10:55 AM
A Masterton-born man is a joint winner of this year's prestigious Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
Alan MacDiarmid, Ph.D., completed his undergraduate studies in New Zealand, and has been on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania for the past 40 years.
Professor McDiarmid, aged 73, shares the prize with
Alan Heeger of the University of California at Santa Barbara and Hideki Shirakawa of the University of Tsukuba.
The US$1 million ($2.52 million) prize recognises the scientists' revolutionary discovery that plastic can, with certain modifications, be made electrically conductive.
Professor McDiarmid's award brings to three the number of New Zealand-born Nobel Prize winners. The others are Sir Ernest Rutherford and Maurice Wilkins.
- IRN
