Speculation heats up ahead of Nobel science prizes

Nobel pundits said the field was wide open and the speculation intense ahead of next week's prizes.

"It's like playing the stockmarket. There's always rumors," said Phil Schewe of the American Institute of Physics.

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Stockholm's Karolinska Institute announces medicine on Monday while the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences presents the physics award on Tuesday and chemistry on Wednesday.

In physics, leading names include Americans George Smoot and John Mather for research on disturbances in cosmic microwave radiation, to peer into the first seconds after the Big Bang.

Russian Andrei Linde and MIT's Alan Guth could be in the running for developing the so-called Inflation theory which explains the universe's early existence and rapid expansion.

Sumio Iijima, Cees Dekker, Phaedon Avouris and Charles M. Lieber, are admired for work on carbon nanotubes, tiny sheets of rolled graphite which can hold electrical currents 100 times higher than metal wires and could shrink electronics radically.

Cambridge University's Stephen Hawking is in contention for his work on black holes. "One Nobel committee member told me Hawking is the biggest name since Einstein," said Karin Bojs, science editor of the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter.

Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa are tipped for work on CP Violation -- a theory which explains the relationship of matter and antimatter and the structure of the universe.

In chemistry, pioneers of the mapping the human genetic code are under focus including Craig Venter of Celera Genomics and Francis Collins of the US National Human Genome Research Institute and Larry Kricka at University of Pennsylvania.