homehome Home chatchat Notifications


Photo of black hole snaps $3 million "Oscar of Science" award

Each of the group's 347 scientists, will get around US$8,600.

Mihai Andrei
September 6, 2019 @ 12:51 pm

share Share

Every year, tech billionaires offer financial awards for some of the year’s most important science findings. A total of $21.6 million was awarded for breakthroughs in creating the first image of a black hole, determining the biological mechanisms of obesity, and discoveries in biochemistry and pain sensation.

Image credits: Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration.

Every galaxy is thought to have a black hole at its center. These gargantuan objects, so dense that even light itself can’t escape them, were thought to be impossible to image directly — after all, how can you photograph something that absorbs all the light around it? But the scientists from the international Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration managed to do so, bringing humanity an image from the brink of darkness itself.

Needless to say, the entire world tuned into the discovery and cherished it. Now, the team behind this landmark image have also received a Breakthrough 2020 Award.

Sometimes jovially called the “Oscars of Science,” the awards are offered by the Breakthrough Foundations’s sponsors, which include Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan, and Google founder Sergey Brin. Now in its eight running year, the Breakthrough Awards are quite possibly the most generous financial awards in science, with each prize being worth $3 million. For the first image of a supermassive black hole, taken by means of an Earth-sized alliance of telescopes, the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration received $3 million — but they weren’t the only awardees.

Four Breakthrough prizes were awarded in the life sciences. Geneticist Jeffrey Friedman, one of the world’s leading obesity scientists, was recognized for discovering a hormone called leptin, which tells the brain to regulate appetite and dictates when we feel full. His research elucidated the “leptin system” operating below the level of consciousness and “will power” that regulates when, what and how much we eat.

David Julius discovered cellular mechanisms that produce pain sensation, laying the foundation for the next generation of chronic pain treatment. Among others, he also found that chili peppers and menthol trigger the same sensory receptors in the nervous system that ordinarily respond to heat and cold.

Meanwhile, Virginia Man-Yee Lee and Arthur Horwich individually carried landmark research on protein, helping us to better understand these building blocks of life.

Alex Eskin received the Breakthrough Award in Mathematics, for his work with the late Iranian Fields Medal-winning mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani. Together, they tackled the ‘billiard ball problem’, which considers the trajectories a billiard ball can take as it bounces around polygonal tables, and derived a so-called ‘magic wand theorem’ — which brings together aspects of topology, dynamical systems, and geometry to easily solve many previously stubborn mathematics problems.

In addition, three New Horizons in Physics and Mathematics were also given out to junior researchers.

The laureates will be recognized at a gala in the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, which will be broadcast live on National Geographic. The program will also include special lectures and presentations.

share Share

A Dutch 17-Year-Old Forgot His Native Language After Knee Surgery and Spoke Only English Even Though He Had Never Used It Outside School

He experienced foreign language syndrome for about 24 hours, and remembered every single detail of the incident even after recovery.

Your Brain Hits a Metabolic Cliff at 43. Here’s What That Means

This is when brain aging quietly kicks in.

Scientists Just Found a Hidden Battery Life Killer and the Fix Is Shockingly Simple

A simple tweak could dramatically improve the lifespan of Li-ion batteries.

Westerners cheat AI agents while Japanese treat them with respect

Japan’s robots are redefining work, care, and education — with lessons for the world.

Scientists Turn to Smelly Frogs to Fight Superbugs: How Their Slime Might Be the Key to Our Next Antibiotics

Researchers engineer synthetic antibiotics from frog slime that kill deadly bacteria without harming humans.

This Popular Zero-Calorie Sugar Substitute May Be Making You Hungrier, Not Slimmer

Zero-calorie sweeteners might confuse the brain, especially in people with obesity

Any Kind of Exercise, At Any Age, Boosts Your Brain

Even light physical activity can sharpen memory and boost mood across all ages.

A Brain Implant Just Turned a Woman’s Thoughts Into Speech in Near Real Time

This tech restores speech in real time for people who can’t talk, using only brain signals.

Using screens in bed increases insomnia risk by 59% — but social media isn’t the worst offender

Forget blue light, the real reason screens disrupt sleep may be simpler than experts thought.

Beetles Conquered Earth by Evolving a Tiny Chemical Factory

There are around 66,000 species of rove beetles and one researcher proposes it's because of one special gland.