The Breakthrough prize brings the stars out…
Who knew Christina Aguilera would spearhead the great leap forward in science reporting? That the singer of top 10 hits Dirrty and Beautiful and former judge on The Voice would be the touchstone for a revolution in how society views science? But that's the thing about scientific breakthroughs: they're all about serendipity - or here, serendipity and the shimmer of gold trim.
The awards ceremony for the third annual Breakthrough prize - a multimillion-dollar set of awards designed to celebrate and honour scientists in their lifetimes - took place at Nasa's Ames Research Center in California last Sunday. The prize was founded, and is funded, by Yuri Milner, a Russian investor, alongside Silicon Valley luminaries including Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Google's Sergey Brin and aims to give fundamental science the kind of glitter and pizzazz that the Oscars give the film world.
Continue reading...