Congratulations and salutations to the four winners (including one semi-anonymous team of editor types) of the 2012 NASA Science in Society Awards. Best way to read up on the details is with the NASW's press release that went out on Friday. In case you missed it and are in a hurry, here they are:
- BOOKS: Seth Mnookin – Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine ; On the baseless fear of vaccines as an autism gateway.
- SCIENCE REPORTING: Center for Public Integrity and National Public Radio teams: : Poisoned Places with versions at CPI and broadcast by NPR; Huge series on why the Clean Air Act should never be repealed or gutted to be any weaker than it is already.
- SCIENCE REPORTING for Local or Regional Audience: Emilene Ostlind, Mary Ellen Hannibal, Cally Carswell in High Country News – Perilous Passages ; Regarding the stubborn effort, and the troubles met, by pronghorns to migrate along customary routes come hell or high fence. (This one got a rave post in the tracker when it was new, the only entry we spotted its first time around).
- Commentary or Opinion: Scientific American Board of Editors – Ban Chimp Testing. An influential pub puts its foot down, emphatically.
One pauses only to note the inevitable. "Science in Society" is a category that focusses on revelations of threats or boons or other science-releated developments that change how we live. That often brings up matters of health or recreation or land use or other daily activity. Life-sciences stories tend to fill the bill best. How could it be otherwise? It is hard to expect anything found with an astronomer's telescope or a physicist's particle collider to alter the lives of most of us in a measurable way, even if it's life on Mars or Gliese XXb. For a new boson or WIMP to make the cut it'd at least have to cure the common cold or bring us limitless electricity. There have been a few near exceptions as a look at the previous five rounds shows. Last year saw nuclear power and climate change on the list, each of which is focused largely on non-organic sciences even if they have health implications. In 2008 a profile of an organic chemist was honored for its exploration of racial prejudice in American science. His work largely involved drug synthesis and hormone work so also has a distinct life sciences character. In 2007 another global warming piece won.
Disclosure: I am close to these awards – former NASW president and member of this year's preliminary screening group.
– Charlie Petit
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