Pantelis Elinas, PhD

End-of-year lists are everywhere this week (the frenzy started last week.) You can find a list about everything including the 50 most loathsome people in America, top 50 albums of 2007, and the list of major incidents on the Internet in 2007 among many others. Science could not be left alone and even though the best of science is often celebrated via a large number of prestigious awards, popular publications such as Wired and Scientific American created their lists of the top 10 and 25, respectively, science breakthroughs of 2007.

Wired: Top 10 Scientific Breakthroughs of 2007
Scientific American: Top 25 Science Stories of 2007

Unfortunately, only one robot story made the list; it seems that the success of the Urban Challenge didn’t have as large an impact as the Grand Challenge. Bummer!