It's Monday, November 27th, 2017, and you're listening to Inquiring Minds. I'm Kishorehari.

Each week, we bring you a new, in-depth exploration of the space where science, politics, and society collide.

We endeavor to endeavor, what's true, what's left to discover, and why it all matters.

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Last month, the 2017 Nobel Prizes were announced and next week brings the official ceremonies. The usual celebrations and consternations have ensued. In terms of the science, we had the Physiology or Medicine Award go to Michael Young, Michael Rosbash, and Jeffrey Hall for their work understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying circadian rhythms. The Chemistry Award

went to Jacques Dubouchet, Joachim Frank, and Richard Henderson for their pioneering work on

cryo-electron microscopy, which is an amazing technique for precise 3D imaging of small

biological molecules. And the physics award went to Kip Thorne, Ray Weiss,

and Barry Barish for their work on the LIGO project, detecting gravitational waves, actual

ripples of space time that rung a bell here on Earth. Amazing discovery, but this year we had

nine all-male winners on projects that involve thousands of scientists.

It seems like the time is ripe for change to the Nobel Prize award, awarding the prize to groups or even posthumously.

But the committees are apparently bound to the condition of Alfred Nobel's will.

But maybe it's time for an update to dispel the notion of lone scientists

pushing the science forward. To me, the most intriguing announcement was the physics one.

Much has been made of the discovery, because it did confirm a component of Einstein's theory

of relativity, and it opens up a whole new potential

type of astronomical observations. In the past couple months, more astounding announcements

have emerged from LIGO, including the collisions of two neutron stars. We may be on the cusp

of decades of new amazing discoveries from this instrument alone. But the story of the

conception and the construction of the

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