2026 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award Winners Named
Stories describing the impact of federal budget cuts on scientists in Massachusetts, the rise of anti-science bills in statehouses across the country, and a flawed response to an outbreak of bird flu in Ohio and Indiana are among the winners of the 2026 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Awards.
The judges also applauded the enterprise of reporters from Verite News in New Orleans who tested hundreds of soil samples from 84 city playgrounds to reveal that about half of them had hazardous levels of lead.
Other winning journalists offered impactful reporting on the natural world – including stories on scientists trying to better understand what’s under the Antarctic ice sheet and a look at the fate of imperiled river dolphins in India.
Independent panels of science journalists select the winners of the awards, which are administered by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and endowed by The Kavli Foundation. There is a Gold Award ($5,000) and Silver Award ($3,500) for each of the eight categories. The global awards program drew entries from 47 countries this year, and 58 percent of the more than 1,100 entries were from international journalists.
The Trump administration’s research funding cuts, abrupt policy shifts and crackdown on immigration are driving a brain drain that threatens Massachusetts’ standing as a global hub of biomedical research, Kay Lazar, Sarah Rahal and Jonathan Saltzman of The Boston Globe reported in their Gold Award winner in the Large Outlet category. Drawing on a survey response from 367 scientists, the reporters found that one in six of the respondents had applied for jobs outside Massachusetts. More than one in six said they had lost researchers to institutions in other countries.
For their reporting for the Associated Press, Michelle R. Smith and Laura Ungar won the Silver Award in the Large Outlet category. They found more than 420 anti-science bills introduced in statehouses in 2025. The bills are aimed at longstanding public health protections such as vaccines, milk safety and fluoridation. About 30 of the bills had been enacted or adopted in 12 states by the time the AP story appeared on Oct. 21, 2025.
Nat Lash of ProPublica found plausible evidence that a bird flu virus that raged through poultry farms in parts of Indiana and Ohio between December 2024 and March 2025 was spread by airborne transmission, a factor that was not considered significant by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Experts warn that ignoring airborne transmission of the virus on dust and feathers could make the U.S. vulnerable to a broader spread of the virus in the future. Lash won the Gold Award in the Science Reporting – In-Depth category.
In doing their story on lead in city playgrounds, Tristan Baurick and Halle Parker of Verite News were trained to use an X-ray fluorescence analyzer to test 531 soil samples over a month in late 2025. A lead contamination researcher at Louisiana State University verified their results. The award judges praised the hands-on efforts by Baurick and Parker to gather their own data, explain why past remediation efforts had fallen short, and suggest what steps could be taken to improve outcomes. Baurick and Parker won the Gold Award in the Small Outlet category.
In a visit to Antarctica, reporter Cleo Abram described the multinational effort to find out what lies beneath the continent’s formidable ice sheet. So far, scientists have discovered a multitude of lakes (including one as large as Lake Ontario), a trench deeper than the Grand Canyon, a hidden mountain range and a massive impact crater. Abram and four colleagues won the Gold Award for Video Spot News/Feature Reporting for a video on their YouTube channel, HUGE* If True.
Radhika Raj won the Silver Award in the Small Outlet category for an evocative story from India about the history and fateful outlook for the Indus river dolphins. Only two are believed to be alive in India, isolated by dams from more than 1,900 of the species that survive in Pakistan. Raj’s story for Roundglass Sustain, an Indian platform dedicated to stories about the natural world, includes her efforts to find that last pair of the dolphins in India. It ends poignantly with her and a local farmer watching one of the animals breach in the Beas River.
"At a time of technological and political disruption in the sciences, informed journalists – such as those being honoired bny these awards – are essdential to a better public understanding of the discoveries and challenges at hand," said Sudip Parikh, CEO of AAAS and Executive Publisher of the Science family of journals. "Scientists are passionate and resilient and will continue to explore the universe and our place inn it. Journalists help share the sense of advenbture while also keeping a watchful eye on the process and outcomes of scientific research."
Here are the winners of the 2026 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Awards. They will receive their award plaques in a ceremony at the 2027 AAAS Annual Meeting in Chicago in February.
Science Reporting – Large Outlet
Gold Award
Kay Lazar, Sarah Rahal and Jonathan Saltzman
‘My scientific career is essentially over.’ A brain drain imperils Massachusetts’ biomedical future.
