Award Winners

Why is the town around a Canadian whiskey warehouse coated with a strange black fungus? Rogers explored some of the mysteries of microbiology in an unusual locale and took readers on an engaging, lively journey of exploration. “The story skillfully slips the spinach of science into the reader as smoothly as a shot of fine whiskey,” said science reporter Dan Vergano of USA Today. Laura Helmuth, a senior editor for Smithsonian magazine, called it “a charming story—unexpected, vivid, dramatic.” She added that Rogers “deftly explains the relevant history, chemistry, evolutionary biology, taxonomy…

Miller took her young readers to the top of redwood trees to learn how scientists study the canopy of these magnificent giants and the organisms that live there. They also are learning how water moves through the trunks and branches of trees that grow to more than 300 feet. “The story is a complete package with interesting sidebars, including one explaining how salmon and redwood forests benefit each other,” said Mary Knudson, a freelance science writer. “I first went camping on the northern California coast in the 1970s,” Miller said. “I was awestruck by the redwoods, but I didn’t know then…

Mark Johnson and Kathleen Gallagher of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel won in the large newspaper category for “One in a Billion,” a compelling series about the use of genomics to find the cause of an unknown disease that was eating away at the gut of four-year-old Nicholas Volker. Robert Lee Hotz, a science writer for The Wall Street Journal who served on the judging panel, called the series “a richly reported and brilliantly told epic of biomedicine.” “From the day we began working on ‘One in a Billion,’ we knew that understanding and explaining the science would be enormously challenging,”…

Christine Peterson, Kerry Huller and Wes Watson of Wyoming’s Casper Star-Tribune won for a series on the shrinking glaciers in the Wind River Range and the possible impacts locally. “Kudos to the Casper Star-Tribune for devoting energy and ink to explaining the science right in its readers’ back yards,” said judge Nancy Shute, a freelance science writer and contributor to NPR. Peterson and her colleagues looked at the work of local Wyoming scientists who have been studying the glacier ecosystem of the Wind River Range, including how microbes have been adapting to climate changes in the high…

A team from KQED, San Francisco, looked at the potential impact of sea level rise on the San Francisco Bay. The QUEST/Climate Watch co-production “used the visual medium of television effectively as it laid out the facts—and uncertainties—surrounding rising sea levels,” said Richard Harris, a science correspondent for NPR who served as a judge. Along with the rest of the world’s oceans and estuaries, San Francisco Bay is rising. The changes are slow and barely perceptible, but even the most optimistic estimates about how high and how quickly this rise will occur suggest potentially significant…

In a gripping account of the aftermath of the 11 March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the WGBH/NOVA team looked at the impact of the disaster and the search for answers by scientists in the field. Richard Harris of NPR said that the producers “moved with astonishing speed to tell the story of a still-unfolding disaster.” Richard Hudson, director of science production for Twin Cities Public Television, said the program used “breathtaking footage not seen in other broadcasts” and offered an “excellent treatment of the drama and the underlying science.” Robert Strange, executive producer…

Spitzer and De Bonis won for several segments in the ongoing “Clever Apes” series on WBEZ public radio. The series tells the stories of Chicago-area researchers and some of the intriguing questions they are out to answer. The winning segments dealt with pain research at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and Northwestern University’s Medical School; work by a Field Museum scientist in search of an elusive monkey in Tanzania that turned out to be part of an entirely new genus; the theory of a Northwestern University engineer on the origin of consciousness; tales of how our brains keep a…

PBS NOVA Online’s “Secret Life of Scientists and Engineers” offers a sometimes surprising look at the avocations and enthusiasms of researchers who pursue the mysteries of science. William Saletan, who covers science for Slate, called the winning entry “a delightfully engaging, visually creative series that illuminates the intrigue and texture of science through the personalities of its people.” The winning online video series introduced scientists and engineers in both their professional and personal lives. The subjects included a neurobiologist who meditates, a researcher on synesthesia who…