Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize

Way back in May I entered The Wellcome Trust’s Science Writing Prize and then mostly forgot about it.

Turns out they liked my piece – a re-researched/rehashed/rewritten version of this blog post on neuroplasticity and pornography I wrote back in April 2009 – and, along with fourteen other lost souls, I’ve been shortlisted for the grand old prize to be announced on 12 October. Needless to say, I'm absolutely delighted.

I write a lot about science on my blog (e.g. on memory and mentors, on perception and the illusion of control, ramblings on neuroplasticity) and apart from endless years of chemistry in high school, followed by a couple of years of organic and biochemistry at university, I haven't a lick of professional science experience - just a deep-seated love for labware and particle physics (mostly thanks to some damn fine science teachers when I was at school. Hear, hear for great teachers!).

I'm an old fashioned humanist, the kind that thinks that Latin is as important as chemistry and philosophy. Being shortlisted for a science writing prize is incredibly gratifying to me because it isn't the field in which I tend to operate professionally. Entering the prize wasn't about taking steps in a "new direction" or "trying my hand" at something different (as so often seems to be the label snidely ascribed to such endeavours when they appear to deviate from a straightforward career path), but a totally natural (to me, at least) expression of one of my many interests. I'm often asked how, if at all, these interests fit together, but I don't see them as a number of diverging subjects, but as complementary topics that feed off each other and allow new ways of thinking to emerge - it's all so much more exciting when one is able to make links across a wide variety of subjects instead of being trapped by knowledge - however vast - of only one subject.

It doesn't really seem kosher to post my entry here until the winner has been announced, but never fear, I'll be sure to whack it up as soon as the hangover has cleared from the awards festivities.

a conversation with ourselves

The last sentence of a recently-read article on the NYT Science pages reads:

"In fact, Dear Reader, you could consider this new study to be firm scientific evidence of your own awesomeness. And if you want to share that feeling with anyone, you know what to do next."

Indeed I do know what to do next, which is do what I always do and share.

Basically, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania compiled an awful lot of data regarding the habits of the NYT's readers (in how they pass on and share articles they read on the NYT) and found that people like to share:

a) good news: "Isn't this story about former teenage drug addicts turned urban gardeners uplifting?"
b) things that make them look awesome: “Perhaps this will amuse, although of course it’s a superficial treatment. Why can’t they use Schrödinger’s full equation?”
c) long articles on intellectually challenging topics: see b above
and nicest of all
d) articles that inspired awe: "doesn't this amazing story about, like, the total vastness of the cosmos just make you feel part of some crazy, wicked, out there universe, dude?"

Anyway, it's an interesting story about how and why we share information online. Check it out.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/science/09tier.html?ref=science