MacArthur Genius Winner: I Thought it Was Spam

Twenty-four creative high-achievers handed $500K

(NEWSER) - "Master vocalist" Dawn Upshaw is among 24 "geniuses" awarded half a million bucks by the MacArthur Foundation today. Back from a break to treat her breast cancer, Upshaw says she hopes that "a lot of amazing music comes from it. Maybe new pieces with young singers." Other so-called "Genius Grant" recipients include a playwright, a geographer and an installation artist. More»

22 others get $500K to follow their passions

(NEWSER) - The creator of the HBO hit series The Wire and now Treme is among 23 winners of the "genius" grants announced today by the MacArthur Foundation. The awards, granting $100,000 annually for 5 years with absolutely no strings attached, left David Simon with a "vague sense of guilt" for already being amply compensated in an industry that's "a little bit recession proof," he noted, reports MSNBC . But he plans to spend his bucks while working on a history of the CIA and a Yonkers housing desegregation fight, neither of which has the "best commercial outlook," he noted. Other winning scientists and artists Include: More»

Journalists, scientists, artists among 24 awarded $500K grants

(AP) - A newspaper reporter who refuses to forget decades-old murders is among 24 recipients of this year's $500,000 MacArthur Foundation "genius grants." As in previous years, a wide variety of fields are represented on the list of recipients: There is a novelist and an applied physicist, a photojournalist and a molecular biologist, a painter and a biochemist, physicians and a short story writer, a bridge engineer and poet. More»

25 innovators receive this year's $500 prizes

(NEWSER) - Of the 25 recipients of this year's MacArthur Foundation "genius award," 13 are scientists and eight are artists, the New York Times reports. This year, they are “people working on the very edge of discovery and people at the edge of a new synthesis,” says the foundation’s president. Among the winners:

• Tara Donovan, sculptor of drinking straws and paper clips
• Alex Ross, New Yorker music critic
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Nigerian novelist

Jon Stewart leads the pack of influential whizzes

(NEWSER) - The biggest intellectual, cultural, and technological achievements of the year were powered by these brains—some we know well, some we don’t. The Daily Beast got together with 20-plus recent winners of MacArthur “Genius” grant to determine the year’s smartest:

1. Jon Stewart. Going beyond the biting Daily Show, Stewart "turned his logic-rooted, hypocrisy-bashing comedy into action" by organizing the Rally to Restore Sanity and pushing hard—and successfully—for the passage of the 9/11 first responders health bill.