Only 39 Nobel Prizes have been handed out to women, and that includes this year's three female winners and both of Marie Curie's awards, writes Amber Bellaire for The Globe and Mail. Considering that the Nobel Foundation was founded in 1900, Ada Yonath, Elizabeth H Blackburn and Carol W Greider were nothing short of ecstatic on the announcement of their awards this week.

Israeli scientist Yonath won the 2009 Nobel Prize in chemistry on Tuesday for mapping ribosomes, the protein-producing factories within cells, at the atomic level. "These models are now used by scientists in order to develop new antibiotics, directly assisting the saving of lives and decreasing humanity's suffering," the academy said in its announcement. Yonath shared the prize with American colleagues Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas Steitz.

Blackburn and Greider were co-recipients of the Nobel Prize in medicine, announced on Monday at the Nobel assembly in Stockholm, Sweden. The two women shared the award with another American, Jack W Szostak.
Full report on the Globe and Mail site

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