The Boston Globe
Feb. 11, 2026
Explore the full results from the MassINC Polling Group/Boston Globe survey of NIH grant
The Boston Globe
Feb. 11, 2026
The Trump administration’s research funding cuts, abrupt policy shifts and crackdown on immigration are driving a brain drain that threatens Massachusetts’ standing as a global hub of biomedical research, the Boston Globe reported in a project that took a comprehensive look at the local impact of the cuts. The Globe partnered with MassINC Polling Group to survey 367 scientists who received funding from the National Institutes of Health. The results were stark: More than two-thirds of the scientists said they recommend their students consider careers outside academia. The majority had delayed hiring in their labs, and one-third had laid off workers. More than one in six said they have lost researchers to institutions in other countries since Trump took office. Sixty-eight percent said funding cuts and federal policy changes had moderately or significantly reduced the scope of their work. One in six survey respondents said they’d applied for jobs outside Massachusetts. The story included some specific examples of what scientists are facing. A prominent cancer scientist is uprooting his Harvard University lab of two decades and moving it to Texas. A laid-off expert on aging abandoned academia for a more secure municipal research job in New York City. And a women’s health researcher, exhausted by the churn of immigration policies, made the wrenching decision to start over in Canada. Their departures illustrate a sobering new reality. While most of the money the Trump administration froze or cut in 2025 has returned to researchers and institutions, following court challenges and congressional funding decisions, scientists say significant damage has been done. Uncertainty about the Trump administration’s plans going forward is driving institutions to tighten budgets and freeze hiring. Many stories have been written about the loss of federal funding for science, but Judge Roxanne Khamsi, a freelance science journalist, said the reporting by the Globe “has both breadth and heart through combining a rigorous survey of how the cuts will devastate research programs with poignant snapshots of the human toll of the changes.” Anna Kuchment, the Globe's health and medical editor, who oversaw the project with deputy business editor Naomi Martin, said, “This historic upheaval in American science had an especially profound effect on Massachusetts. We’re grateful to AAAS for recognizing our effort to capture it both through the voices of researchers whose careers were disrupted and through original data showing the breadth of the damage.”
Silver Award
Michelle R. Smith and Laura Ungar
Anti-science bills hit statehouses, stripping away public health protections built over a
The Associated Press
Oct. 21, 2025
Who benefits from the MAHA anti-science push?
The Associated Press
Oct. 21, 2025
How AP tracked and analyzed anti-science legislation in US statehouses
The Associated Press
Oct. 21, 2025
More than 420 anti-science bills attacking longstanding public health protections – such as vaccines, milk safety and fluoride – have been introduced in statehouses across the U.S., an Associated Press investigation found. The legislation is part of an organized, politically savvy campaign to enshrine a conspiracy theory-driven agenda into law. The AP investigation found that the wave of legislation has cropped up in most states, pushed by people with close ties to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. The effort could strip away protections that have been built over a century and are integral to American lives and society, according to AP reporters Laura Ungar and Michelle R. Smith. Around 30 bills have been enacted or adopted in 12 states. Administration officials are directing activists to push anti-science legislation in the states – where public health authority rests – with the ultimate goal of changing laws and minds nationally, the AP reporters say. The effort is meant to normalize ideas fueled by the anti-vaccine movement Kennedy has helped lead for years. His Make America Healthy Again agenda masks anti-science ideas, Ungar and Smith write, while promoting goals such as making food more natural or reducing use of chemicals. Meanwhile, vaccination rates continue to fall, allowing infectious diseases to make comebacks. Kennedy’s allies dispute that their agenda is anti-science or driven by conspiracy theories, but many experts disagree. In its analysis of legislation, AP focused on three public health policies which have clear medical evidence behind them and are targets of the Make America Healthy Again movement. "Sometimes it takes a view from 30,000 feet to grasp the surprising scale of a problem,” said judge Roxanne Khamsi. “And this is exactly what Smith and Ungar have done with their original and cross-cutting analysis of anti-science legislation.” The AP’s reporting “showed there's an organized movement to undermine science-based policies taking hold in federal, state and local governments in the U.S. and fueling anti-science sentiment among the public,” said Laura Ungar. “These efforts have weakened longstanding public health protections and made Americans more vulnerable to diseases like measles that we thought were scourges of the past. We're deeply grateful this reporting is being recognized.”
Science Reporting – Small Outlet
Gold Award
Tristan Baurick and Halle Parker
Poison at Play: Unsafe lead levels found in half of New Orleans playgrounds
Verite News
Feb. 26, 2026
Sarah Hess started taking her toddler, Josie, to Mickey Markey Playground in New Orleans in 2010 because she thought it would be a safe place to play after Josie had been diagnosed with lead poisoning from crumbling paint in the family’s century-old home. Josie’s next blood test was a shock, as Tristan Baurick and Halle Parker reported for Verite News. Her lead levels were five times the national health standard. When the soil at Markey was tested in late 2010, it was found to have dangerously high levels of lead. When Hess and other concerned parents raised a ruckus, the City Council pledged to fix the problem. But more than a decade later, an investigation by Baurick and Parker found lead pollution in New Orleans parks not only persists, but it is also more widespread than previously known. Dozens of city parks with playgrounds remain unsafe, including Markey and others that underwent city-sponsored lead remediation in 2011. Howard Mielke, a retired Tulane University toxicologist and one of the nation’s leading experts on lead contamination, said that the findings by Baurick and Parker suggest that the city fell short in its cleanup efforts and a large number of New Orleans children are still exposed to excessive amounts of lead. “It’s a failed program,” Mielke said. The Verite News reporters tested hundreds of soil samples from 84 city parks with playgrounds in fall 2025. Adrienne Katner, a lead contamination researcher with Louisiana State University, verified the results. The tests found that about half the parks had lead concentrations that exceed a federal hazard level for soil in urban areas. Public health researchers and doctors say that children under age six absorb lead-laden dust more easily than adults, according to Baurick and Parker, and the contaminated blood can harm the long-term development of their brains and nervous systems. “In an era of declining local coverage, Baurick and Parker’s intrepid reporting, which included collecting and verifying their own samples, demonstrates the vital importance of watchdog journalism in protecting our communities and holding government officials to account,” said judge Noah Gallagher Shannon, a freelance science journalist. Tristan Baurick said the reporting project “grew out of questions I had about the risks I was exposing my own kids to when we visited local parks. Many other parents had the same questions, but there were few answers – only rumors, old stories about how the land had once been used, and speculation about what might be in the soil. We wanted to replace that uncertainty with evidence.”
