They understood how the immune system is kept in check
The body’s powerful immune system must be regulated, or it may attack our own organs. Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi are awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2025 for their groundbreaking discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance that prevents the immune system from harming the body. Their discoveries have laid the foundation for a new field of research and spurred the development of new treatments, for example for cancer and autoimmune diseases.
From the Nobel prize site. Full article there.
The term "puffball," as I am using it here, is not at all scientific; I mean more or less any mushroom that looks like a ball when mature. Typically the interior of a puffball is composed of spore-producing flesh that turns into spore dust as the mushroom matures. When the puffball matures it splits open, or a perforation develops on surface of the ball, through which the spores escape—when raindrops land on the puffball, via air currents, or by some other means...