8 Aug 2006, The Daily Telegraph

By Roger Highfield, Science Editor

Phillip's flask and Leili's bug thrill judges.

The origins of life on Earth, the inexorable rise of the zebra mussel and the profound mystery of the missing teaspoons are among the extraordinarily diverse range of subjects tackled by entries to the nation's most prestigious science writing competition, the winners of which are announced today.

The latest quest to find future popularisers of science, engineering and technology was launched at the end of last year by Lord Rees, the most senior scientist in the land. His appeal to 16- to 28-year-olds to compete for the chance to get their name in print and win thousands of pounds worth of prizes triggered more than half a million hits on the www.sciencewriter. co.uk website. Printed here are the two winning entries to the competition, the 19th run by The Daily Telegraph.

This year saw a number of changes in the wake of new sponsorship by the company Bayer, which was represented at the judging by Steve Painter. The competition is now backed by the Royal Society, of which Lord Rees is president, and our prestigious judging panel has been joined by two giants of science popularisation, Sir David Attenborough and Bill Bryson.

To begin the process of judging the 350 or so entries, I selected around one third that I thought were good enough to consider for this page and sent batches to pairs of judges who sorted the best in terms of style, novelty and difficulty in popularising the subject - while taking account of poor grammar, contrived metaphors, muddled structure, impenetrable jargon and plagiarism.

Finally, the judges met at the Royal Society and spent a morning engaged in good-natured banter on the links between dance and body symmetry, how bacteria package their genes in DNA rings and other issues raised by the 60 or so finalists - among the largest number to get to this stage in the history of the competition.

After the tactical voting, arcane rows and a great deal of laughter, here are the two overall winners. Top of the 20-28 category was Phillip Broadwith, whose entry was "spectacularly good," said Sir David. "He actually does think this question of molecules and shapes of molecules is thrilling. Gosh. When you think what an abstract concept that actually is, and the way people have thought it through, it is very exciting, a pleasure to read."

Steve Painter said that Phillip "is my winner because he is taking what is so often seen as a dense subject and made it interesting and relevant". After a battle between an entry on foamy frog nests and one on the remarkable process of endosymbiosis - the process by which ancient cells merged to produce the more complex ones of which our bodies are built - Mark Morris took the coveted second place.

As for the 15-19-yearold category, Leili Farzenah and Ricki Nabeshima were ahead of the field with entries on genetic modification and ball lightning. Lord Rees was electrified by Ricki; other judges gave strong support to Farzehah's genetic modification. Do we overrule the president of the RS? "Yes" was the enthusiastic answer from my judges, and Leili pushed Ricki into second place.

Unusually, one other entry unified the judges, that of Maya Kessler, entitled Where Have All The Bloody Teaspoons Gone? The humour of the entry, which puts forward some cosmic explanations for this Earthly phenomenon, deserved a special award, said Sir David. "It made us all laugh," said Phil Campbell, editor-in-chief of Nature. "This should be the subject of Martin's (Lord Rees's) next book."

The school with the highest number of finalist entries was again Grange School in Northwich, Cheshire, and it wins the special Bayer Award of £500.

And, once again, Andy Milne, head of biology at Grange, wins the Teacher's Prize, a £200 book token.

Roger Highfield

The Daily Telegraph, Bayer and the Royal Society would like to warmly thank the judges and the hundred of people who entered.