Two Nobel scientists to receive Order of Culture award

The government on Friday said Nobel laureates Satoshi Omura and Takaaki Kajita are among the seven individuals this year who will receive the Order of Culture, Japan’s top award for contributions to culture.

Omura, 80, was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine, and Kajita, 56, was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in physics earlier this month.

Also on the list is actor Tatsuya Nakadai, 82, whose movies include the 1980 Akira Kurosawa work “Kagemusha.”

The seven will receive their awards from Emperor Akihito at the Imperial Palace on the Culture Day national holiday next Tuesday.

In the meantime, actress Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, known for her best-selling childhood memoir “Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window,” Japan Football Association Supreme Advisor Saburo Kawabuchi, 78, and 14 others have been tapped for this year’s Person of Cultural Merit awards, to be bestowed on Wednesday.

Kajita will receive both awards this year.

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