This year’s Breakthrough Prizes, cast as the “Oscars of Science,” are going to genetic engineers, disease fighters, math whizzes — and the scientists on the cosmos-mapping team behind the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, or WMAP.
Today’s award of $22 million in prizes is being wrapped into a ceremony at NASA’s Ames Research Center that combines Hollywood glitz with Silicon Valley brainpower.
Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman is the host for the show, which is being televised by National Geographic and streamed live via Facebook and YouTube at 7 p.m. PT tonight. Celebrity presenters include Ashton Kutcher (“That ’70s Show”); his wife, Mila Kunis (“Bad Moms”); and Kerry Washington (“Scandal”).
The prize program was established in 2012 by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner and his wife, Julia Milner, in league with Google co-founder Sergey Brin, 23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.
It ranks among science’s richest award programs, with seven $3 million prizes being awarded this year in life sciences, fundamental physics and mathematics. Another $1 million is going out to early-career scientists, students and teachers.
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