Chemistry prize for molecule analysis

Two Americans and a French scientist won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing a chemical "dance" called metathesis that makes molecules swap atoms.

The process is used to create medicines, plastics and other products with more efficiency and less environmental hazard.

The prize will be shared by Robert H. Grubbs, 63, of the California Institute of Technology; Richard R. Schrock, 60, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Yves Chauvin, 74, honorary director of research at the Institut Francais du Petrole in Rueil-Malmaison, France.

Grubbs is lecturing in Christchurch.