The contest is jointly sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the journal Science, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Winning entries in this year's competition span research fields from viral medicine to Earth science and span the globe from Germany to Seattle. They are displayed in the Sept. 24 issue of Science and in the journal's electronic edition "Science Online." More than 90 entries qualified for judging. An independent panel of distinguished science communicators and graphics experts evaluated the entries on visual impact, innovation and technical accuracy. Winners in the 2004 challenge are:
First Place:
Marna E. Ericson, University of Minnesota
Autofluorescence of Tick Nymph on a Mammalian Host
Honorable Mentions:
- Dee Breger, Drexel University's Materials Science & Engineering Department:
Antarctic Diatom Chain
(Breger also won First Place and Runner-Up in the photography category of the 2003 competition)
- Linda M. Strzegowski and Ting Xu, University of Massachusetts' Materials Research Science and Engineering Center:
Pasture of Instabilities
First Place:
Emad Tajkhorshid and Klaus Schulten, Theoretical and Computational Biophysics Group, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign:
Water Permeation Through Aquaporins
Honorable Mention:
Spiral IV
First Place:
Mt. Etna
First Place:
Bat Intercepts Flying Insect
Honorable Mentions:
- Nils Sparwasser, Adelheid Craubner, Christian Gredel, Thomas Rupert, and Robert Meisner
German Aerospace Center (DLR):
The Elbe River Flood 2002
- Gregory Ross, Jonathan Day and Roxanne Rutledge-Connelly,
University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences / Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory:
Spatiotemporal Arboviral Surveillance in Florida during 2003
Honorable Mentions:
- Paul Bigeleisen, Strong Memorial Hospital, Rochester, NY:
Brachial Plexus
- Doug Huff, Beth Anderson, Simon Fenwick, N. Leigh Anderson and Norman G. Anderson, Arkitek Studios, Seattle, Wa.
RNAi: A Ballet of Molecular Machines, Including "Slicer" and "Dicer," Controls Gene Expression Using Small RNA Molecules
NSF and Science will appoint judges to chose winners in each of five categories: photographs, illustrations, graphics, interactive media and non-interactive media. All works must have been completed in the 2003-2004 calendar years.
Entries will be evaluated anonymously. Judging will take place in two phases.
A panel of reviewers made up of scientists, communications experts and graphic artists will examine and rank all entries. The top 50 entries (10 in each category) with the highest overall scores will be designated semifinalists and will progress to the final phase of judging. In that round, a separate panel of distinguished judges representing a variety of fields will evaluate the semifinal entries. Each judge will assign a numerical score. The sum of those scores will determine each entry's final score. The entry with the highest overall score in each category will be awarded the prize for that category.
Judges in the final round may select some entries for an honorable mention at their discretion.
Winners will be notified individually in August prior to public announcement of the official contest results.
The winning works will then be published in a special section of a September 2005 issue of Science and on Science Online. NSF will also publish the winning entries on its Web site: http://www.nsf.gov.
NSF Media Contact: Peter West, 703-292-7761, pwest@nsf.gov
AAAS Media Contact: Ginger Pinholster, 202-326-6421, gpinhols@aaas.org
NSF PR04-XX
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