This is The Guardian.

There's not many events where you'd see molecular biologists, ophthalmologists and geneticists

hit the red carpet alongside celebs like Paris Hilton,

Christina Aguilera and Lionel Richie.

But these worlds do collide at the Breakthrough Prize Awards,

where millions of dollars are handed out for outstanding contributions to science during a swanky

star-studded ceremony.

This year's winners were a formidable bunch, scientists probing fundamental particles for

signs of new physics, a mathematician getting a handle on chaotic equations that blow up into

infinities, and a married couple who gave blind people back their sight.

So today, the winners of the Oscars of Science.

From The Guardian, I'm Madeleyn Finley, and this is Science Weekly.

Ian, you've written about the breakthrough prizes, and these are often described as the Oscars of science. And there's a glitzy

ceremony in LA. So what actually are they? And what do they reward? Yeah, the breakthrough prizes,

I mean, they originally conceived to try and turn scientists into sort of rock stars and give them

this amazing public persona and image because the people behind it

really just like scientists.

But they're backed by some Silicon Valley names and entrepreneurs that people might recognize.

Obviously Mark Zuckerberg, people will know, Sergei Bryn, Anna Wachiske, but also Yuri and Julia

Milner.

They were founders of the Breakthrough Prizes and the

Breakthrough Foundation that funds these things. So the prizes are given for discoveries in

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