The 2015 Macarthur Foundation "Genius" Scientists Have Been Announced
John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation MacArthur fellow Lorenz Studer at his lab bench Every year the MacArthur Foundation gives out its famous "genius grants" to talented people whose work shows promise to make the future a better, more interesting place. This year the prize is a hefty $625,000 and has been given to artists, writers, activists and, of course, scientists. Meet some of the 2015 fellows: Chemist William Dichtel: Creates porous polymers with an enormous surface area (on the scale of a football field per gram of polymer) which can be used for power storage and water purification. Computational biologist John Novembre: Studies human evolutionary and genetic history, allowing for highly detailed ancestral tracing and disease pattern mapping. Computer scientist Christopher Ré: Built an inference system that analyzes "dark data," which could be...