DISCOVER's January 2007 issue tracks the top 100 stories in science, as the magazine does every year. Last week we launched a poll to see what our readers thought was the biggest news in science this year. Here are the results after 506 votes, conveniently presented in two formats for people who prefer either pictures or numbers:

Pluto Demoted: 121 votes

The World Is Melting: 83 votes

Dark Matter Spotted: 81 votes


Rise of Alternative Energy: 54 votes

RNA Breaks Laws of Heredity: 44 votes

Lab-Grown Bladders: 33 votes

Knowing Neanderthals: 30 votes

Sea-to-Land Fish Fossil: 30 votes

Poincaré Solution: 17 votes

Enter Synthetic Biology: 11 votes

Pluto Demoted pulled out a commanding victory over a varied and impressive field of contenders; our hats go off to that story—and also to poor Pluto, the cast off ex-planet. We were somewhat surprised that synthetic biology finished in a lame 10th place, as our scientist of the year, Jay Keasling, is a leader in that field. We'll just assume that the sophisticated DISCOVER electorate wanted to diversify honors between different fields of science. Everybody goes home a winner.

As for DISCOVER's top100 list, we'll reveal it over the course of the next few weeks, one subject at a time. Of course, subscribers get access to the whole special package immediately, but readers who do not subscribe will not have to wait long.