Karl Deisseroth 'almost couldn't speak' when the Nobel call came
Associated Press filmed the Stanford scientist in California on the morning of his medicine prize, and the short clip became the channel's most watched new upload of the day.
Associated PressStory of Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 282,680 views a day, 16 times a normal first day on this channel (17,729).
Nobel Prize in medicine winner says he 'almost couldn't speak' when he found out
Associated Press reached Karl Deisseroth in California only hours after the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was announced in Stockholm. In the short clip he says he "almost couldn't speak" when he found out. Eight hours after it went up, it had passed 135,000 views. A new AP video usually ends its whole first day below 18,000.
Deisseroth shares the prize with Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel for work on light-gated ion channels and the method built on them, optogenetics. Hegemann and Nagel studied light-sensitive proteins in algae. In the mid-2000s Deisseroth's lab at Stanford placed those proteins in nerve cells, so researchers could turn chosen brain cells on and off with a flash of light. The description notes that the Nobel Assembly praised the tool for revealing the brain's mysteries in laboratories around the world.
The clip joins two places. Terry Chea filmed in California and Kostya Manenkov in Stockholm, and the tags also name Thomas Perlmann, the Nobel Assembly's secretary.
It was a busy Monday for the channel. A live stream of an Ohio murder sentencing and a report on protests in Okinawa also started well above an ordinary first day, but the scientist outdrew both. Most comments are congratulations or thanks for pure research. One viewer jokes about how relaxed he looks for a man who says he was lost for words, and another asks where to buy a flashlight that switches on brain cells.
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What viewers say
Where can I buy a flashlight like this to turn on my brain cells??
@DannyKov11See it on YouTubeThank you for your contributions sir.
@mikebowman9844See it on YouTubeDude is mad chill 😂 I wouldn’t even know! Congrats bro
@3commas9zerosSee it on YouTube
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- Channel
- Associated Press
- Subscribers
- 4,680,000 ▲ 10,000 this week
- Channel views, last 7 days
- 12,314,993
- Channel views, pace per day
- 816,801 (on a normal day: 2,189,590)
- Video published
- October 5, 2026
- Video views so far
- 135,640 (less than a day online)
- Video views, pace per day
- 282,680
The numbers
A news channel this size rarely sees a two-minute science clip outrun its live courtroom coverage. Here is how the first hours added up.
💡 Test your knowledge
Alfred Nobel, whose will created the Nobel Prizes, made his fortune from which invention?
Nobel patented dynamite in 1867, and the fortune it brought him funded the prizes he set up in his will.
