DIJON, France (17 June 2001) -- A book about the mysteries of the deep oceans has won the world's most prestigious prize for popular science writing -- the Aventis Prize for Science Books. Robert Kunzig, an editor for Discover Magazine, was honored at a dinner in London's Science Museum last Tuesday for writing Mapping the Deep, The Extraordinary Story of Ocean Science. The Aventis Prize for Science Books -- sometimes dubbed the scientific community's Booker Prize -- has been running since 1988. Sir David Weatherall, Oxford University, chaired the panel judging the main prize. Mapping the Deep is described as a state-of-the-ocean report on the sea and its science. Kunzig draws on the voices of oceanographers past and present -- scientists, pioneers, maverick thinkers, deep-water divers, and submersible pilots -- to tell his story. | | He told BBC News, "I was amazed just how little we knew about the oceans; but at the same time what a revolution there has been in the past few decades in our understanding of marine science. I was just trying to get that across in a way that would touch a wide audience. It is very like space exploration -- the only difference is that, for some reason, space exploration seems to get more attention. People can stand out in their backyard and look up at the stars; looking at the deep is a whole lot harder. We have to rely on the oceanographers to do it for us." Kunzig is the European editor of Discover Magazine, based in Dijon. His writing about the oceans has already won him the AAAS-Westinghouse Science Journalism Award, presented by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science Journalism, presented by the American Geophysical Union. |
