A Blog Around The Clock

The First Award for Best Science Blogging Judged by Steven Pinker

Celebrating the best of blog-writing on the web, 3 Quarks Daily will award four annual prizes in the respective areas of Science, Arts & Literature, Politics, and Philosophy for the best blog post in those fields. This year, the winners of the 3QD Prize in Science will be selected from six finalists by Steven Pinker, who will also provide comments about each of the three winning entries.

Please nominate your favorite blog entry in the field of the Natural and Social Sciences by placing the URL for the blogpost in the comments section here. You may also add a brief comment describing the entry and saying why you think it should win.

The nominating process will end at midnight (Eastern Standard Time) June 1, 2009. So get those nominations in today!

CONTEST RULES

* The editors of 3QD reserve the right to reject entries that we feel are not appropriate.
* The blog entry must have been written after May 24, 2008.
* You may nominate an entry from your own or a group blog.
* Guest columnists at 3 Quarks Daily are eligible to be nominated, and may nominate themselves.

VOTING ENDS midnight June 8, 2009 (Eastern Standard Time)

Winners will be announced June 21, 2009

About The Quarks

'The Quarks' will be awarded every year on the two solstices and the two equinoxes:

Science Prize: announced June 21

Arts & Literature Prize: announced September 22

Politics Prize: announced December 21

Philosophy Prize: March 20, 2010

About a month before the prize is awarded we will solicit nominations of blog entries from our readers. The nominating period will last one week. At the end of this time, we will open up the voting to our readers. The four main daily editors of 3 Quarks Daily (Abbas Raza, Robin Varghese, Morgan Meis, and Azra Raza) will take the top twenty voted-for nominees, and will select six finalists from these, plus a wildcard entry of their choosing. Finally, a well-known intellectual from the field will pick the three final winners from these, and write short comments on the winning entries to be published on 3 Quarks Daily.

The first place award will be called the "Top Quark," and will include a cash prize of $1,000; the second place prize, the "Charm Quark," will include a cash prize of $300; and the third place winner will get the honor of winning the "Strange Quark," along with $200.

About the Science Category Judge, Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker is Harvard College Professor and Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. Until 2003, he taught in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. He conducts research on language and cognition, writes for publications such as The New York Times, Time, and The New Republic, and is the author of seven books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, Words and Rules, The Blank Slate, and most recently, The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature.

ABOUT 3 QUARKS DAILY

There's a reason why leading intellectuals like Richard Dawkins have declared, "I have placed 3 Quarks Daily at the head of my list of web bookmarks." There aren't many places on the web to get the one-stop intellectual surfing experience 3 Quarks Daily provides. With the original writings of Monday Musings--penned by the editors as well as an international roster of critics, politicians, and intellectuals--and 3QD editors culling the most fascinating science, design, literature, current affairs, art, and criticism every day from all over the web, 3 Quarks Daily is more of an intellectual wonder cabinet than a filter blog.

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