Explaining the 2021 Nobel Prizes: how touch works, a better way to make medicine and the fiction of Abdulrazak Gurnah

Six prize announcements later, 12 men and one woman from 11 countries are now settling down to their new lives as Nobel laureates. In this episode, we delve into the scientific discoveries around touch and organic catalysts awarded the 2021 prizes in medicine and chemistry. And we talk to a friend and collaborator of Abdulrazak Gurnah, the Tanzanian writer awarded the Nobel prize for literature.

Featuring Kate Poole, associate professor in physiology, at the University of New South Wales in Australia, David Nagib, associate professor of chemistry at the Ohio State University and Susheila Nasta, emeritus professor of modern and contemporary literatures at Queen Mary University of London.

Plus, Ina Skosana, health editor at The Conversation in Johannesburg, recommends some recent analysis on a huge breakthrough for the African continent: the approval of a malaria vaccine. (At 41m30)

The Conversation Weekly is produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware, with sound design by Eloise Stevens. Our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. You can sign up to The Conversation’s free daily email here. Full credits for this episode available here.

Further reading

• My PhD supervisor just won the Nobel prize in physics – here’s how his research on complex systems changed science, by Paolo Barucca, UCL
• Nobel Peace Prize for journalists serves as reminder that freedom of the press is under threat from strongmen and social media, by Kathy Kiely, University of Missouri-Columbia
• Nobel winner David Card proves immigrants don’t reduce the wages of native-born workers, by Arvind Magesan, University of Calgary
• Breakthrough malaria vaccine offers to reinvigorate the fight against the disease, by Eunice Anyango Owino, University of Nairobi
• Malaria vaccine is a major leap forward: but innovation mustn’t stop here, by Jaishree Raman and Shüné Oliver, National Institute for Communicable Diseases