It's Nobel week, with a prize announced every weekday until Oct. 11. Here's what's ahead.
Physics, Tuesday
Predicting the Nobel laureates in physics is difficult. As part of its Nobel prize predictions, each year Thomson Reuters attempts to guess the winners in physics, but until now, it has failed. This year it has identified seven contenders, most of them American, two of them professors at Princeton.
Chemistry, Wednesday
A highly unscientific survey of predictions favours Patrick Brown of Stanford University School of Medicine in California, who invented DNA microarrays, also known as "gene chips," which are used by scientists to determine which genes are active in various cells.
Literature, Thursday
Canadian authors Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro have, yet again, been mentioned as potential recipients. The buzz in book circles, however, is that this year's Nobel could go to a poet for the first time since 1996. Algerian poet Assia Djebar is considered a serious contender.
Peace, Friday
Human-rights advocate Sima Samar may become the first person from Afghanistan to win the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to promote women's health and education. One Internet betting service, however, ranks jailed Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo as its favourite to win the prize, ranking Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai as No. 2.
Economic Sciences, Monday
The most interesting contenders are Nobuhiro Kiyotaki, a professor of economics at Princeton University, and John H. Moore, a professor of political economics at the University of Edinburgh. Unsurprisingly their work involves post-downturn financial modelling. The Kiyotaki-Moore model describes how small shocks to an economy may lead to a cycle of lower output resulting from a decline in collateral values that creates a restrictive credit environment.