24 Aug 2005, The Daily Telegraph

By Roger Highfield, Science Editor

SUMO rats, the language of dogs and the merits of dolphin therapy - these are a few of my favourite things from the nation’s most prestigious science writing competition, the winners of which are announced today.

Yfke van Bergen, 26, of the Company of Biologists, studied for her doctorate in animal behaviour at Cambridge University and is of Dutch/Belgian extraction. "I most definitely have an interest in science popularisation and spent much of my PhD demonstrating at hands-on science events in schools or at outdoor festivals, volunteering during National Science Week events and writing about science." Daniel Gregory, 17, of Ysgol Syr Thomas Jones (Sir Thomas Jones School) intends to study physics at university. "I certainly have a special interest in science and hope to make it my career."

The quest to find future popularisers of science, engineering and technology was launched by Sir David King, the Prime Minister’s chief scientist. "I want to see more people, young and old, get involved, inspired by our world class science and innovation," he wrote in these pages. This competition "can make a difference."

The appeal by the nation’s most senior scientist to 16- to 28-year-olds to compete for £7,000 of prizes, trips to America and the chance to get their name in print triggered more than half a million hits on the www.science-writer.co.uk web site.
Printed here are the two winning entries to the competition, now in its 18th year thanks to the sponsorship of the chemical company BASF, which was represented at the judging by its former chairman, Barry Stickings, now BASF Group consultant.

To begin with I had selected around 130 from this year’s batch of 335 entries that I felt were good enough to grace 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.

After this second sift we were left with around 60 shortlisted entries and the judges met to debate the merits of each one in a final session in BASF’s offices in London. The best entries needed to combine passion with foundation of good research (best of all, on an interview with one or more scientists rather a rummage on the web). Above all else, they needed to be good enough for The Daily Telegraph. Each judge had to explain their choice in the face of the usual barracking, groans and protestations of "oh no" - mostly from fellow judge, Prof Lewis Wolpert.

*Younger Category (15-19): "I was a bit disappointed," declared Lewis, a sentiment echoed by others. But we all agreed that the diversity of topics tackled by the entries was breathtaking. "They were fun and there was a huge variety," said Adam Hart-Davis. "I found that very refreshing."

As ever, there were wrangles. One concerned the scientific basis of a home experiment to see what creatures respond to a dog whistle (Zebra finches and guinea pigs, yes, but cockatiels no, apparently). Another was triggered by a meditation on whether the speed of light is really sacred from 17 year old Daniel Gregory, an early front runner.

Prof Heinz Wolff complained that cosmology is "religion, not science." Jeremy Webb of New Scientist responded that it is not religion but magic. Others were worried that Daniel’s piece was a tad arcane. But, when it was compared with entries on easy-to-popularise subjects, this was its strength. "If I want to sell more copies of New Scientist, I put cosmology on the cover," said Jeremy. "This succeeded in making physics clear," added Sir Roland Jackson of the British Association.

The effort by Genevieve Rolleston Smith to describe the forensic investigation of a mummy found at her school eventually carried the second prize - despite protestations from Prof Wolpert. But he was outvoted. "I thought it was very good," said Barry Stickings. "A young person’s encounter of high tech science in a peculiar setting," declared Jeremy Webb. And Phil Campbell of Nature declared it was "great stuff."

*Older Category (20-28): The standard was remarkably high and uniform, said Mary Archer. "There were about 10 that I really liked, and on a huge variety of subjects" added Adam Hart-Davis. And Jeremy Webb "thoroughly enjoyed reading them."

Remarkably, a former winner and second prize winner, Lewis Brindley, made the finalists. Even more remarkable, the usual dictum that it is better to submit one great entry than several- which are usually more mediocre - was overturned by Dr Yfke Van Bergen. The judges were split between those who liked her account of how male tilapia chat up the opposite sex by urinating, and those who liked one on the mystery deaths of farmed rainbow trout. For the first time in the history of judging, we had to vote on which of two entries by the same contestant would win. The trout leapt ahead of the tilapia because of the important implications for fish farming. "You ought to appoint her as the Daily Telegraph’s fish correspondent," said Adam Hart-Davis.

After an impassioned discussion about whether it is possible to tell the sex of a fruit fly by glancing at one from afar (no, of course) about the incidence of human chimeras, when embryos fuse in the womb, the tough race for the second place was won by Kate Coughlin’s epic on the metropolises of the bacterial world - biofilms.

*The prizes: the British Association will invite the top four to its Festival of Science in Dublin from 3-10 September. Crime-busting mathematicians, life-swapping identity thieves and the ultimate neighbour from hell: the festival will bring together over 300 top scientists and engineers to discuss the latest developments in science with the public. To find out about the programme of events, visit www.the-ba.net/festivalofscience.

The two overall winners will also attend the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting next February in St Louis, and each receive £500. Those pushed into second place will receive £250 and will be published in weeks to come. Runners-up also win subscriptions to Nature and New Scientist, and each receive pounds 100. Once again, The Daily Telegraph, BASF and the British Association would like to thank the hundreds of people who submitted entries.