Afghanistan, Oct. 7 -- French chemist Henri B. Kagan and Japanese chemist Kenso Soai have been awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis, work that helped explain how life can favor one mirror-image form of a molecule over another.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the award on Wednesday, saying the two scientists had helped resolve a chemistry mystery more than a century old: how homochirality, the predominance of one molecular "handedness" in living systems, can emerge spontaneously.
Many molecules exist in two forms that are mirror images of each other, known as enantiomers. Like a person's left and right hands, the two forms may look sim...