August 2007

Science Editor Roger Highfield introduces the winners of our annual quest, now in its 20th year, to find Britain's outstanding young popularisers of science.

Picture credit Ian Jones. Caption. The winners, Ed Yong, 25, and Matthew Jones, 16, met recently at the Science Museum in London. When Ed was told he had scooped the prize, he gasped "that is amazing - I'm over the moon!". Matthew declared: "Wow, thank you very much."

How didgeridoos can snuff out snoring, the link between obesity and viral infections and why wasps have a streak of spitefulness; these are just three of subjects tackled by the vast range of articles submitted to the nation's most prestigious science writing competition, the winning entries of which are printed here.

The latest mission to find future popularisers of science, engineering and technology was launched with an article by Boris Johnson, the charismatic Tory MP. He emphasised the need to keep a grip on the way science is changing society and asked for entries that showed "powerful thinking, but expressed so clearly that even people like me can understand it."

His appeal to Britain's 16-to 28-year-olds ("Come on, folks. This is the nation of Newton and Boyle and Faraday and Davy!") to compete for the chance to see their name in print and win thousands of pounds worth of prizes lead more than half a million people to visit the competition's website www.science-writer.co.uk

To begin judging the 350 or so entries, I selected around a third that I thought were good enough to consider for this page and sent them in batches to pairs of judges. This year our regular panel was joined by author Fay Weldon and Prof Richard Fortey, president of the Geological Society, and by Steve Painter, representing healthcare and science company Bayer, which sponsors the competition. The judges sorted out the best in terms of style, novelty and difficulty in popularising the subject - while watching out for poor grammar, garbled intros, contrived metaphors, muddled structure, impenetrable jargon and, our greatest fear of all, plagiarism. Finally, we all gathered one morning at the Royal Society in London, which backs the competition, to make our decisions.

There was much good humoured debate about the merits of what was an unusually long shortlist - from whether a photo used by one entrant really showed a chortling chimpanzee ("almost certainly not," said Sir David Attenborough) to why wobbles in stars reveal there is a planet tugging upon them.

Philip Campbell, editor in chief of Nature, bemoaned the fact that in general, entrants had shyed away from tougher subjects such as physics. Many finalists fell by the wayside because they did not explain science properly, something Sir David pounced on with the kind of vigour shown by the carnivorous stars of his documentaries. But, as the video summary of the judging - which you can watch online - shows, the overall standard was excellent.

Sir David summed up the panel's feelings when he said it was "a delight to see the range of range of imagination at work to make all kinds of arcane subjects digestible."

20-28 year olds

This category was tough to judge. "I was really impressed," said Jeremy Webb, editor of New Scientist. "All the elements of science writing you would expect from a professional show up." The entries "are all so good," chimed Sir David. "Extraordinary," added Adam.

We started off with particularly a strong entry by Colin Barras, who described new research on teenage risk taking. Jonathan Black gave a fascinating glimpse of attempts to create new kinds of life in synthetic biology and Hanna Devlin's meditation on memory, and how to wipe it, was "a very good read," according to Sir David.

Mary Archer and Fay Weldon were gripped by the story of a spinning enzyme called ATP synthase (which powers our cells) and how it could pave the way to a new treatment for TB. Laura Goodall's entry on fish and snails with Parkinson's, and what they can tell us about human brains, was singled out by Richard. And Stephen Smith's meditation on exotic stellar objects, magnetars, was praised for describing how their magnetic fields are strong "enough to wipe a credit card from a distance of 200,000 km."

The first round of votes were split between five entries - Barras, Smith, Devlin, and those from Blair Steel and Ed Yong, with Ed providing two entries good enough for the final judging. After a raise of hands, Barras was pushed into second place by Ed Yong who won the day - and £1000 - with the entry printed here, a victory greeted with a cheer of relief that judging this tough category was over.

15-19 year olds

This category was not as strong as previous years, with physics, mathematics and technology unrepresented. Richard said there had been a tendency to write essays rather than articles; Mary Archer felt the agenda had been too influenced by popular themes on the web, rather than in the contestant's own lives, making them less engaging and Fay Weldon complained that they were "too well behaved."

Matthew Jones, who wrote on efforts to grow replacement teeth in the lab, was the first to be considered that morning and stood out immediately. "It is one of my top ones," said Jeremy. One fun read on didgeridoos and snoring by Jessica Rosa struck me as anecdotal but my peers thought it was great fun and Sir David overruled my demand for more data with a roll of his eyes.

There was much else to impress. Anna Groemansberger's personal account of phenylketonuria, a genetic disorder which can harm brain development if untreated, gave "a really interesting insight," said Jeremy. Another by Helena Lightbody on nanotechnology, the catch-all term for the very small, is "a very decent piece," said Fay Weldon.

Along with Adam and Richard, I was particularly taken by an article by Neil Dewar on the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, which will begin to smash particles together next year and could find the elusive Higgs particle, which supposedly drags on other particles as if miring them in molasses, thereby endowing them with mass. Our enthusiasm was dampened by Jeremy ("It fades") but cheered when Adam reminded us that "physicists find it hard to explain the Higgs too."

Laura McGuinness impressed with her account of scar-less healing in a strain of mice, as did Joanne Marlor, who described the remarkable work on epigenetics, the effects of turning genes on and off.

The overall winner - Matthew Jones, from Grange School in Cheshire - emerged easily, for his neat blend of style and information on stem cell research. The next spot was more closely fought with Joanne, a fellow Grange School pupil, winning second place.

Schools prize

Once again, Grange school in Northwich, Cheshire, had the highest number of finalists, winning it the special Bayer Award of £500. And, once again, Andy Milne, head of biology at the school, won the Teacher's Prize, a £200 book token. "I am absolutely over the moon at this fantastic result," he said. "The willingness of Grange School students to pursue academic challenge outside of the classroom has impressed me hugely since I started teaching here. It is testament to their perseverance, ingenuity and self-motivation that we have attained these results; I am one proud teacher!".

The Daily Telegraph, Bayer and the Royal Society offer their warm thanks to the judges and to the hundreds of people who entered.