For the next couple of days, all eyes of the scientific world will be on Stockholm as it is time for this year's Nobel Prize announcements. On Monday the Karolinska Institute present their pick for the Medicine Prize, on Tuesday it's the Royal Academy of Sciences' turn with the Physics Prize, followed by the Chemistry Prize on Wednesday.
We're a little faster here at Dagens Nyheter, where you can find out today who the winners are. Maybe.
At worst, my predictions will be just predictions. Some years, I've been partially right. Two years ago, I peaked by tipping two out of the three winners. But sometimes the Nobel committees are inscrutable, so last year I didn't guess anyone right.
Monday, the Medicine Prize. 11.30 at the earliest.
My pick for this year would be the mirror neuron, a type of brain cell that probably lies behind the human capacity toward empathy. Mirror neurons are also likely to have played an important role in our development of language abilities.
The decisive article came just twelve years ago, after the Italian research team had struggled for four years checking and re-checking their sensational discovery.
On macaca monkeys, they had examined certain brain cells that fired off every time one of the monkeys reached out for a peanut. By pure coincidence the researchers noticed that some nerve cells also fired off when the monkey saw someone else do that same movement reaching out for a peanut.
The Finnish brain researcher Riitta Hari was able to confirm that the mirror neuron is also part of humans. Instead of placing electrodes inside the heads of her experiment subjects, which she obviously could not do, Hari used a special brain camera to perform functional MRI scans.
So my main tip is a shared prize between Italian Giacomo Rizolatti and Finland's Riitta Hari for the discovery of mirror neurons.
Presuming I'm allowed to hedge my bets, my secondary tip would be telomerase, the enzyme, and the so-called telomeres.
Telomeres are the tiny, protecting knots on the ends of the chromosomes, where DNA is stored. You could compare them to the small plastic tips on shoelaces that protect the laces from fringing.
Normally, the telomeres - and as a result the chromosomes - get slightly shorter every time the cell splits. Many believe this to be an important aspect of aging. It might even BE aging.
This year, an interesting study (partially Swedish) showed that people that exercise regularly have longer telomeres than couch potatoes.
The enzyme telomerase has the ability to repair" the telomeres so that they can divide continuously without getting shorter. In humans, telomerase seems most present in sex cells, stem cells and cancer cells.
Telomerase was discovered more than twenty years ago by Americans Carol Greider and Elizabeth Blackburn. So my second-hand prediction would be a shared prize between the two of them.
Tuesday, Physics Prize, 11.45 at the earliest.
Isn't it time for exoplanets? I have certainly heard people argue against them. Of course anybody understands that there are lots of planets around other stars than our sun, it's just a matter of finding them," they say.
I, on the contrary, say it's not been that obvious; the discovery of just over 300 extrasolar planets so far has shaken man's view of our unique place in Universe.
It has also been very difficult to find them, technically.
Assuming that the first trustworthy observations were made in 1992, my top prediction would consist of four persons: Pole Aleksander Wolszczan, Canadian Dale Frail, and the Swiss Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz. But one of them will have to go as a Nobel Prize cannot be shared by more than three persons.
Another astronomical discovery that has shaken today's physics is the accelerated expansion of the Universe. The leaders of the two research teams that first saw the scampering supernovas exactly ten years ago are Saul Perlmutter and Robert Kirschner.
Because of these and some other new observations, cosmologists now say that the Universe to 73 percent consists of a mystic occurrence called, in lacking of a better word, dark energy.
There is even better proof that 23 percent of the Universe consists of so-called dark matter. One of the best evidences is astronomer Vera Rubin's observations during the early seventies of how galaxies rotate.
A Physics Prize for observations showing the existence of dark material and dark energy could suitably be shared between Vera Rubin, Saul Perlmutter and Robert Kirschner.
And of course, once again this year I have hopes for Andrei Linde, who has formulated the increasingly trustworthy theory of new universes popping up repeatedly in an everlasting cycle of extreme expansion, which is called cosmic inflation. But it's probably a little too early for him, I think it will require another few supporting observations.
It is also possible that the Nobel Committee for Physics makes a more prosaic pick, like fiber optic cables, or maybe electronic applications of carbon nanotubes. Japan's Sumio Iijima, Holland's Cees Dekker or Belgian Charles Lieber would be likely names then.
Wednesday, Chemistry Prize, 11.45 at the earliest.
The Chemistry Prize is usually the hardest one to guess, especially since the Nobel Committee for Medicine rewarded RNA interference two years ago. That was actually a little disappointing as RNAi was the biggest discovery in chemistry in many years.
But perhaps the Committee for Chemistry will find a RNA variant to reward.
One alternative to reward could be the work with the so-called ribosomes - the tiny machines" in our cells that turn DNA into proteins.
If so, then American Joan Steitz could win the Prize for her discoveries of how ribosomes work together with RNA. She could share it with Israel's Ada Yonath, who has designed accurate, three-dimensional portraits" of the ribosome's components through a technique called crystallography. Her findings may have great importance to one of the world's biggest problems, the growing antibiotic resistance.
Hence a shared Prize for Steitz and Yonath and the ribosome's function and form. That would be fun, but I honestly find it more likely that the Prize be given to for some chemi-technical development, i.e. something immediately useful to all working chemists. That is usually what the Committee for Chemistry rewards.
My first-hand tip is American W.E. Moerner, who has developed a method for observing individual cells, known as molecular spectroscopy. Probably a lot of fun and useful if you're a chemist.