October marks the advent of autumn* and the approach of Halloween. But since 1901, it’s also heralded the annual announcement of Nobel Prize winners.
The five categories under the prize umbrella are those of peace, chemistry, physics, physiology and medicine and literature.
This year, Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday, the Nobel committee awarded the prize for physiology and medicine to French researchers Luc Montagnier, Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and German scientist Harold zur Hausen.
The former are credited with discovering the human strain of the AIDS virus, the latter with proving the “papilloma virus causes cervical cancer.”
Controversy has often surrounded the Nobel Prize and its originator, Swedish dynamite creator Alfred Nobel, and this year’s share centers around two of the aforementioned physiology and medicine winners.