It should come as no surprise that the University of Chicago has produced 70 Nobel Prize winners.

The school's mission from its founding has been to explore, to research, to learn.

Faculty members are expected to push forward the boundaries of human knowledge, whether their ideas are popular or not, and to share that new knowledge with their students.

The university's Nobel laureates have furthered our understanding of the world around us. They have made such profound differences that their contributions have surpassed academic confines and affected our daily lives.

"University of Chicago researchers developed our modern understanding of economics, thereby greatly improving the lives of millions around the world," said Larry Arbeiter, university spokesman.

"They created the field of urban sociology, devised carbon 14 dating, created the first blood bank, laid the foundations of modern ecology and the study of black holes, helped explain the details of evolutionary theory through life's history and proved that cancer could be caused by changes in our genes," he said.

The university's first Nobel was awarded in 1907 to Albert Michelson, who was a chairman in the physics department, and more awards came at a steady pace through this year, when economist Robert Mundell, a former professor at the school, became the latest laureate.

In between were other economists, physicists, chemists, doctors and writers who have helped shape their corners of the world, and ours.

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