Silver Award
Radhika Raj
The Final Countdown: India’s Last Indus River Dolphins
Roundglass Sustain
July 15, 2026
The endangered Indus river dolphin can only be found in Pakistan and the Beas River, a tributary of the Indus River in Punjab, India. A 2025 survey from the Wildlife Institute of India found just three Indus river dolphins left in the Beas River, isolated from the Pakistan population by dam infrastructure. The count was lowered to two when a pregnant female was found dead following the survey. Radhika Raj’s captivating prose weaves together the complicated narrative of this dolphin’s history. “The dolphins, much like rivers themselves and the people who live along them, exist within a matrix of simultaneous crises,” writes Raj, “climate change, unchecked development, geopolitical collapse, and wars.” Raj takes her readers back 200 million years to the start of the Indus river dolphin’s story – when the Indian subcontinent broke away from the supercontinent Pangea and swallowed the prehistoric Tethys sea. The trapped body of water became the Indus River System, where the dolphins once native to the Tethys sea evolved to survive in rivers. Raj follows the dolphin’s story through archival accounts, even when the history presents a messy and painful story. Early population maps trace back to the beginning of colonial rule in India, a system that has turned today’s Indus River System into one of the world’s most heavily dammed landscapes. In their isolated habitat, India’s Indus river dolphins are left vulnerable to a weakening gene pool, increasingly severe climate patterns, and political unrest. Raj finds hope for the species in her relationship with local farmer Balla Bhatti, whose work leading scientists and experts has been crucial to conservation efforts. At the conclusion of her story, Raj and Bhatti spot an Indus river dolphin in the Beas River. Together they watch “one of the last Indus river dolphins of the Beas breach for at least 30 minutes.” Judge Alexandra Witze, contributing correspondent for Nature and Science News, called Raj’s entry “a beautifully written, evocative exploration of a vanishing species; the writer skillfully weaves together natural and human history to paint a picture of these endangered dolphins and the people who study them.” Radhika Raj said her story “has been really close to my heart. Stories about wildlife and conservation in India tend to center on big, charismatic species. This one is about a species with barely a couple of individuals left in the country, living on the edge of a landscape far removed from most people’s attention.”
Science Reporting – In-Depth
Gold Award
Nat Lash
What the U.S. Government Is Dismissing That Could Seed a Bird Flu Pandemic
ProPublica
Nov. 18, 2025
How ProPublica Investigated a Bird Flu Outbreak in America’s Heartland
ProPublica
Nov. 18, 2025
In an admirably detailed reporting project that used genetic markers, wind simulations, satellite imagery, property records and more, Nat Lash of ProPublica found plausible evidence that a bird flu virus that raged through poultry farms in parts of Indiana and Ohio between December 2024 and March 2025 was spread by airborne transmission. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) primarily blamed the spread on biosecurity failures, such as shared workers and equipment, while ignoring potential airborne spread via dust and feathers. The bird flu outbreak affected 83 farms and resulted in the culling of more than 20 million chickens. In his research, Lash found that farms downwind from the initial source of the outbreak had a 20 times higher probability of contracting the virus than upwind farms. Some experts told Lash that ProPublica’s reporting offers evidence for how the wind could have helped spread the virus, exposing a flaw in the USDA’s playbook to fight it. In addition, other countries have authorized poultry vaccines to combat bird flu spread, but the USDA has held off due to concerns over international trade restrictions and potential poultry export bans. Experts warn that ignoring airborne pathways and vaccine options leaves the U.S. agricultural supply chain vulnerable to severe price spikes for eggs and poultry and increases the risk of broader spread of the bird flu virus to other animal species and perhaps humans as well. Judge Calli McMurray, senior reporter for The Transmitter, noted Lash’s “heroic reporting efforts” and said, “The reporting is so thorough and rigorous that it verges on scientific. [The project is an] important piece of investigative and accountability reporting that contributes to our understanding of airborne diseases.” Nat Lash said his reporting “pieced together aspects of the devastating disease that the federal government had long suppressed from public view.” He added, “It’s an honor to be counted among so many talented science journalists, and I am so glad for the support for the considerable work that went into revealing how the government has left farmers ill-equipped to protect their flocks, leaving the nation vulnerable to a potential pandemic.”
