This may seem like science fiction, but it's real and earned a Nobel Prize for three chemists last week. They created what are called "the world's smallest machines" -- tiny molecular devices that act like motors, elevators, switches, muscles and even something resembling a car with four "wheels."The creations, called nano-machines, are about 1,000 times narrower than a human hair. They can be seen only with ultra-powerful electron microsocopes.

The revolutionary research by the international prize winners -- Jean-Pierre Sauvage of France, Sir J. Fraser Stoddart of Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., and Bernard L. Feringa of the Netherlands -- is already being used to create medical micro-robots and materials that repair themselves. It could lead to molecular computers, targeted medical therapies and new energy-storage systems.

The trio, who worked separately at different campuses, share the $930,000 prize equally. They’re recognized for a series of advances over the past three decades. (Yes, more than 30 years – scientific breakthroughs are a slow process that take patience, dedication and lots of trail-and-error work.) Their work has inspired others to push the boundaries with molecular machinery -- research that's still in basic stages.

At the awards ceremony in Sweden's capital (Stockholm), Nobel officials said the early steps are like development of the electric motor in 1830s, when engineers built wheels and spinning parts without knowing they’d lead to everyday devices such as food processors, washing machines and golf carts. Feringa, one winner, suggests that nano-technology could bring "tiny robots that the doctor in the future will inject in your blood veins and that go to search for a cancer cell, or go in to deliver drugs."

Winner says: "I'm so honored and also emotional about it." – Bernard Feringa, University of Groningen in the Netherlands

Expert says: "This is the start of a new molecular era." -- Sara Snogerup Linse, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry

What "nano" means: The winners create structures on the scale of a nanometer, or a billionth of a meter (a metric measurement).