Oliver Morton wins the fourth edition of the David N. Schramm award
for an article describing the appeal and pitfalls of high-energy
neutrino science. The article “Moonshine and Glue” was published in
the spring 2004 issue of “The American Scholar”.

The David N. Schramm award is offered by the High Energy Astrophysics
Division (HEAD) of the American Astronomical Society. The author
will receive the $1,500 cash prize and travel expenses to the HEAD
scientific meeting in New Orleans (Louisiana) at the beginning of
September.
He will also be presented a plaque and, for the publisher of the
article, a certificate honoring his work.

“Moonshine and Glue” describes the difficulties of hunting for
high-energy neutrinos. It tackles the science in a thorough but clear
way. The article also conveys magnificently the nature of scientific
endeavor.

“How wonderful!” said Morton by e-mail when told of the news. “The
fact that it’s his [David Schramm’s] award adds a lot; he was always
very generous to me, and I believe other journalists.”

Morton is a contributing editor at Wired and his writing has also
appeared in The New Yorker, National Geographic, Newsweek
International, Discover, The American Scholar, The New York Times,
The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal Europe,
Science, Nature, New Scientist and Prospect, where he is a member of
the advisory board.

Morton is also the author of “Mapping Mars: Science, Imagination and
the Birth of a World ” (2002) and one of the authors of the upcoming
“Safe”, a book on technology and terrorism to be published by
HarperCollins in 2005. His blog called “MainlyMartian” and
featuring his observations on “the great desert in the sky” can be
found at http://mainlymartian.blogs.com/semijournal/

The HEAD journalism award is named in memory of David N. Schramm of
the University of Chicago, a world leader in theoretical astrophysics
and a leading authority on the Big Bang model of the formation of the
universe. He was killed in 1997 when the twin-engine plane he was
piloting crashed outside of Denver. David Schramm was dedicated to
public outreach, and the newly created writing award that bears his
name recognizes distinguished writing on high energy astrophysics
that improves the general public’s understanding in and appreciation
of this exciting field of research.

The American Scholar is the literary and intellectual quarterly of
the Phi Beta Kappa Society. The journal has won three National
Magazine Awards, one for Feature Writing, one for Essays, and one for
General Excellence among magazines with circulations under 100,000.

HEAD presents the Schramm award every 18 months at its division
meetings. Entries are judged by a committee of distinguished
scientists and journalists selected by the HEAD Executive Committee.
Information about the prize is available at
http://www.aas.org/head/schramm/schramm.prize.html.