Science at Collins

This year’s physics Nobel was split between Charles Kao for breakthroughs in fiber optics for one half, and  Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith for the CCD sensor for the other. Both halves not only represented new scientific discoveries but have become the foundation of our digital communications.

To find out more, read the Nobel committee’s scientific background report, check out City of Light here at Collins Library,  or read J. R. Janesick’s Duelling Detectors. Or, try our physics resources to hunt down the primary research reports…

The Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine this year went to Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider, and Jack W. Szostak, for their work on “how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase”.

Learn more with some key publications you can find at Collins Library:

• Szostak JW, Blackburn EH. Cloning yeast telomeres on linear plasmid vectors. Cell 1982; 29:245-255.
  In print at Collins
• Greider CW, Blackburn EH. Identification of a specific telomere terminal transferase activity in Tetrahymena extracts. Cell 1985; 43:405-13.
  In print at Collins
• Greider CW, Blackburn EH. A telomeric sequence in the RNA of Tetrahymena telomerase required for telomere repeat synthesis. Nature 1989; 337:331-7.
  This issue in print at Collins; 1990 to the present online.

Or watch the prize announcement or a quick talk about the discovery honored.