Seven scientists are sharing three $1-million prizes, awarded today in Oslo, for their work in astrophysics, nanoscience, and neuroscience. This is the first year that the new Kavli Prizes are being awarded.

Maarten Schmidt, of the California Institute of Technology, shared the $1-million astrophysics award with Donald Lynden-Bell, of the University of Cambridge. Both scientists’ research shed light on quasars. Mr. Schmidt’s helped explain how distant quasars are, and Mr. Lynden-Bell’s showed that black holes fuel quasars.

The Kavli prize for nanoscience went to Louis E. Brus, of Columbia University, and Sumio Iijima, of Meijo University, in Japan. They were recognized for their discoveries of colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals and carbon nanotubes.

Three scientists shared the $1-million neuroscience prize: Pasko Rakic, of the Yale University School of Medicine; Thomas Jessell, of Columbia University; and Sten Grillner, of the Karolinska Institute, in Sweden. The prize honors their contributions to explaining how networks of cells in the brain and spinal cord develop and function.

The California businessman and physicist Fred Kavli started the Kavil Foundation in 2000. The Kavli prizes are awarded by the foundation in partnership with the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research. —Kate Moser