2008 book winners announced

There it is, screaming atop the page at the Royal Society, Winners Announced. The puff of white smoke has gone up, and Six Degrees by Mark Lynas (Fourth Estate/Harper Collins) picks up this year's General Prize in the 2008 Royal Society Prizes for Science Books.

The Junior Prize goes to Big Book of Science Things to Make and Do by Rebecca Gilpin and Leonie Pratt, (Usborne).

For some reason, the detailed account of the event is over on Flickr, along with some pictures. (That's where you land if you follow the links in the above.)

The general prize is for a book on climate change. The title of the book that collected the junior prize explains itself.

An ice breaking competition for science journalists

Here is a Competition for science journalists with a real prize, "a week aboard an Arctic icebreaker". And that includes "transportation from your home country".

In April 2008, you could join "journalists from all over the world for a week aboard the Canadian research icebreaker Amundsen".

The World Federation of Science Journalists—in collaboration with the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the International Polar Year Circumpolar Flaw Lead Project—announces a competition offering science journalists the chance to win one of three week-long trips aboard the Canadian research icebreaker Amundsen. You will fly all the way to Inuvik (Canada), and hop aboard a Twin Otter aircraft to the famous icebreaker, where you will get first hand experience of global warming where it is unfolding the fastest.

The last time I was in Inuvik, a good 20 years ago, it was like the Wild West with snow. But a very interesting church building. That was back when the oil business was booming. And, boy, did the ice need breaking? The oil rigs were miles out to "sea" beneath many feet of ice, which our plane landed on.