(A post that has grown since Dec. 22)

It’s the time of year for top ten lists and their various close kin. The Tracker will update this as more come in from the beats that interest us. Some are the work of individuals using their own personal, ineffable perspicacities as guides, others mark them up by strict accounting rules. No effort will be made here to segregate standard journalism lists from those published by professional societies, technical journals, gov’t agencies, or special interest groups etc. as long as their ethics and trustworthiness or other randomly selected qualities pass The Tracker’s high bar (one that has no specific rubric for judgment, at all). I haven’t read all these in any detail, so generalities are hard to make. Odd, though, that the monster Large Hadron Collier in CERN that promptly broke down during its shakedown cruise comes up a lot. Next year, one hopes, it also will rank, on merit.

• To start, in the latter data-based category is Nat’l Geographics News’s list of most-viewed stories, videos, etc. that it put up on its website. A story of a very strange deep sea squid is number one. The Tracker never even saw the thing until now. Boy, talk about a frayed net here at ksjtracker! Also up: NG’s Top Ten Photos.
• American Institute of Physics – Phil Schewe Top Ten Physics Stories of the Year.
• AAAS “Breakthrough of the Year” (see separate post Dec. 21) Cellular reprogramming.
• Discover Magazine : Top 100 Stories of 2008 ;
• NASA’s Top Science, Exploration, and Discovery Stories of 2008 ; (barely passes the bar, what with the space station’s construction ranked #1) ;
• Scientific American 2008 in Photos – 10 Biggest Science Stories ; Top Ten Space Photos ; Top Ten Animal Finds ;
• Time Magazine – Jeffrey Kluger Top 10 Scientific Discoveries ; (This, with hardly any few duds, is among the better lists seen so far) ;
• NPR Science Friday – Ira Flatow 2008 Science News in Review (a discussion program with some savvy guests including KC Cole of USC, Steve Mirsky of Sci. Am, Paul Raeburn of CASW-New Horizons and his psych. book ; Sharon Begley of Newsweek;
• Los Angeles Times Thomas H. Maugh II The year in weird science and myth-busting, with a British Medical Journal list its prime source ;

*UPDATES:

• Christian Science Monitor – Robert C. Cowen : The top science stories of 2008 ;
• ABC News – Lee Dye : The Biggest Scientific Breakthroughs of 2008 / Progress This Year Wasn’t Just in Hardware but in Understanding the Urgency of Key Issues ;
• New Scientist – Top ten evolution stories of 2008 ; Katherine Brahic – The year’s weirdest animals ;
• Tampa Tribune – Jeff Houck: 50 things we know now (we didn’t know this time last year): 2008 edition;
  
• MSNBC – Alan Boyle : 12 weirdest science stories of 2008 (with a chance to vote for #1) ;
• Science News – 2008: SCIENCE NEWS OF THE YEAR ;
• Independent (UK) Steve Connor: 2008 top examples of celebrity scientific illiteracy ;
• Boston Globe : Best of 2008: New stem cells, far-off planets ;
• Not Exactly Rocket Science (blog) Ed Yong – Coolest Science Stories of 2008; (other science journalists might best enjoy, or envy, his opening reflection on how his career’s going) ;
• Living the Scientific Life (blog, anonymous author): Five Books I Wish I’d Never Read (the writer’s a witty scientist, several of these books are scientifical, sort of at least ;
• Science Channel : Top 10 Science Stories of 2008 ; (yikes, Bigfoot makes it).
• AAAS ScienceNOW : The Top 10 ScienceNOWs of 2008 (one thinks their tongue’s are in the staff’s cheeks. These are favorites, and the ones the public liked. Pffft.) ;
• Science Progress – Rick Weiss: The Top Eight Science Policy News Stories of 2008 ; (Rick can be witty as the next guy, but this is a wholly serious essay and list, with Obama-scienceteam-mania tops) ;
• Boston Museum of Science – Susan Heilman: Top Ten Science Stories of 2008 ; (Another thoughtful, diverse one ) ;
• ABC News – Colin Barras : Most Extreme News Stories of 2008 / The Tiniest Black Hole, the Earliest Nuclear Family and More ;
• Wired Science – Betsy Mason : Wired Science’s 13 Most Popular Stories of 2008 ;
• USA Today – Dan Vergano (see his comment below): Year in science: Dig into DNA, out-of-this-world discoveries, Plus a quiz. 
  

Dept of 2009 Predictions, gadget division (or, another kind of annual list):

• Popular Mechanics Alex Hutchinson: 10 Tech Concepts You Need to Know for 2009 ; The Tracker’s not sure to believe the one about wrapping a thermoelectric blanket around a Suburban’s exhaust pipe.

-CP

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 31st, 2008 at 10:59 am and is filed under Science Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.