To celebrate the 2006 science Nobel Prizes, DISCOVER fired a string of questions at this year's honorees. They are:
Andrew Fire and Craig Mello, who won the prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of RNA interference, or RNAi, a means by which cells use the genetic molecule RNA to silence or regulate genes;
John Mather and George Smoot, who won the physics prize for using the COBE satellite to analyze the cosmic microwave background radiation, a relic of the Big Bang and the earliest observable phase of the newborn universe;
Roger Kornberg, who captured the chemistry prize for creating the first images of cells transcribing DNA into RNA. His father, Arthur Kornberg, shared the 1959 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for describing how genetic information is transferred from a mother cell to its daughters.
Craig Mello
