Level 1 - Absolute Beginner
Two scientists won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. They are Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai. The prize was announced on Wednesday.
Many molecules have two forms. The forms look like your left hand and your right hand. They are mirror images.
Living things use only one form of many molecules. Scientists asked why for a long time.
Kagan and Soai found a way to explain this. A tiny difference can grow into a big difference.
- chemistry
- The science of what things are made of.
- molecule
- A very small piece of matter.
- mirror
- A glass that shows your image.
- form
- A kind or shape of something.
- prize
- A reward for very good work.
- tiny
- Very, very small.
- grow
- To become bigger.
- scientist
- A person who studies the world.
Level 2 - Elementary
The 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to Henri B. Kagan, from France, and Kenso Soai, from Japan. Soai is 95 years old and works at the Tokyo University of Science. The Nobel committee announced the prize on October 7.
Many molecules come in two shapes that are mirror images of each other, like a left and a right hand. Scientists call this property chirality. In living things, almost all the molecules of a certain kind have the same hand.
How did that happen? Soai showed a reaction where a very small extra amount of one hand grows into a large amount. The reaction helps to make more of itself. This is called autocatalysis. Kagan found related non-linear effects, where a small change at the start can have a big effect at the end.
The prize is 12 million Swedish kronor, about 1.2 million dollars. The two winners share it equally.
- chirality
- The property of being a mirror image that is not the same.
- reaction
- A change in which substances become different substances.
- committee
- A group chosen to make a decision.
- equally
- In the same amount for each one.
- property
- A quality of something.
- effect
- A result of an action.
- amount
- How much there is of something.
- share
- To divide something between people.
Level 3 - Intermediate
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai for the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis. Kagan is associated with the Université Paris-Sud in Orsay, and Soai, who is 95, with the Tokyo University of Science.
The work addresses a long-standing puzzle. Many of the molecules of life, such as amino acids and sugars, are chiral, meaning they exist in two mirror-image forms, yet living organisms use almost exclusively one of them. How such asymmetry could have emerged was long a mystery to chemists.
Kagan identified non-linear effects in asymmetric catalysis, in which the purity of the product does not simply follow the purity of the catalyst. Soai demonstrated asymmetric autocatalysis, in which a small initial imbalance in handedness is amplified as the reaction proceeds, so that the product helps to make more of itself in the same form.
Some outlets also connect the findings to drug manufacturing, where producing a single mirror-image form can matter greatly for safety, but that is a secondary comment. The 12 million kronor prize is shared equally by the two laureates.
- asymmetric
- Not the same on both sides.
- synthesis
- Making a complex substance from simpler ones.
- chiral
- Existing in two mirror-image forms.
- catalyst
- A substance that speeds up a reaction without being used up.
- amplify
- To make something stronger or bigger.
- imbalance
- A lack of equal amounts.
- emerge
- To come into existence.
- laureate
- A person who wins a major prize.
Level 4 - Advanced
Why does life use one hand? That deceptively simple question lies behind this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry, awarded to Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai for the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis. The Nobel committee framed the award as the solution to a puzzle about how chemical asymmetry, such as the single mirror-image form of molecules found in living organisms, could have emerged at all.
Many biological molecules are chiral: they exist as two forms that are mirror images and cannot be superimposed, like a pair of hands. In a laboratory flask, ordinary reactions give an equal mixture of both. Yet amino acids in proteins are almost uniformly of one hand, an observation that has fed speculation about prebiotic chemistry for generations.
Kagan, of the Université Paris-Sud in Orsay, showed that in asymmetric catalysis the purity of the product need not track the purity of the catalyst, a non-linear relationship that overturned a simple assumption. Soai, 95 and affiliated with the Tokyo University of Science, went further with asymmetric autocatalysis: a reaction whose product catalyses its own formation, so that a minute initial excess of one hand is magnified until it dominates.
The result does not prove how life began, and the committee's framing should be read as a demonstration of principle: tiny, random imbalances can in some chemistries be amplified into near-total selectivity. Some commentary also points to drug production, where making a single mirror-image form can determine safety, but that is secondary. The 12 million kronor prize, about 1.2 million dollars, is split equally.
- deceptively
- In a way that hides how complex something is.
- superimposed
- Placed exactly on top of another shape.
- prebiotic
- Existing before the beginning of life.
- non-linear
- Not in direct proportion.
- magnify
- To make larger or stronger.
- selectivity
- The tendency to produce one outcome over others.
- affiliated
- Officially connected to an organisation.
- minute
- Extremely small.
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