Newly Minted Genius: 2007 MacArthur Fellows

The MacArthur Foun­da­tion recent­ly announced its lat­est crop of “genius grant” recip­i­ents. Each win­ner receives $500,000 “with no strings attached” and they can use the mon­ey to live, to fund research, or to buy a very mod­est con­do in the Bay Area. As usu­al, the recip­i­ents come from a wide range of fields and back­grounds. Review­ing the bios and mul­ti­me­dia clips of these incred­i­bly gift­ed peo­ple, I can’t help but be remind­ed of a great Tom Lehrer quote: “When Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years.”