Silver Award
Mark Johnson and Dino Grandoni
Humans killed millions of vultures. Now people are paying the price.
The Washington Post
Nov. 29, 2025
First the frogs died. Then the people got sick.
The Washington Post
Nov. 14, 2025
Wolves, long feared and reviled, may actually be lifesavers
The Washington Post
Dec. 28, 2025
Mark Johnson and Dino Grandoni explore the unexpected ways animal species interact with public health in three stories for The Washington Post’s “Species that Save Us” series, supported by the Pulitzer Center. The stories transport readers to multiple continents, offering an on-the-ground look at vultures in India, frogs in Panama and wolves in Minnesota. Opening in Bikaner, India, the first story reveals the complex relationship between the country’s vulture and free-ranging dog populations. In recent years, the populations of three local vulture species have plummeted, writes Johnson. The vultures are scavengers who play an integral role in removing dead carcasses from the environment. A 2007 study showed that the excess carcass meat caused India’s free-ranging dog population to grow by about 5.5 million in 15 years. The increase led to an additional 38.5 million dog bites and an estimated 47,000 extra deaths from rabies between 1992 and 2007. “When we endanger other species,” writes Johnson, “we endanger ourselves.” The second story in the series follows a similarly complex relationship between frogs and the spread of disease. In recent decades, scientists have observed a global decline in frog species due to the spread of Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. “The fungus, along with climate change and habitat loss, has made amphibians the most vulnerable group of vertebrates on Earth,” writes Grandoni. The story looks at frogs in Central America, where the decline in tadpoles has removed a key predator of mosquito larvae. Mosquito populations have increased, and rates of mosquito-borne malaria in the region have climbed, resulting in a fivefold increase in cases. The series tackles a species closer to home in the third story, looking at how wolf populations in the Midwest and Canada are doing more than keeping deer populations in check. Their presence creates what ecologists call a “landscape of fear” – deer recognize the hunting patterns of wolves, and the predator-induced fear influences their spatial distribution. Wolves prefer to travel using roads, writes Grandoni, which forces deer away from those areas, leading to fewer deer-vehicle collisions and saving human lives. “The Washington Post team did an impressive job connecting seemingly distant dots of the human-wildlife interface,” said judge Max Levy, a freelance science journalist. He added that the series offers “a great example of how to connect audiences with biodiversity in surprising ways.” Dino Grandoni commented, “As humans drive species toward extinction, we don't just risk losing plants and animals themselves. We also risk forfeiting all the ways they help keep us alive. In our series, we sought to show readers the hidden links between nature and human health, some of which scientists have only recently discovered. Often, we found that unloved creatures — slimy frogs, ravenous vultures, predatory wolves — were helping us the most.”
Magazine
Gold Award
Melissa L. Sevigny
High Country News
Jan. 1, 2026
Geologist Tanya Atwater began her graduate education at The Scripps Institute of Oceanography just weeks after Cambridge geophysicist Fred Vine had visited to present a theory that would radically change the field of geology – plate tectonics. In her profile for High Country News, Melissa L. Sevigny shares the series of events that brought Atwater to the heart of this groundbreaking moment, and the experiences that made the geologist uniquely suited for tectonic plate research. As a child, Atwater was inspired by the broadcast of the Soviet Union’s Sputnik launch. When it came to apply for her undergraduate degree, though, Atwater learned that many universities were not looking for female students. She ended up at the co-ed Massachusetts Institute of Technology but struggled to find her passion in science. She dropped out but later returned to geology at the University of California-Berkeley. This time she finished a degree in geophysics. Atwater first encountered plate tectonics during a summer internship at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, when she attended a lecture by J. Tuzo Wilson. Wilson had recently converted from a “fixist” who believed that all continent locations were permanently fixed, to a “drifter” who believed that continents rode atop moving plates. Atwater was interested, but “the idea of continental drift languished for decades,” writes Sevigny, “largely ignored by the scientific community.” The theory stayed in the periphery until 1963, when Fred Vine and his colleague Drummond Matthews published a paper showing magnetic anomalies on the ocean floor. Vine and Matthews inferred from the anomalies that the seafloor was spreading, but “geologists didn’t understand how seafloor spreading was relevant to their work,” says Sevigny. “They needed a translator, and Atwater, with one foot on land and another at sea, was destined for that role.” Atwater followed her own curiosity, broke through gender barriers to join on research vessels, and drew from her background in geophysics and marine science to trace the history of the San Andreas Fault and offer definitive proof of plate tectonics. Sevigny’s story gives readers “a deep insight into the professional and personal demands and triumphs that produced a monumental research achievement,” said judge Paul Basken, editor of the Winthrop Pilot newspaper. “Continental Shift is a winner on multiple levels.” Sevigny commented, “It was a gift to dive into deep time with this piece, to dwell on slow-moving geologic forces – yet at the same time, share the very human story of Dr. Tanya Atwater, who reshaped the world of earth sciences with the force of her curiosity.”
