Stories

Kenny Michelena is, by just about any measure, a tough guy. He was born and raised on a ranch in rural northwestern Wyoming and remembers that after class in elementary school, the bus driver would drop him off wherever he saw the family tractor, so he could go straight to work in the fields …

Grass on the sand dunes dawdles in a breeze. The air drifting in from the Pacific Ocean is clear and cool on this gray February morning. But Kimberly Prather is not outside inhaling its salty tang. …

If it wasn’t for the smell, no one would know there was a body there. The savannah grass reaches above the waists of passers-by sweating under the Gauteng summer sun. …

Vivek Sharma missed his daughter. A professor at the University of California, San Diego, Dr. Sharma had to spend months at a time away from home, coordinating a team of physicists at the Large Hadron Collider, here just outside Geneva. But on April 15, 2011, Meera Sharma’s 7th birthday, he flew to California for some much-needed family time. “We had a fine birthday, a beautiful day,” he recalled. Then Dr. Sharma was alerted to a blog post. There it was reported that a rival team of physicists had beaten his team to the discovery of the Higgs boson — the long-sought “God particle.” …

Gale Ridge could tell something was wrong as soon as the man walked into her office at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station. He was smartly dressed in a collared shirt and slacks, but his skin didn’t look right: [highlight]It was bright pink, almost purple — and weirdly glassy. …

Humankind has officially extended its reach to the space between the stars.

A video montage composed of excerpts from interviews with award winners.

A video montage composed of excerpts from interviews with award winners. This was the opening video that was played at the World Conference of Science Journalists.

In the northern reaches of the Tibetan Plateau, dozens of yaks graze on grasslands that look like a threadbare carpet. The pasture has been munched down to bare soil in places, and deep cracks run across the snow-dusted landscape. The animals’ owner, a herder named Dodra, emerges from his home wearing a black robe, a cowboy hat and a gentle smile tinged with worry. …

A video montage composed of excerpts from interviews with award winners. In this video we ask winners to share why they believe understanding science is crucial.