Roger Kornberg of Stanford University presumably got the call from Stockholm at 3am in California. He won a solo Nobel in Chemistry for elucidating the mechanics of transcription via the crystallization of RNA polymerase. He?s the third American life scientist to pull down a Nobel this year and the second to win the prize in his family. Father, Arthur Kornberg won the 1959 prize in Physiology or Medicine for elucidating DNA synthesis.