Silver Award
Allison Parshall
The Hardest Problem in Science
Scientific American
Feb. 2026
A state of awareness of ourselves and our environment is at the root of consciousness, but “where does this singular sense of awareness come from in the brain,” Allison Parshall asks as she explores what her Scientific American cover story calls “the hardest problem in science.” Questions about private, subjective experiences “exist at the very boundaries of what the scientific method can reveal,” she says. Using new technologies developed in the past 30 years, researchers have revealed brain networks whose connections help to explain what happens when we lose consciousness. But researchers can’t agree on what consciousness is, let alone how best to reveal its secrets. Yet in the emerging era of artificial intelligence the stakes for understanding consciousness have never been higher. “We’ve built talking machines able to imitate consciousness so well that we can’t always tell the difference,” Parshall writes. “Sometimes these artificial-intelligence models claim outright to be sentient.” There are dozens of competing theories of how the brain generates consciousness, according to Parshall. She gives her readers a closer look at several of the leading theories – including the spat over one called Integrated Information Theory (IIT) that prompted an open letter in 2023 signed by 124 researchers calling IIT pseudoscience. The argument focused less on the theory than on its coverage in the media, which the letter’s authors saw as credulous. Judge Ashley Smart, associate director of the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT, called Parshall’s story “a very technical piece, but a masterclass in explanatory science writing – economical, lucid, with nice doses of writerly flare.” Allison Parshall commented, “I am truly honored to receive this award, especially for a story that was such an invigorating challenge to write. Consciousness science is a real existential rabbit hole, and I am grateful to my colleagues at Scientific American who encouraged me to dive in.”
VIDEO
Spot News/Feature Reporting (20 minutes or less)
Gold Award
Cleo Abram, Kimberly Mas, Justin Poore, Logen Kershaw and Nicole Menkart
What's Hidden Under Antarctica?
YouTube - HUGE* If True
May 9, 2026
In a visit to Antarctica, reporter Cleo Abram described the multinational efforts to find out what lies beneath the continent’s formidable ice sheet, which is more than 3.5 miles thick in places. In the 1950s, scientists would explode TNT on the continent’s surface to measure seismic waves bouncing back through the ice. Today, lasers from satellites and radar from airplanes give hints of what lies below, including a trench deeper than the Grand Canyon, a completely hidden mountain range, evidence of a massive impact crater, and the largest volcanic region on Earth. By drilling a core down through the ice, a team from the former Soviet Union discovered a lake as large as Lake Ontario and now called Lake Vostok. Hundreds of other lakes have since been discovered, and Abram talks to researchers who analyze drilling cores for clues to the history of the ice sheet and hints of what organisms the network of lakes may harbor. The lake water can exist under all the ice, in part, because the ice acts like a giant thermal blanket, Abram reports. There also is 350 times more pressure under the ice than there is at sea level. As pressure rises, water stays liquid at lower temperatures. Could there be life in those cold lakes? The Soviets claimed to have found bacteria at the end of their drilling, but other scientists say it most likely was a contaminant from the kerosene used to prevent the drill from freezing up. Abram spoke to John Priscu, a microbial ecologist at Montana State University, who said his team has found evidence of bacterial viruses in another one of the lakes, but he told her the research is not yet published. Abram is a lively guide, and she recounts Priscu’s enthusiasm for drilling into the lake he is studying. “I remember breaking into the lake and you could hear the cheers,” Priscu said. “I had goosebumps.” Judge Tina Hesman Saey, molecular biology writer at Science News, said: “Cleo Abram's brings science to life. I learned so much about Antarctica, including a little bit about what lies hidden beneath the continent. This piece isn't the usual penguins and climate change look at the frozen land. It's a refreshing change of pace.” Cleo Abram said the team’s reporting is meant “to help people see better futures, because we believe when they do, they'll help build them. To have that work honored by some of the best science journalists in the world means everything to our team.”
Silver Award
Jesse Nichols
This cell just changed biology
Grist
July 9, 2026
With the pace of a finely crafted mystery story, Jesse Nichols opened with a paradox that one scientist called a cruel joke. All living organisms need nitrogen to survive, and the atmosphere is full of it. But the one enzyme that can pull nitrogen out of the air basically falls apart in the presence of oxygen. Plants, animals, and fungi are surrounded by nitrogen that they can't use. The only organisms that can pull this nutrient from the air are simple microbes, like bacteria and archaea. But today, Nichols writes, one microorganism has rewritten the rules “in a way that could change everything from the future of food to our understanding of life on earth.” An oceanographer named Jon Zehr and his colleagues were testing seawater in hopes of finding nitrogen-fixing bacteria. They found genetic DNA fragments of a candidate bacterium but could not isolate it. At the same time, a Japanese scientist, Kyoko Hagino, was also studying a seemingly-unrelated organism and had some success culturing it in the lab. Nichols describes how the two researchers learned of their mutual interest in the nitrogen-fixing bacterium. In a paper in Science, Zehr and his colleagues concluded that the bacterium was living inside a species of algae called Braarudosphaera bigelowii, the same species Hagino had been studying for years. The pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place. “Neither one of us knew that the two things went together,” Zehr said. They had found a new endosymbiotic relationship in nature – a nitrogen-fixing bacterium that had become a part of an algal cell. Zehr’s team named this newly discovered organelle the nitroplast. It was, as Nichols wrote, “the first organism on the complex side of the tree of life that could pull nitrogen out of the air.” Already researchers are studying the nitroplast in hopes of creating plants that can make their own fertilizer. Kyoko Hagino told Nichols, “I was baffled. I thought I was doing a small piece of science. When it ended up being such a big piece of science, I was truly surprised.” Judge Tina Hesman Saey said: “Jesse Nichols' video about a cell that changed biology hooked me from the start. He chose all the right details to build portraits of two scientists both studying an obscure organism with no knowledge of the other. The discovery of this organism shows how obscure research may have huge implications.” Jesse Nichols thanked his sources, Jon Zehr and Kyoko Hagino, for “their decades of curiosity and inquiry about the natural world. Their work is an illustration of the value of basic research, the power of scientific collaboration, and the discoveries that can come from the places we least expect.”
