Germany’s Harald zur Hausen and French researchers Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in medicine today for discovering the Aids virus and the role of viruses in cervical cancer.

German scientist Gerhard Ertl won this year’s chemistry Nobel Prize today for research that has helped explain the thinning of the ozone layer.

Discoveries of planets orbiting stars outside the solar system, efforts to better understand the weather and work on carbon tubes are among the discoveries that could win the Nobel Prize in physics today.