3 scientists win chemistry Nobel for creating 'world's smallest machines'

If you can, take a strand of your hair and examine it up close. Now, try to imagine something 1,000 times thinner than that strand of hair. That's the size of "the world's smallest machines," which were created by three scientists who, on Wednesday, received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their innovation.

France's Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Northwestern University's Sir Fraser Stoddart, and the Netherlands' Bernard L. Feringa "have developed molecules with controllable movements, which can perform a task when energy is added," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences explained in a statement. These molecular machines could be used "in the development of things such as new materials, sensors, and energy storage systems," but could also help doctors control, with incredible accuracy, how drugs are dispersed in the body.

"It's early days, but once you can control movement, you have many possibilities," Feringa said. "We think of transporters, and of microrobots that doctors could inject into veins to search for cancer cells, or deliver drugs, or maybe smart materials that can change in response to a signal."

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The winners will share a prize of 8 million kronor, or about $930,000.