Nine scientists will receive the Kavli Prizes and share three $1 million awards this year for their pioneering work that led to the cosmic theory of inflation, the discovery of brain cells responsible for memory and cognition and the development of new equipment that can help scientists see even smaller things.

"Today we are honoring great scientists in three categories for work that has provided us with new tools and new ways of thinking about astrophysics, nano-science and neuroscience. In the words of the founder of these prizes, today we honor the science of the largest, the smallest and the most complex," says (video) president of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters Nils Stenseth during the announcement of winners in Oslo, Norway, which was also broadcast live at the World Science Festival in New York City.

Three scientists who independently developed the theory of cosmic inflation, now one of the most accepted theories on the origins of the universe, will share the Kavli Prize for astrophysics. They are Alan Guth of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Andrei Linde of Stanford University and Alexei Starobinsky of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, Russia.

The cosmic inflation theory, which was first introduced in the 1980s, has been adopted as a subject of study by thousands of theorists because of recent developments that have proven its accuracy. According to the theory, the universe rapidly expanded, or inflated, within a split second of the Big Bang.

In the field of neuroscience, the Kavli Foundation will be bestowing the award to scientists whose work led to the discovery of specific parts of the brain that are directly related to memory and cognition. Brenda Milner of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, John O'Keefe of University College London and Marcus Raichle of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri will receive the Kavli Prize for neuroscience.

In a press release, the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters said that Milner, O'Keefe and Raichle's work on understanding how memory works "could open the door to understanding what has changed in patients with dementia and memory loss."

Thomas Ebbesen of the Université Louis Pasteur in Paris, France, Stefan Hell of the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany and John Pendry of Imperial College London share the $1 million award for nano-science.

Nano-science, which is the study of things smaller than bacteria, has long held the belief that light we see with our own eyes cannot interact with nano-structures, or objects smaller than the wavelength of light. Ebbesen, Hell and Pendry challenged these beliefs and turned out to be right. Their work eventually led to the development of technologies that allow scientists to see even smaller objects than before.

"This ability to see and image nanoscale objects is a critical prerequisite to further advances in the broader field of nanoscience," says the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.

The Kavli Foundation, in cooperation with the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, has awarded the Kavli Prizes every two years in three fields: astrophysics, neuroscience and nano-science. The winners will share a prize of $1 million for each field and receive a gold medal and a scroll. The Kavli Foundation and the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research will award the prizes in September in Oslo.

Norwegian-born Fred Kavli established the foundation in 2000 before passing away in November last year.