Six American scientists and a Turkish writer received their Nobel Prizes on Sunday at a ceremony in the capital of Sweden.

Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk won the literature prize for a body of work that illustrates the struggle to find a balance between East and West.

US researchers have long dominated the science awards, and swept them all this year for the first time since 1983.

The Nobel Prize in medicine went to Andrew Z. Fire and Craig C. Mello for discovering a powerful way to turn off the effect of specific genes.

John C. Mather and George F. Smoot won the physics prize for work that helped cement the big-bang theory of how the universe was created.

Roger D. Kornberg won the prize in chemistry for his studies of how cells take information from genes to produce proteins, a process that could provide insight into defeating cancer and advancing stem cell research.

Economics winner Edmund S. Phelps was cited for research into the relationship between inflation and unemployment, giving governments better tools to formulate economic policy.
 
About 2,000 guests, including Sweden's royal family, were invited to the award ceremony at Stockholm's concert hall, followed by a lavish banquet a few blocks away at City Hall.

Bangladeshi Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank that he founded received the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize earlier Sunday at a ceremony in Norwegian capital Oslo for creating microcredit system that has helped millions of poor people in his homeland.

The Nobel Prizes are usually announced in October and are handed out every year on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the 1896 death of Alfred Nobel, a Swedish industrialist and the inventor of dynamite.

This year's prize carries a cash award of 10 million Swedish kronor (about US$1.4 million), a gold medal and a diploma.

The Nobels, widely regarded as the world's most prestigious accolades in science and literature, have been awarded since 1901.

(Xinhua News Agency December 11, 2006)