The Best Australian Science Writing 2014

  ‘The CAVE artists’ by Dyani Lewis was published in Nature Medicine, March 2014.

  ‘High-tech treasure hunt’ by Sarah Kellett was published in The Helix, <http://www.csiro.au/Portals/Education/Programs/Double-Helix-Science-Club/The-Helix.aspx>, February 2014.

  ‘The carnivorous platypus’ by John Pickrell appeared in Australian Geographic, January/February 2014.

  ‘The eye in the sand’ by Rebecca Giggs was published in Meanjin, 72:4 (2013), MUP, edited by Zora Sanders.

  ‘The now delusion’ by Michael Slezak was the cover story in the 2 November 2013 issue of New Scientist: © 2014 Reed Business Information – UK. All rights reserved. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.

  ‘Reached by committee, nineteen eighty-three’ by Paul Magee appears in his book, Stone Postcard, John Leonard Press, 2014.

  ‘Material of the future’ by Lisa Clausen was published in The Good Weekend on 20 January 2014.

  ‘Pitch fever’ by Trent Dalton appeared in The Weekend Australian Magazine, 6 April 2013.

  ‘Uniquely human’ by Thomas Suddendorf is extracted from The Gap, Basic Books, 2013.

  ‘The pet-keeping species’ by Peter McAllister was published on Cosmos online <www.cosmosmagazine.com/cosmos_online> on 31 March 2014.

  ‘Penis size may be driven by women (Oh, and it matters …)’ by Rob Brooks was published in The Conversation <theconversation.com> on 9 April 2013.

  ‘Eleven grams of trouble’ by Frank Bowden appeared on Inside Story <inside.org.au> on 18 March 2014.

  ‘TB and me: A medical souvenir’ by Jo Chandler was published in The Global Mail on 12 June 2013. Some material has been updated in this piece.

  ‘Massimo’s genes’ by Leah Kaminsky was commissioned for Griffith Review 41: Now We Are Ten and also sparked an episode of Australian Story screened in October 2013.

  ‘Life, the universe and Boolardy’ by Richard Guilliatt was published in The Weekend Australian Magazine on 12 October 2013.

  ‘Liner notes, Voyager Golden Record’ by Meredi Ortega won the inaugural Australian Poetry Science Poetry competition in 2013 and was published online at <www.australianpoetry.org>.

  ‘Beyond the “Morning Star”’ by Alice Gorman appeared on The Conversation <theconversation.com> on 3 October 2013.

  ‘The oldest known star’ by Bianca Nogrady was published online by ABC Science <www.abc.net.au/science> on 10 February 2014.

  ‘The quantum spinmeister: Professor Andrea Morello’ by Stephen Pincock was published online by Cosmos <cosmosmagazine. com> on 3 March 2014 and in the April/May issue of the magazine.

  ‘Here be dragons’ by Vanessa Hill was originally published on the CSIRO Newsblog <csironewsblog.com> on 7 January 2014.

  THE BRAGG UNSW PRESS

  PRIZE FOR SCIENCE WRITING

  In 2012, NewSouth Publishing launched a new annual prize for the best short non-fiction piece on science written for a general audience. The Bragg UNSW Press Prize is named in honour of Australia’s first Nobel laureates, William Henry Bragg and his son William Lawrence Bragg. The Braggs won the 1915 Nobel Prize for physics for their work on the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays. Both scientists led enormously productive lives and left a lasting legacy. William Henry Bragg was a firm believer in making science popular among young people, and his Christmas lectures for students were described as models of clarity and intellectual excitement.

  The Bragg UNSW Press Prize is supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund. The winner receives a prize of $7000 and two runners up each receive a prize of $1500.

  The shortlisted entries for the 2014 prize are included in this anthology.

  The Bragg UNSW Press Prize for Science Writing

  2014 Shortlist

  Frank Bowden Eleven grams of trouble

  Jo Chandler TB and me: A medical souvenir

  Peter Meredith Weathering the storm

  James Mitchell Crow Is there room for organics?

  Stephen Pincock The quantum spinmeister:

  Professor Andrea Morello

  Winners announced in November 2014 at <newsouthpublishing.com/scienceprize>

  Judges of the Bragg UNSW Press Prize 2014

  Professor Merlin Crossley

  Professor Suzanne Miller

  Professor Fred Watson

  Ashley Hay, editor of The Best Australian Science Writing 2014