The identities of top contenders for annual Nobel Prizes are kept under wraps during the nomination and selection process, no one quite knowing what happens behind the committees' closed doors. That secrecy doesn't stop a few brave organizations from trying to predict the winners every year, often with varying degrees of success. Alfred NobelImage: Wikipedia Publishing and information company Thomson Reuters released their linkurl:list of finalists;http://science.thomsonreuters.com/nobel/ yest

Insomnia, late-night habits, and irregular sleep schedules may be linked to the onset of Alzheimer's disease, says a new linkurl:study;http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1180962 published online today in ScienceExpress. Image: FlickrCreativeCommons, CraigMDennis"Our results are preliminary evidence that sleep abnormalities midlife could put people at risk of Alzheimer's disease later," said linkurl:David Holtzman,;http://neuro.wustl.edu/aboutus/facultybiographies/holtzman.htm, a co

Researchers have identified a role for rare, right-handed versions of amino acids. This so-called D-form of nature's building blocks allows bacterial cell walls to adapt to changes in the environment, says a study in Science this week -- marking one of the few times the D-aminos have been linked to biological function. Scanning electron microscope image of Vibrio cholerae Image: Wikipedia Commons"If you go back in literature dating 20-40 years ago, it was widely believed that we existed in a st