Updated 2:55 p.m. Moscow Time
MOSCOW/STOCKHOLM, October 8 (RIA Novosti) – The 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Eric Betzig, Stefan Hell and William Moerner for "the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy," the award committee announced Wednesday.
"Their ground-breaking work has brought optical microscopy into the nanodimension," the committee said in a statement.
Fluorescence microscopy allows scientists to see things at much higher levels of resolution. It has given scientists the opportunity to study the structure of biological molecules, vital for developing new medicines.
The Nobel Prize awards ceremony for the trio is scheduled for December 10, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel's death in 1896. Four of the five original prizes established by Nobel – for physiology or medicine, physics, chemistry and literature - as well as a memorial prize in economics, will be awarded in Stockholm, Sweden. The Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo, Norway.
The next Nobel Prizes to be announced will be the Literature prize on Thursday, the Peace prize on Friday and the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel on October 13.
