Science news – 2026 Nobel Prizes for science

It’s time for a small episode about some big prizes in science, with five fun and fascinating fast facts about the 2026 Nobel Prizes for Physics, Chemistry, and Physiology or Medicine, a deep dive into optogenetics, and a mirror image molecule activity for you to try yourself at home.   Presented by Jenny Lynch and Matilda. Written and produced by Jenny Lynch. Music by Purple Planet Music. Sound effects by Pixabay.   Support the podcast to keep it ad-free! https://buymeacoffee.com/creativescience Join the email list: https://www.creativescience.com.au/contact/ Creative Science: https://www.creativescience.com.au Facebook: @creativescienceaustralia Instagram: @creative\science\australia   Episode content: 00:00 Buy a virtual test tube to support the Creative Science for Kids podcast 00:23 Introduction and fast facts 04:31 Deep dive into optogenetics 06:33 Mirror image molecule activity   Nobel Prize: https://www.nobelprize.org/   Mirror image molecule activity You will need: your two hands and a mirror. 1. Stand in front of a mirror and hold up your left hand. If you wiggle your fingers, you will see the mirror image of your wiggly fingers on the hand you can see in the mirror. Your real hand, and the hand in the mirror, have all the same parts (four fingers, one thumb, fingernails, and a palm) but their three-dimensional shapes are not exactly the same. 2. Hold up your left hand and your right hand and do a thumbs up with both hands. Notice that your right hand is a mirror image of your left hand. 3. Hold your hands together so the palms are touching and all of your fingers line up and it seems like your two hands are a matching pair. 4. Put your hands flat on a table top, with the palms facing down, and then stack your hands on top of each other. The fingers don’t line up anymore and there is no way of matching up your left and right hands in this position. What’s happening? The 2026 Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded for discoveries about mirror image molecules. These molecules are called ‘chiral molecules’ and the different mirror image molecules are called ‘left-handed’ and ‘right-handed’. There are a lot of molecules in the human body that are chiral molecules. For example, DNA is a chiral molecule, and our bodies only have one of the two mirror image shapes of DNA. We only have right-handed DNA, and the DNA in all living things is always right-handed.