WIRED whisky fungus story wins prestigious Kavli Science Journalism Award

Published: November 17th, 2011

Revised: November 17th, 2011

We congratulate Adam Rogers, senior science editor at WIRED magazine, for receiving the 2011 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award for best magazine article for “The Angel’s Share”, in which he recounted Dr. Scott’s work on the whisky fungus, Baudoinia compniacensis. The Kavli awards are administered by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which publishes Science, the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, along with numerous other publications and programs that raise the bar of understanding for science worldwide. The AAAS has administered these awards to professional journalists for distinguished reporting for a general audience since their inception in 1945.

”The [Angel’s Share] story skillfully slips the spinach of science into the reader as smoothly as a shot of fine whiskey,” said science reporter Dan Vergano of USA Today. Laura Helmuth, a senior editor for Smithsonian magazine, called it “a charming story—unexpected, vivid, dramatic.” She added that Rogers “deftly explains the relevant history, chemistry, evolutionary biology, taxonomy, and mycology. ”Rogers said he became fascinated with what makes a fungus grow outside distillery warehouses. “And then it turned out that a scientist-detective was looking into the mystery, and he was in love with it,” Rogers said. “I think that kind of passion always makes for a good story.”

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