The controversial issue of U.S. beef imports and the related mad cow scare was named the hottest science issue of the year.

In an online survey by the Citizens' Coalition for Scientific Society, 303 of its 435 members chose the mad cow scandal while 290 picked Korea's first space-bound astronaut as the year's top science news.

Coming in third was the first complete deciphering of a Korean's genome map achieved by Gachon University of Medicine and Science and the Korea Bioinformation Center. The melamine food scare of Chinese dairy food imports came in fourth.