25 June 1990, The Daily Telegraph

Mark and Clive find what the doctors ordered

By Dr Roger Highfield

THE BIRTH of stars and the world's biggest orgasm - the eggs and sperm released by the Great Barrier coral reef - diverted some of Britain's most eminent scientists this month.

These were two among many subjects tackled by finalists in Britain's most prestigious competition of its kind, the 1990 Young Science Writer Awards, sponsored by The Daily Telegraph and the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

The winners, announced today, are Clive Oppenheimer, 26, and Mark Nixon, 16, who will be guests at the association's annual meeting in August. As a further part of their prize, they will visit the United States early next year to attend the association's sister conference in Washington DC.

When Clive saw a message to ring The Daily Telegraph in his university laboratory, Clive says that his heart beat a little faster. He had just returned from a two-month field trip to Chile during his research on volcanoes. "I had quite forgotten about entering the competition so I was doubly surprised to find I'd won it."

"Good grief," said Mark when I told him the news. He admitted that he did not see himself as a scientist although he said he was going to follow up the badger survey he first participated in three years ago.

The 20 runners-up will each receive certificates of merit and subscriptions to 'New Scientist' and 'Nature', which were represented at the judging by Richard Fifield and Nuala Moran respectively.

The 1990 competition was launched last November by one of the masters of popularising science, Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard University, who discussed sex, drugs and the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Young scientists were invited to write between 700 and 800 words on a subject of their choice in a style that would engage both the general reader and the specialist. The judges also took into account accuracy, originality and effort in the form of research.

Hundreds of writers took up the challenge in this, the third year of the competition. For the final judging, they were whittled down to 35, all of whom will receive merit certificates.

The first round saw the judges put forward their vote for the top three. The older age group, 22-28, presented the most difficulty. The judges man aged to shortlist 19, a higher number than usual, with very little agreement on which were the most outstanding.

On several occasions, the majority of judges criticised an entry for being too twee, boring or inaccurate and took great glee in finding out which judge voted it into the final judging. The standard of entries stimulated diverse discussions on subjects ranging from alloy formation to the way the immune system works.

The younger group was noticeably smaller this year than last - possibly because teachers have had less time while introducing the national curriculum. The younger group is trickier to judge than the older because it contains both school and university students.

As a result, age was taken into account; articles tackling pure science tended to be favoured over technology-oriented ones; and we preferred entrants who had displayed a journalist's initiative by conducting interviews, as opposed to those who had drawn from a single reference source.

THE winning entry, from Mark Nixon of Droitwich High School, was breezy, entertaining and described his part in a major project. "I liked it very much," said Prof Heinz Wolff. "It was very interesting and has popular appeal - everyone likes badgers," said Nuala Moran.

The judges were divided over the amount of science in the piece. But Sir David Phillips felt it yielded useful results. In science, "there is physics and there is stamp collecting. This is stamp collecting," said Sir David. It was voted overall winner, only just beating another 16 year old who came up with an entertaining piece on a strong subject.

Martin Drury's account of the use of fish to monitor water quality had "a lot of appeal, given the concern about water quality at the moment," said Nuala Moran. The idea of using fish as pollution monitors fascinated the judges, particularly the idea of giving them holidays to avoid fatigue and boredom. "It is very interesting that fish can stand up against chemical sensing," said Dr Mary Archer.

Another piece singled out for praise was by Nicholas Craig, who described how he had come up with a method to age crayfish that could be adopted by other laboratories. "He is an enterprising young man," said Dr Newmark. Prof Wolff was familiar with the technique described in Fiona Gammie's article - applied potential tomography, a low cost method to produce images of within the body. He thought some of it a little too difficult for the readership but it gathered support from several judges, with Peter Newmark calling it "entertaining and informative".

Justin Holliday of Wadham College, Oxford, tackled the idea of sustainable development. Nuala Moran said it showed he was widely read and had pulled many sources together, although she, with other judges, found it raised several questions: for instance Sir David wondered why all the quoted figures ended in 79 cents in Justin's statistics on rain forest economics.

Catriona McCracken, 16, described how clicks and vibrations in joints can be used to detect knee injuries. "I liked it and it had the diagram and photographs, which was enterprising," said Nuala, though she and other judges felt that it read a little like a paper in parts.

Barry Smith's piece on one of the most notable unsolved problems in mathematics - Fermat's last theorem - was praised. "It was brave and imaginative of him to have brought in things about bog frogs and logic," said Dr Archer, although the judges felt that he did not quite carry it off - it was a heroic failure.

Many almost made it into the runners-up: one strong contender on food irradiation focused too hard on the merits and not enough on the controversy. An entry on the use of cow blood on humans was "alarming and radical" said Dr Archer, although it relied a little too much on one source.

The older group saw some of the deepest divisions among the judges, particularly over Dr Andrew George's article which compared the immune system and brain. The dispute centred on whether the analogies he drew were more misleading than illuminating, with Prof Wolpert backing the former view and Mary Archer and Heinz Wolff, the latter.

It was very well written and ideal for a national, according to Wolff. But the judges were frustrated that Dr George had not focused on his own work at the Tenovus Research Laboratory in Southampton General Hospital. DAVID KATZ of the Queen Mary and Westfield College tackled an area of a field that deserves much more attention: materials science, in this case holograms of hip replacements. Though it was a workmanlike piece, Richard Fifield thought it "a little passive".

Comparison with an entry from Andrew Kennedy of the Hatherly Laboratories in Exeter highlighted a common problem in judging: how to take into account quite different factors. While Andrew's piece was a better read than David's, it relied only on an article in 'New Scientist' as a source rather than personal research.

Helen O'Leary's adventures on the Project Barito Ulu, investigating the calls of gibbons in Indonesia, was described as very well written by Dr Archer, though she felt it lacked a strong conclusion.

And Stephen Simpson of the National Institute for Medical Research, described how mice containing foreign genes can be used to investigate the immune system, a burgeoning area of research that prompted a discussion among the panel.

Tim Robinson's piece on an exciting new potential therapy for stroke victims was praised for its relevance by Nuala Moran and Lewis Wolpert, and its good opening and close by Richard Fifield, although contained a little too much jargon. Penelope Smith of Edinburgh University was also singled out for her imaginative idea for a graphic.

But it was Clive Oppenheimer of the Open University who won universal acclaim and the overall prize for the older category for his article on lakes of molten sulphur found on Earth and Io, one of Jupiter's moons. "I liked it a lot, a very accomplished and interesting piece of writing," said Dr Newmark. "It really was first class," said Dr Archer. "It dealt with the physical science it had to bring in extremely well."

Clive Oppenheimer said he gets a great deal of pleasure from writing though rarely finds it easy. "Winning the competition will certainly encourage me to keep at it. Unfortunately, my next writing project - my PhD thesis - will require up to 100,000 words, quite a few more than the Telegraph competition."