(UPDATES*) Lists of Top Stories 2009 (and of decade, and one of last 50 years)
(First iteration: Dec. 23) It’s that time of the year, and we’ll update this a few times by January 1 – and once or twice move it back to the top of the post queue. Maybe even attempt a meta-analysis (UPDATE: nope, forget the master list mega meta). One story that does make nearly all top science lists: Ardi, the bipedal tree climbing and not terribly apish human ancestor aka Ardipithecus.
Additional suggestions welcome. Here, in no particular order:
- AAAS Science Magazine: Breakthrough of the Year and nine runners up ; Password-blocked. But Ardi takes the cake.
- ABC-Lauren Cox/MedPage Today-Peggy Beck: The top 10 Medical Advances of the Decade ;
- Time Magazine - Bryan Welch: Top ten green ideas; Eben Harrell: Top 10 Scientific Discoveries ; Michael Lemonick: Top 10 New Species ; On line layout is a little awkward – the winners are at the specific links but to see all of each list, you must go to the top 10 of everything 2009 and scroll to the category.
- National Geographic has multiple top tens : New species ; Space finds ; Archeology finds ; Photo galleries ; Dinosaur and Fossil Finds;
- Scientific American Top 10 Science Stories of 2009 ;
- Council for Advancement of Science Writing list of Top 50 Science Sagas in 50 years to celebrate its 50th ann’y, main author is MSNBC Cosmic Log’s Alan Boyle, a member of the CASW board, along with a few others including, notably, Science News‘s Tom Siegfried.
- MSNBC – Alan Boyle Year in Space including a contest to name the top story of all ;
- MSNBC – John Roach: Top 10 science stories of the decade ;
- LiveScience – Sally Law: The 9 Most Provocative Sex Science Stories of 2009 ; Ardi didn’t make this one.
- Science News News of the Year
- Popular Mechanics – Eric Sofge : The Top 5 Engineering Projects of 2009 ; Plus, the magazine’s annual Breakthrough Awards.
- BBC – Paul Rincon : Science news highlights of 2009
- Discover Magazine - Rolling out its top 100 stories of 2009, with the site being updated regularly.
- Cosmos Magazine, Australia: Top science news stories of 2009 (ie most-read) .
- Mother Nature Network – Ken Edelstein: Top 9 eco-stories of 2009 (that have nothing to do with climate change) ; Small site, but a thoughtful, personal list.
- just for fun, Cryptomundo – Loren Coleman: Top 10 Cryptozoology Stories of 2009 ;
*UPDATES:
- Nature Magazine: News picks of the year ; Great Beyond Most Clicked Stories (Reader’s Choice) ; Newsmaker of the Year (Steve Chu, with a hell of a profile by Eric Hand ) ; This and more at Nature’s 2009 Review of the Year.
- PBS Newshour – ed. by Lea Winerman: What Were the Science Breakthroughs of 2009?: Experts, plus yours truly, were asked their opinions. Ardi wins, hands down, opposable thumbs and all.
- New Scientist: 2009 Review: Most popular articles of the year; Sex, as always and to our collective credit, comes up a lot. Plus, Maggie McKee: Top 10 space stories of 2009 ; and several more top tens at the same site (I ran out of my free three story limit, and don’t remember my log in):
- Popular Mechanics: Breakthrough Awards ’09 including Most Brilliant Innovators of 2009 ;
- MinnPost.com – Sharon Schmickle: The Top 8 Science Stories of 2009 ;
- Phil Plait/Bad Astronomy blog: Top Ten Astronomy Pictures of 2009; His #1 pic is well justified. My fave is his #5.
- Live Science – Jeana Brynner: The 9 Most Controversial Science Stories in 2009 ;
- Science News Examiner – Meg Marquardt: Top 10 science stories of 2009 (she’s not put up the top four yet, as of mid-day Dec. 31);
- Chosun Ilbo: Space Launch Tops Korean Science, Tech Stories of 2009 ; Yes and alas, the launch failed.
- Alex Wild – Myrmecos Blog: The best insect photos of 2009 ; Thx to Carl Zimmer, who noted it at his The Loom.
- ABC (Australia) Science Show w/ Robyn Williams: Marcus Chown’s silly science awards for 2009 ; Actually not much to do with 2009, but silly and sensible too.
- SciDev.Net – Aisling Irwin: Hit stories of 2009 ; Another list of best-read stories on our site. As one would expect of this non-profit outlet, it’s stories are on the earnest, development-tech side. But Irwin points out one that broke that mold: Tomatoes thrive on urine diet.
- Independent (UK) Steve Connor: Review of the Year 2009 -Discoveries ; Neat – he ties in the Darwin centennial and the strangely shrinking sheep of the St. Kilda archipelago.
- Religion Dispatches – Lauri Lebo: Top Ten Religious & Science Stories of 2009 ; Not what you might expect…
And for something different:
- Scientific American – Katherine Harmon: Ten Science Letdowns of the New Millenium ;
- Charlie Petit
February 1st, 2012 at 11:01 am
Thank you for your help. I take this list to my archive