Science in Society Awards

Stories about the seriously flawed national flu vaccine program, the historic decoding of the human genome, the struggle to preserve the New England fish population, the inadequate science behind the country’s dietary fat dictates, troubling questions about depleted uranium lingering in former war zones, and the tantalizing potential of methane hydrates all earned top honors for journalists in the 2001 Science in Society Journalism Award.

Stories about a contentious set of 9,000-year-old human bones found in the Pacific Northwest, dauntless AIDS-prevention efforts targeting women in Africa, the complex scientific challenge of global warming, academic integrity in peril from commercially sponsored research, and the fight over genetically engineered food all earned top honors for journalists in the 2000 Science in Society Journalism Awards.

Winners include entries on the history of salt research and its conflicting findings, the struggles of Brookhaven National Laboratory and its surrounding community in light of environmental contamination from the prestigious lab’s research activities, and the relationship of science to current apocalyptic thinking spurred by the approaching new millennium.