.

But the names of this year’s Nobel Prize winners in Chemistry have reportedly been leaked. Swedish media, such as newspapers Dagens Nyheter and Aftonbladet, write this based on a press release sent 4 hours before the planned announcement. It concerns scientists Monji Bawende, Louis Bruce and Alexei Ekimov. They received the award “for their discovery and creation of so-called quantum dots.”

Academy spokeswoman Eva Nevelius told AFP: “We don’t know what happened, we have to investigate.” “The academy has not made a decision yet. The meeting is being held this morning, and we will see how long it lasts. We will then announce the decision as usual around 11:45 AM.”

Academy members confirmed that the email was a mistake, and that a final decision had not yet been made. For example, Heiner Linke, a member of the Academy’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry committee, expressed his surprise. “Now I’m just trying to understand what exactly happened. We haven’t made a decision yet, so if a press release comes out, it’s definitely wrong.

The Nobel Prize in Physics goes to research that makes it possible to see what happens in atoms and molecules

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The Nobel Prize in Medicine goes to the research that made it possible to develop mRNA vaccines, and therefore coronavirus vaccines as well