Eight scientists will share three million-dollar Kavli Prizes for their contributions in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience. The announcement was made today in Oslo, Norway, by Nils Christian Stenseth, president of the Nor­wegian Academy of Science and Letters, and broadcast live at the opening of the World Science Festival in New York City. The laureates will each receive a scroll, a gold medal and a share of the $1 million prize for each of the three fields.

Jerry Nelson from the University of California, Santa Cruz, Ray Wilson formerly of Imperial College London in the U.K., and Roger Angel from the University of Arizona will share the astrophysics prize for their innovations in giant tele­scope design. Donald Eigler from IBM’s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, Calif., and Nadrian Seeman from New York University will jointly accept the nanoscience prize for illuminating the basic units of matter and the building blocks of nanotechnology. Thomas Südhof from the Stanford University School of Medi­cine, Richard Scheller from the San Franscisco-based biotech company Genentech and James Rothman from Yale University together will take the neuroscience prize for revealing how neurons communicate with each other.

The Kavli Prize was created and named after Fred Kavli, founder of the California-based Kavli Foundation dedicated to advancing science for the benefit of humanity, promoting public understand­ing of scientific research and supporting scientists and their work. (Scientific American profiled Kavli in July 2005 .) The winners will receive their awards during Kavli Prize Week—a series of events and discussions honoring the new Laureates’ work—held September 6-9 in Oslo.

Photo courtesey of the Kavli Foundation.