Video In-Depth Reporting (more than 20 minutes)
Gold Award
Olly Bootle, Kirstie McLure, Emma Ross and Josette D. Normandeau
NOVA/GBH/PBS
Feb. 4, 2026
What dog owner wouldn’t like to converse with their pet? An international production team won the Gold Award for Video In-Depth Reporting for the NOVA documentary, “Can Dogs Talk?” The film explores the phenomenon of dogs who can select outcomes by tapping a specific word button such as “play” or “outside.” Do the dogs genuinely understand and use human language, the researchers ask, or are they simply reacting to conditioning. The producers took a close look at the largest animal communication study in history, with researchers at the University of California San Diego analyzing over 10 million button presses by 10,000 dogs in nearly 50 countries. Videos show some dogs who do seem to engage in conversations and others who learn new words with incredible speed. Still, the researchers are taking a careful approach, given controversies over past efforts to teach animals like chimpanzees to communicate with humans. As the narrator of the documentary cautions, just because the dogs “can press buttons that say words, doesn’t necessarily mean the dogs have any real understanding of what those words mean.” Federico Rossano, the lead researcher on the project at UCSD, said it is important to know not just which buttons the dogs have but also how they’re laid out “so that we can, for example, run analysis to see [if] the dogs seem to be actually doing something intentionally.” The science documentary was co-produced by Canada's Idéacom International and the United Kingdom’s Big Wave Productions in association with NOVA/GBH and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio-Canada, and ARTE France. Judge Michael Werner, a freelance video producer, said the documentary “takes a question millions of pet owners wonder about and anchors it in rigorous scientific investigation. It tells an irresistible story while beautifully illustrating the patience, skepticism, and discipline required to test animal cognition.” Josette D. Normandeau, president of Idéacom International, said the filmmakers “set out to bring scientific answers to a question so many dog owners ask every day. Through his research and writing, director Olly Bootle made it possible for us to share these discoveries with a wide audience.” Kirstie McLure, CEO of Big Wave Productions, said, “Our passion is making world-class science accessible and captivating, and we're immensely proud of the team and grateful to NOVA and The Kavli Foundation for celebrating rigorous science reporting.”
Silver Award
Emily Zhang
The Easiest Way to Make the World Smarter
YouTube – Rabbit Hole
March 17, 2026
Emily Zhang, a producer of science videos for her YouTube channel, “Rabbit Hole,” explored the history of iodized salt in her winning entry and why it remains one of the most effective public health interventions. A few years after iodine’s discovery in 1811, Swiss doctor Jean-Francois Coindet proposed that iodine was the active ingredient in a common goiter remedy, burnt sea sponges. So, he tried giving diluted iodine solutions directly to his patients with remarkable success. The goiters, lumps on the side of the neck that can be as large as watermelons, vanished in as fast as eight days. A century after iodine was first identified, Heinrich Hunziker, a Swiss family doctor, suggested providing small amounts of iodine in salt to treat goiters. Just before the winter of 1918, Otto Bayard, one of Hunziker’s fellow doctors, traveled to a remote, goiter-affected village and used a snow shovel to mix potassium iodide into salt for five families. When he returned in the spring, the families’ goiters were gone. In 1922, Hunziker, Bayard and 14 Swiss health leaders formed a commission to implement iodized salt nationally. When reports of a new iodized salt reached Dr. David Cowie, chair of the Michigan Medical Society, he convinced Michigan's local salt producers they could transform the state's health without changing costs or taste. Iodized salt rose to 90% of salt sales in Michigan within months. Morton Salt, the nation’s biggest brand, soon decided to offer iodized salt nationwide. But iodization’s biggest, yet most invisible effect wasn't discovered until 2013. Using military draft records, researchers were able to study 2 million men born before and after salt iodization in the U.S. Recruits born after iodization scored one standard deviation higher on military cognitive exams. That's the same as 15 IQ points, Zhang notes. Other studies in China, Albania, and New Zealand found a similar correlation between even moderate iodine deficiency and subtle symptoms of weakened cognition. Judge Angela Saini, author and freelance science journalist, said, “In just thirty minutes, Emily Zhang takes the viewer on a journey through the history of this simple condiment and explains precisely why and how it has had a transformative impact on public health.” Zhang said, “In a world where decisions happen above our heads and algorithms tell us what to consume, it can feel like you don't have a say in your own life. But it's been so empowering to simply follow my curiosity about an everyday thing like iodized salt and end up knee-deep in a science story to hopefully change the world's iodine intake for the better.”
