2000 Nobel prize laureate in chemistry Shirakawa dies at 90

TOKYO - Japan's Hideki Shirakawa, a 2000 Nobel laureate in chemistry known for his discovery and development of conductive polymers, died in late August, his family said Thursday. He was 90.

Shirakawa, a professor emeritus at the University of Tsukuba, was the ninth Japanese to win a Nobel prize and the second from the country to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry after Kenichi Fukui in 1981.