2008 MacArthur Fellows Named

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has granted 25 more geniuses a cool half million dollars through their fellows program. The foundation's website states, "They include a neurobiologist, a saxophonist, a critical care physician, an urban farmer, an optical physicist, a sculptor, a geriatrician, a historian of medicine, and an inventor of musical instruments. All were selected for their creativity, originality, and potential to make important contributions in the future. Each received a phone call from the MacArthur Foundation with news of $500,000 in no-strings-attached support over the next five years."

The NY Times breaks it down categorically, noting that the latest class (which follows the 756 who have been awarded since 1981) has mostly scientists (13 to be exact), with the art folk coming in second (with 8). The foundation's president saying this year's winners are “people working on the very edge of discovery and people at the edge of a new synthesis.”

A full list of the new fellows can be found here, and the NY Post takes a look at the big winners in New York--including Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker and Miguel Zenon, a 31-year-old jazz saxophonist from Washington Heights.