Nobel Prize in chemistry awarded to David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper for work on proteins
Stockholm (AP): The Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded Wednesday to David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper for their work with proteins.
Baker works at the University of Washington in Seattle, while Hassabis and Jumper both work at Google Deepmind in London.
Hans Ellegren, secretary general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences that decides on the winner, announced the prize.
In 2003, Baker designed a new protein and since then, his research group has produced one imaginative protein creation after another, including proteins that can be used as pharmaceuticals, vaccines, nanomaterials and tiny sensors, the Nobel committee said.
Hassabis and Jumper created an artificial intelligence model that has been able to predict the structure of virtually all the 200 million proteins that researchers have identified, the committee added.
Last year, the chemistry award went to three scientists for their work on quantum dots — tiny particles just a few nanometres in diameter that can release very bright coloured light and whose applications in everyday life include electronics and medical imaging.
Six days of Nobel announcements opened Monday with Americans Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun winning the medicine prize. Two founding fathers of machine learning — John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton — won the physics prize.
The awards continue with the literature prize on Thursday. The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced Friday and the economics award on October 14.
The prize carries a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor (USD 1 million) from a bequest left by the award's creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel. The laureates are invited to receive their awards at ceremonies on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death.
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South African police arrest suspect in mass shooting that killed 12, including 3 children
Johannesburg (AP): A 32-year-old suspect has been arrested in connection with a mass shooting which claimed the lives of 12 people including three children at an unlicensed pub earlier this month, South African police said on Monday.
The man is suspected of being one of the three people who opened fire on patrons in a pub at Saulsville township, west of South Africa's capital Pretoria, killing 12 people including three children aged 3, 12 and 16.
At least 13 people were also injured during the attack, whose motive remains unknown.
According to the police, the suspect was arrested on Sunday while traveling to Botlokwa in Limpopo province, more than 340 km from where the mass shooting took place on Dec 6.
An unlicensed firearm believed to have been used during the attack was recovered from the suspect's vehicle.
“The 32-year-old suspect was intercepted by Limpopo Tracking Team on the R101 Road in Westenburg precinct. During the arrest, the team recovered an unlicensed firearm, a hand gun, believed to have been used in the commission of the multiple murders. The firearm will be taken to the Forensic Science Laboratory for ballistic analysis,” police said in statement.
The suspect was arrested on the same day that another mass shooting at a pub took place in the Bekkersdal township, west of Johannesburg, in which nine people were killed and 10 wounded when unknown gunmen opened fire on patrons.
Police have since launched a search for the suspects.
South Africa has one of the highest homicide rates in the world and recorded more than 26,000 homicides in 2024 — an average of more than 70 a day. Firearms are by far the leading cause of death in homicides.
The country of 62 million people has relatively strict gun ownership laws, but many killings are committed with illegal guns, according to authorities.
According to police, mass shootings at unlicensed bars are becoming a serious problem. Police shut down more than 11,000 illegal taverns between April and September this year and arrested more than 18,000 people for involvement in illegal liquor sales.
