Best of CASE District III Award
 

Institution: Duke University

Title of entry: Defending the Brain

About this entry: Staff writer Scott Huler takes an overview look at Duke's investment in brain research. There are so many multidisciplinary research projects, it touches all areas of campus nearly. He sets the table in this main bar in easily accessible language. He invites you to get the science but doesn't bog the story down in academic chatter. This is narrative writing layered over science feature in his unique voice. He tells a good story and with that, invites a reader into the five sidebars that are a part of a larger package. Here's the opener: "If Leonard White shows you around the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences, there’s a good chance he will hand you an actual brain. It weighs about three pounds, but unlike the squishy one in your skull, brains preserved for study feel rubbery. And visitors love to hold them." Most people will never get to hold a human brain, but he has and it's way cool. And that just carries you into a mindset of -- well, "what do we know about the brain?" -- and there are so many angles.