Nobel Prize for Physics, Chemistry and Medicines announced

Gerhard Ertl of Germany will receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He will receive the $1.5 Million prize for his groundbreaking studies of how chemical reactions take place on surfaces. It is also important to note that Gerhard Ertl laid the foundation for studies of modern surface chemistry.

Americans Mario R. Capecchi and Oliver Smithies, and Briton Sir Martin J. Evans, won the Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for discoveries that led to a powerful technique for manipulating mouse genes.

Similarly, France's Albert Fert and German Peter Gruenberg won the physics award for discovering a phenomenon that lets computers and digital music players store reams of data on ever-shrinking hard disks.