DISCOVER's January 2007 issue tracks the top 100 stories in science, as themagazinedoeseveryyear. Last week we launched a poll to see what our readers thought was the biggest news in science this year. Here are the results after 506 votes:
Pluto Demoted: 121 votes
The World Is Melting: 83 votes
Dark Matter Spotted: 81 votes
Rise of Alternative Energy: 54 votes
RNA Breaks Laws of Heredity: 44 votes
Lab-Grown Bladders: 33 votes
Knowing Neanderthals: 30 votes
Sea-to-Land Fish Fossil: 30 votes
Enter Synthetic Biology: 11 votes
Pluto Demoted pulled out a commanding victory over a varied and impressive field of contenders; our hats go off to that story—and also to poor Pluto, the cast off ex-planet. We were somewhat surprised that synthetic biology finished in a lame 10th place, as our scientist of the year, Jay Keasling, is a leader in that field. We'll just assume that the sophisticated DISCOVER electorate wanted to diversify honors between different fields of science. Everybody goes home a winner.
As for DISCOVER's top 100 list, we'll reveal it over the course of the next few weeks, one subject at a time. Of course, subscribers get access to the whole special package immediately, but readers who do not subscribe will not have to wait long.
