tl;dr: The 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai for discovering non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis, solving a long-standing puzzle of how homochirality can emerge spontaneously. Kagan's 1986 work enabled producing a greater excess of one mirror-image molecule than previously possible, and Soai's 2003 reaction became the first to yield only one of two possible mirror images—critical for pharmaceutical manufacturing where only one chiral form typically has the desired biological effect.