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Cover Story

Cover Story - Spanish Version

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Comprehension Quiz

Teacher's Guide and Worksheets

The World's Greatest Honor

How does a single egg cell know how to turn into the head, wings and body of a fruit fly? What happens to the earth's ozone layer when man-made chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) build up in the atmosphere? What are the tiniest building blocks of the universe? How can nuclear weapons be stopped?

Last week the scientists who found answers to these questions got a reward: the world's highest honor, the Nobel Prize. Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite, created the prize in 1896. Nobel didn't want to be remembered only for something destructive. So he used his huge fortune to start rewarding people who work for the "good of humanity."

Three scientists--Edward Lewis and Eric Wieschaus of the U.S. and Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard of Germany--shared the $1 million prize in medicine for figuring out how the body parts of a fruit fly develop. It turns out that humans develop pretty much the same way. So their work will help doctors understand what causes birth defects.

Other scientists from the U.S. and Germany won the chemistry prize for finding out how CFCs damage the earth's protective ozone layer. Their work has helped persuade the world to cut back on CFCs, now used to keep many refrigerators cold.

Many people think the Nobel Peace Prize is the most important. This year it went to Joseph Rotblat, a British physicist who has spent a half-century working to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.

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