'The Forest Unseen' wins best book award from National Academies

The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine announced today the recipients of the 2013 Communication Awards. Supported by the W.M. Keck Foundation since 2003 as part of the Keck Futures Initiative, these prestigious annual awards—each of which includes a $20,000 prize—recognize excellence in reporting and communicating science, engineering, and medicine to the general public. The winners will be honored during a ceremony on Oct. 16 at the National Academy of Sciences building in Washington, D.C.

"We had a wide range of outstanding nominees from which to choose," said May Berenbaum, chair of the 11-member communication awards selection committee, an NAS member, and professor and head of entomology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. "The winners are excellent examples of science communication that can inform and engage the public."

Selected from approximately 300 print, broadcast, and online entries, the recipients of this year's awards for works published or aired in 2012 are:

Book

David George Haskell for The Forest Unseen (Viking Penguin)

"…for his exquisite portrait of nature's universe, drawn from one tiny patch of forest."

Film/Radio/TV

Joanne Silberner, David Baron, and PRI's "The World" for "Cancer's Lonely Soldier," "Pink Ribbons to Haiti," "An Ounce of Prevention," and "The Infectious Connection"

"…for shining a light on the hidden toll cancer takes in impoverished nations, killing more people than HIV, malaria, and TB combined."

Magazine/Newspaper

Eliot Marshall, Elizabeth Culotta, Ann Gibbons, and Greg Miller at Science for their stories "Parsing Terrorism," "Roots of Racism," "The Ultimate Sacrifice," and "Drone Wars," which appeared in a special issue on human conflict (May 18, 2012)

"…for an articulate, wide-ranging examination of what social scientists have learned about human violence, conflict, and terrorism."

Online

Alison Young and Peter Eisler (reporters), John Hillkirk (content editor), and the entire team at USA TODAY for the series "Ghost Factories"

"…for a nationwide investigation of abandoned lead factories that armed reporters and citizens with the knowledge and technology to recognize threats in their own backyards."

The following were finalists:

Provided by National Academy of Sciences