I was saddened to hear of the passing of Oliver Sacks, whose work made a big impression on me during the handful of years I was writing for science publications. He and I had never met, but he did one thing for me that I’ll always be grateful for. He chose one of my nonfiction articles for the Ecco/HarperCollins annual anthology, Best American Science Writing 2003. It was my second appearance in that collection, and I was just as surprised the second time around as I was for the first. So thank you, Dr. Sacks. Hail and farewell.

The story he picked was the one I did on sanctuaries for retired lab chimps. You can read it here.