Feature: Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize 2012 - stories of success
18 December 2012
Adam Kucharski
Adam Kucharski's article was titled 'In need of a number?' A PhD student at the University of Cambridge, he wrote about assumptions in science and how they are important for understanding complex issues. Nancy Wilkinson spoke to him after the ceremony.
Why did you enter the competition?
The problem of estimations in science is something people don't really address and something that is seen as a bit boring. But I think it captures an idea that is useful and very applicable to a lot of different areas, both in science and for the public.
How did you research the topic?
I was actually asked the opening problem in a job interview: how many piano tuners are there in London? I stumbled over my answer a bit, to be honest, but it's a good example of a problem where you have to assume a lot of information to get to an answer. Also, I work in disease dynamics where you have to estimate information with very limited data all the time. It made this topic particularly interesting for me.
Then I chose three main examples to concentrate on in the piece: one to do with species, one in neuroscience and one in astrophysics. As I read the research papers these ideas came from, I realised that these topics could be brought together.
Why is it important to the public?
My examples give an idea of both the complexity and the scale of different problems. I think these ideas are something the public needs to be more aware of when reading articles that put values on scientific issues. Take conservation - when a value is put on how many species are being lost, it's important to understand what was there to start with in order to make any sense of it.
How does it feel to have won?
It's somewhat surreal, actually. I'm incredibly humbled that people find what I write interesting. I've always liked looking at the way we deal with numbers and put together ideas of quantities and scales. I think it's fantastic that there's an audience for these kinds of ideas.
I'm about to start postdoctoral research on disease epidemiology, which I'm very keen on, but it would be really good to have the opportunity to write more accessible pieces on the side. Certainly some of the work I deal with is quite complex and doesn't always get the attention of the mainstream press, so it would be great to get the opportunity to communicate some of it.
How many piano tuners did you guess?
I wasn't too far off but I definitely could have been closer. I hope now there would at least be a shorter pause before my answer!
Cassie Barton
Cassie Barton studied psychology at the University of York and is currently working at the disability charity Scope. Holly Story asked her about her winning article, 'The smell of music', which explored cross-modal perception - the way that our senses can cross over and change the way we interpret what we perceive.
How did you choose this topic?
I was a participant in the original study when I was an intern with Dorothy Bishop's team in the psychology department at Oxford University. It was the summer so no students were around and they were asking people from the rest of the department to take part.
When I was doing it, they didn't really tell me what was going on, so I was intrigued as to what it all meant. Then a few months later I read about the new research in the media. That was around the same time that the Science Writing Prize was advertised, so it all came together. I thought it was really interesting.
It also connects to a wider trend, looking into how the senses are not individual, but in fact combine in a lot of ways that you wouldn't expect. This has broader applications: for instance, it affects how blind and deaf people might experience the world around them. It's a very broad field and this was an interesting hook into it.
What research did you do?
First of all I read the original article and a few things that were referenced in that as well. I did a scan of media articles too because there had been a few other studies in the same area. They were good leads into the topic. I was able to bring these different elements together in my article, different but on the same theme.
Did you try your own experiments?
While I was writing, I tried tasting things and thinking: 'Is that high-pitched?' I don't think I have that good a sense of it; some people are better at it than others, I imagine. But certainly when I was doing the original experiment I noticed that I was picking certain sounds to go with certain scents, far more so than I would have thought. I don't think about it much in my everyday life but I'll try the canapés this evening and see what they sound like!
How does it feel to have won?
It's pretty awesome! I wasn't expecting it. I thought the 'Guardian' might go for a story with a wider focus, one that looked at the bigger picture.
I hadn't done a huge amount of science writing before I entered; now I'm enthused and will do more. To write more regularly and have a lot of people read my writing would be very awesome indeed.
This feature also appears in issue 72 of ‘Wellcome News’.
Top image: A writing workshop held before the prize announcement. Credit: Wellcome Images. Right-hand image credit: Neil Webb, Wellcome Images.