Audio
Gold Award
Soren Wheeler, Lulu Miller, Sindhu Gnanasambandan and Rachel Gross
Radiolab
Jan. 30, 2026
In 2024, science reporter Rachel Gross experienced a stroke in her cerebellum. She first noticed symptoms at her weekly karaoke night, where she discovered at the microphone that “the notes weren’t translating from my brain to my vocal cords.” A few days later, Gross went to the hospital and was rushed into surgery, where neurosurgeons removed a malformation in her cerebellum – a fist-sized part of the brain located at the back of the neck. Doctors told Gross that the cerebellum was “redundant” and “almost vestigial.” They assured her that removing part of the cerebellum may make her a bit clumsy, “but you’ll still be you.” After surgery, Gross found this assurance far from her reality. Radiolab producer Sindhu Gnanasambandan and host Lulu Muller join Gross as she wrestles with the question: “why do I not feel like myself anymore?” The cerebellum has often gone ignored in neuroscience research, says Massachusetts General Hospital neurologist Jeremy Schmahmann. For a long time, the “upstairs part” of the brain, or cerebrum, was thought to control the majority of cognition. The cerebellum was associated with motor function. When Schmahmann started questioning whether there might be more to this part of the brain, he searched for infrastructure between the cerebrum and the cerebellum. Using dye tracers in the brains of rhesus monkeys, he observed neural highways between the cerebellum and cerebrum. “It's like an invisible orchestra conductor,” says Gross, “doing all the real-time, unconscious, behind-the-scenes adjustments to plan, sequence and time all the elements of [physical] action.” The cerebellum serves the same function for language and how we engage in society. A damaged cerebellum can cause “an overshoot or an undershoot in emotional regulation.” Gross finds hope exploring how the brain recovers after injury, a process that neuroscientist and author David Eagleman tells Radiolab requires the “right cocktail of neurotransmitters for plasticity to happen, and that generally maps onto motivation.” Gross has found this motivation in her singing, continuing to attend karaoke and joining a choir for stroke survivors. Judge Rich Monastersky, chief features editor for Nature, said Gross bravely discusses her own injury and recovery, drawing attention “to a relatively unsung part of the brain, the cerebellum, and shows how researchers now recognize that this 'little brain' plays a much more important and varied role than neuroscientists previously realized.” Editor Soren Wheeler said: “Rachel Gross writes beautifully about the marvels and mysteries of the human body, so we at Radiolab were thrilled that she was willing to bring her poetic and incisive voice to bear on her own experience. Rachel came to us in the middle of a journey, and she let us come along for the ride, helping to create a compelling blend of personal narrative and cutting edge brain science. Through a combination of muscular research and brave self-reflection, she gave us a unique chance to think in a new way about how we all think.”
Silver Award
Noam Hassenfeld
The Sound Barrier #2: The noise that isn't there
Unexplainable (Vox Media)
Nov. 5, 2025
The Sound Barrier #3: What does silence sound like?
Unexplainable (Vox Media)
Nov. 10, 2025
The Sound Barrier #4: Listen to the universe
Unexplainable (Vox Media)
Nov. 12. 2025
In his “Sound Barrier” series for Vox’s Unexplainable, Noam Hassenfeld returns to a subject he first explored with a standalone episode in 2022 – sound. The episode was re-aired with his three winning episodes as a four-part series exploring “the limits of hearing, and ways we can break through.” The second episode tackles tinnitus, a phenomenon that occurs when hearing loss causes the perception of sounds that don’t exist. When the brain receives less auditory information than it’s expecting, it turns the volume up. This can lead to phantom noises that range from irritating to debilitating. Although 15% of adults suffer from tinnitus, says Hassenfeld, “scientists still don’t really understand what takes someone from hearing damage to tinnitus.” Episode three explores a more abstract question – “how can something that’s nothing do so much?” Silence is “a really strange thing,” says Hassenfeld. It is so uncomfortable, one study found that human subjects preferred electric shock to silence. But at the same time, ponders Hassenfeld, some studies see healing benefits to silence and sensory deprivation. “Silence isn’t empty,” concludes Hassenfeld, it’s something we can hear, there’s a “texture” to it. He ends the episode with 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence, a clever homage to the John Cage piece of the same name. The fourth and final episode profiles astronomer Wanda Diáz-Merced, who was diagnosed with diabetes at ten, and lost her sight in college. She struggled to continue her science degree, until one day a classmate showed her a small antenna he had in the back of his house, handed her a pair of headphones, and played her a real time detection of a solar emission. She was hearing the sun’s outer atmosphere being blown off into space, says Hassenfeld. The experience gave her a sense of possibility. Diáz-Merced tells Hassenfeld that “for the first time, I felt happiness in my life.” Today, Diáz-Merced’s work harnesses the sonification of data, translating information to sound to notice trends other scientists may miss. Hassenfeld also speaks with Robert Wilson, who used sound to help discover first evidence of the Big Bang, and NASA’s Kim Arcand, who is working to turn images of space into sound. Judge Richard Harris, former NPR science correspondent, said: “These pieces used sound (and silence) to great effect. I especially appreciated the philosophical excursions in these deeply researched and well told stories.” Noam Hassenfeld commented: “I’m grateful to all the scientists I spoke with who were so open about everything they still don’t know, and to the listeners who trusted us with their own experiences of sound and silence. Thank you to everyone on the Unexplainable team, especially my editor, Joanna Solotaroff, who made every episode of this series better.”
