Springer authors among the 2014 Nobel laureates

All Nobel laureates this year in medicine, physics, chemistry and economics are Springer authors

New York | Heidelberg, 14 October 2014

All of this year’s Nobel laureates in medicine, physics, chemistry and economics have had their research results published by Springer. The awards will be presented on 10 December 2014 in Stockholm, as they are every year, to mark the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel. Each laureate receives one of the coveted Nobel medals, a personal certificate and prize money.

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded with one half to John O’Keefe and the other half jointly to May-Britt Moser and her husband Edvard I. Moser. U.S.-born O’Keefe and the Norwegian couple were awarded the prize for their discovery of a ‘positioning system in the brain.’ They discovered that place and grid cells in the hippocampus of humans and animals reflect their position in a room. Results of their research appear in the Springer journals Biological Cybernetics, Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences, Experimental Brain Research, and Physiological Psychology (now Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience). The laureates also contributed book chapters to Computation in Neurons and Neural Systems, Memories: Molecules and Circuits and Space, Time and Memory in the Hippocampal Formation.

Three Japanese researchers received the Nobel Prize in Physics for their invention, 20 years ago, ‘of efficient blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs) which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources.’ The Nobel laureate Shuji Nakamura explained the science behind this technology as co-author of the Springer bestseller The Blue Laser Diode, which was first published in 1997 and is now already in its second edition. In 1999 he received the 'Julius Springer Prize for Applied Physics' from Springer. Nakamura was also a contributor to the book Technology of Gallium Nitride Crystal Growth and the book series Advances in Solid State Physics and has written articles for the Journal of Electronic Materials. The other two laureates, Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano, have had joint articles published in Springer’s Journal of Electronic Materials and Opto-Electronics Review. Amano is also co-editor of the book III-Nitride Based Light Emitting Diodes and Applications and has contributed chapters to the book Wide Bandgap Semiconductors.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Eric Betzig, Stefan W. Hell, and William E. Moerner ‘for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy,’ which circumvents the previously presumed limit for the maximum resolution of light microscopy. To do so, the researchers took advantage of the fact that the fluorescence of individual molecules can be turned on and off. The German physicist Hell received the 'Julius Springer Prize for Applied Physics' from Springer back in 2007. He is editor-in-chief of Springer’s Open Access journal Optical Nanoscopy and co-editor of the book Far-Field Optical Nanoscopy, due to be published in 2015. Furthermore, he wrote several chapters for the Handbook of Biological Confocal Microscopy and articles for the journals NanoBiotechnology and PMC Biophysics (now BMC Biophysics). A chapter by Nobel laureate Eric Betzig appeared in the book Near Field Optics, and William E. Moerner edited the Springer book Persistent Spectral Hole-Burning: Science and Applications. During the course of his career, Moerner has also written papers for a number of other Springer books and the journals Molecular Neurodegeneration, Applied Physics B, and Applied Magnetic Resonance.

Jean Tirole received the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences ‘for his analysis of market power and regulation,’ which clarify ‘how to understand and regulate industries with a few powerful firms.’ With Springer, he has published French articles in the journal Annales des Télécommunications, as well as English articles in the Journal of Regulatory Economics and De Economist. Furthermore, he wrote a chapter for the Springer book Creation and Transfer of Knowledge.

Springer has published work by more than 200 Nobel laureates in medicine, physics, chemistry, and economics, also including a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.