Two Brits and an American were awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine today for coming up with the technique to create knockout mice. Mario Capecchi, 70, of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Oliver Smithies, 82, a native of Britain now at University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, and Sir Martin J. Evans, 66, of Cardiff University in Wales took home science’s top honor. Knockout mice were first used in 1989 to breed the rodents with medical conditions such as cancer, cystic fibrosis, atherosclerosis, and high blood pressure.