13 July 1994, The Daily Telegraph

What would the man in the street think?

Science Editor Roger Highfield announces the winner of the 1994 Daily Telegraph Science Writer Awards.

THERE is nothing more depressing than announcing your shortlist to a judging panel consisting of the great and good, only to find that almost no one agrees with your choice of fine prose.

This temporary wobble in selecting the best of Britain's young science writers was swiftly forgotten when Sir David Phillips proposed one entry that would turn out to be a winner, though even he admitted that judging was more difficult than in any previous year.

Launched last November by an inspirational article by popular science writer and astronomer Michael Rowan Robinson, the seventh Young Science Writer Awards were again backed by the British Association for the Advancement of Science and The Daily Telegraph.

As in previous years, chairing the deliberations of the nine-member panel was a bumpy experience. Inviting each to nominate their top three entries revealed a striking lack of unanimity - ranging from Richard Fifield championing toxic algae to Peter Newmark favouring asteroid belts - and triggered the inevitable discussion of what the judges were looking for.

Lewis Wolpert said: "Anyone who was didactic and who said, 'I am going to tell you' were out because they were very unlively." Peter Newmark stressed novelty while Laura Garwin emphasised the need both to entertain and inform. "Some of the entries were content-free, even though they were a good read," she said. After a morning of animated discussion at the Telegraph, the final stage of sifting the hundreds of entries, Heinz Wolff pondered whether "nine sensible people" would come to anywhere the same shortlist, fearing that the panel was too prescriptive.

His approach to judging was to put himself in the shoes of a "man in the street". In the older age group, first prize went to Stephen Hill of Leeds University, who described his research into environmentally sound dyes, and, in the younger, Ayesha Abu-Bakare, of the Royal School, Bath, who rounded up the perils of toxic shock syndrome.

The winners will be presented with their Awards by Dr Anne McLaren, president of the British Association, at its annual meeting at Loughborough University in September. As well as having their entries published and winning £500 each, they will visit America, expenses paid, to attend the association's sister conference in Atlanta.

"Are you serious?" Ayesha said when I broke the news. "Hang on a minute . . . Oh my gosh!" The older prize winner, Stephen Hill, seemed similarly shaken. "Good grief," he said. "Thank you very much. Wow!" The two runners-up, Mairi Fee, 29, a second-year graduate medical student at Dundee University, and Kirsty Russell, 17, who is about to go into the upper sixth at Stamford High School, Lincs, will attend the British Association meeting.

The 18 other runners-up each receive £100, certificates of merit and subscriptions to 'New Scientist' and 'Nature'. VERDICTS ON THE YOUNGER ENTRIES A YESHA'S entry attracted Sir David Phillips' praise because of its lively style. "She went all the way from the symptoms of an important socio-medical problem to the structure of the bacterial toxin responsible, which is bound to appeal to me," he said, in reference to his most cherished moment in research, when he understood the mechanism of lysozyme - an enzyme found in human tears and egg white - by studying the structure of the enzyme and the molecule it docked with.

Like every other nominated entry, this did not go unchallenged. Heinz Wolff and Laura Garwin were troubled that this was a familiar story and lacked science. However, Mary Archer said: "If I were a 17-year-old girl, I would be keenly interested in something that might kill me." And Lewis Wolpert, after reading out Ayesha's description of the molecular structure of the toxin, declared: "Come on, what more do you want?

Even David would not be able to tell you much more." Kirsty Russell's entry on heart research was popular with Mary Archer, Sir David and Heinz Wolff, though she attempted to link two themes in the same article, which diluted the impact of her main theme on how to prepare the heart for surgery.

Of all the other contenders, which ranged from cures for the bone-eroding disease osteoporosis to the missing matter of the universe, the most contentious was an article by Michael Crossland entitled "Could the stethoscope's days soon be numbered?" Peter Briggs felt it was the most interesting. By contrast, Lewis Wolpert exclaimed he was "totally confused - there is not a single thing this apparatus can do that a stethoscope does".

A long argument ensued. . . . AND THE OLDER JUDGING the senior category was equally tricky. The panel faced a rich variety of topics. One article on cracks in aircraft contained the fascinating throwaway idea that engineers rely on nicotine stains to highlight hairline flaws. Others discussed mysterious flashes in the sky, the lifestyle of a researcher, how bacteria munch away at ships or bask in urine, and how spacecraft are eroded by atomic oxygen in the higher reaches of the atmosphere.

"The problem is that I like too many of them," Laura Garwin said. Even the irrepressible Lewis Wolpert admitted that he found the task almost impossible.

To help sift promising entries, we favoured those who tackled abstruse subjects, for instance quantum chemistry or hydrogeology. These brave souls faced greater challenges in sugaring their ideas for popular consumption than, say, the efforts in medicine or biology. Stephen Hill's effort shone out from the field.

Mairi Fee came a close second with her piece on the brain physiology of laughter, hailed by Peter Briggs as being "a pleasure to read' and supported by many of the panel. Praise indeed, as some entries were greeted with the kind of commotion heard only in Prime Minister's question time.