Children’s Science News
Gold Award
Kathryn Hulick
Science News Explores
March 19, 2026
5 things to remember when talking to a chatbot
Science News Explores
Nov. 13, 2025
In two stories for Science News Explores, Kathryn Hulick told her young readers about the possible risks of spending too much time online with “brain rot” characters such as Tralalero Tralala and five things to remember when talking to a chatbot. In each story, Hulick discussed what may happen to young brains when they are exposed to too much social media and engagement with chatbots generated by artificial intelligence or AI. Laughing at brain rot every so often won’t hurt you, Hulick says, but the more time you mindlessly spend online, experts are finding, the greater risk you have of harming your brain development and mental health. Regarding chatbots, she writes: “Short conversations with AI can be helpful or entertaining. A bot can act like a friend who’s always there to listen and support you. But this tech wasn’t designed for young people. And sometimes, things go wrong. Very, very wrong.” She cites the case of Adam Raine, a teen who died by suicide in 2025. His family alleges that his conversations with ChatGPT led to his death. Judge Sandra Kanthal, a freelance radio producer primarily for the BBC, said Hulick’s stories “are two very important pieces which are extremely well researched and written in a way which will engage younger readers. In this moment in history, when societies are trying to figure out the best ways to protect children from the potential harms of social media and artificial intelligence, these two articles clearly lay out the dangers we face as well as potential actions to combat them in a calm relatable way. Every young person should read them.” Christoph von Eichhorn, science editor for Sueddeutsche Zeitung, said Hulick “reveals the mechanisms behind zombie scrolling and social media addiction, while maintaining a balanced stance, explaining how the evidence on social media is still evolving.” So much of the concern about youth and social media targets parents, educators, and other gate keepers, Hulick notes. “But kids and teens have their own agency,” she says. “They are smart people who care about what is happening in the world. My goal is always for young people to see themselves in my story and feel empowered to make choices about how they want to shape their own future.”
Silver Award
Jörg Gero Grüner
The tongue — what's it doing in your mouth?
Deutsche Welle (Germany)
Aug. 29, 2025
The appendix: Useless organ or gut health hero?
Deutsche Welle (Germany)
Oct. 13, 2025
The prostate: A small, peculiar organ that plays a big role
Deutsche Welle (Germany)
April 5, 2026
In a trio of short, animated videos for Deutsche Welle, Germany's international broadcaster, Jörg Gero Grüner looked at the role of internal body organs that don’t always get the attention they deserve. The films were part of a series called “Organized” that aims to portray our organs with 3D animations in a vivid, funny and entertaining way that helps young and old alike understand the special characteristics of each organ. The tongue, for example, is hard at work from morning to night helping us speak, chew, produce saliva and analyze food. Hundreds of thousands of taste cells detect five flavor profiles, giving us clues about what we’re eating. And the tongue’s color says a lot about our health. Grüner notes that the appendix was long dismissed as pointless – something that only caused trouble and can burst. But new research shows it may play a crucial role in supporting our immune system and maintaining gut health. Grüner uses a novel approach to explain the versatility of the prostate. “An animal covered in fur — or one with a beak? Sometimes nature can’t quite make up its mind... which is how the platypus came about,” he says. “And as the human body evolved, it needed a drainage system to flush out toxins … AND a reproductive organ. So why not combine the two?” The judges praised the simple but effective videos. ‘‘With the animated series ‘Organized’ Jörg Gero Grüner proves that organs such as the appendix, the prostate or the tongue can be surprisingly entertaining for a young audience,” said judge Christoph von Eichhorn, science editor for Sueddeutsche Zeitung. “The short and visually appealing videos answer questions that probably everybody has asked themselves, for instance why the tongue changes its color or what on earth the appendix is for. Additionally, the organs in the videos – the heroes of the stories – are super cute.” Jörg Gero Grüner commented: “Since my work is all about organs and their point of view, I'll let them speak for me: my heart feels enthusiastic, upbeat, and pumped. My brain thinks it's a great honor and achievement but still needs some time to process. And my stomach says it's all very exciting, but also that it's time for dinner.”
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