A 71-year-old historian, a 32-year-old physicist, poets, musicians, lawyers: The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has selected this year's crop of "geniuses"—recipients of a coveted fellowship that includes a $625,000 stipend over five years. Among the winners:
- Physicist Danielle Bassett, the youngest recipient at 32, studies communication within the brain, the New York Times reports. Told she'd won, "I said, ‘Are you absolutely sure you got the right person?'"
- Science historian Pamela Long of Washington, DC, is the oldest winner. The 71-year-old investigates the relationship between science and art.
- Cartoonist Alison Bechdel, 54, wrote and drew the 2006 memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. She also developed a simple test for gender equality in film, NPR reports: Do two women talk to each other about something other than men?