Sweden's Svante Pääbo wins Nobel prize in medicine for work on evolution

Stockholm — This year's Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine has been awarded to Swedish scientist Svante Pääbo for his discoveries on human evolution.

Thomas Perlmann, secretary of the Nobel Committee, announced the winner Monday at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.

Paabo, 67, has spearheaded research comparing the genome of modern humans and our closest extinct relatives, the Neanderthals and Denisovans, showing that there was mixing between the species.