Wellcome Image of the Month: Malaria
World Malaria Day recognises global efforts being made in the fight against malaria. First established in 2007 by the World Health Assembly, it falls on 25 April every year.
Malaria is an infectious disease caused by parasites (Plasmodium species) which enter the body when infected mosquitoes feed on human blood. The World Health Organization estimates that in 2010, there were approximately 219 million cases of malaria and 660,000 deaths. In addition to malaria, mosquitoes can carry the infectious agent for a number of other diseases including yellow fever, West Nile virus, and Dengue fever.
Our image of the month is this photograph of a mosquito in flight. This particular species, Anopheles stephensi, is one of the major vectors responsible for transmitting human malaria in India and some parts of Asia. The photograph was taken by Hugh Sturrock in 2005 when he was an undergraduate student in Professor Andrew Read’s laboratory at the University of Edinburgh. Blood is clearly visible in the mosquito’s swollen abdomen. When asked how he captured the shot, Hugh said “I fed several mosquitoes, put them in the refrigerator for a few minutes to subdue them, and then caught one in a pair of tweezers. I took the shot just as she was warming up and flapping her wings.” Hugh’s image won a Wellcome Image Award in 2006.
Hugh now works as an epidemiologist in the Malaria Elimination Initiative, part of the Global Health Group at the University of California, San Francisco. His work focuses on understanding how and where clusters of malaria develop (transmission hotspots). In doing so, strategies to eliminate malaria in these remaining regions can hopefully be applied more cost effectively.
Image credit: Hugh Sturrock, Wellcome Images (Mosquito, Anopheles stephensi in flight)
Wellcome Images is one of the world’s richest and most unusual collections, with themes ranging from medical and social history to contemporary healthcare and biomedical science. All our images are available in digital form so please click the link above if you would like to use the picture that features in this post, or to quickly find related ones. Many are free to use non-commercially under the terms of a Creative Commons licence and full details of the specific licence for each image are provided.
How I write about science 2013: David Dobbs
David Dobbs
The 2013 Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize in association with the Guardian and The Observer Newspapers is now open for entries.
This year, our annual blog series to accompany the prize asks several top science writers on the specifics of their personal writing methods and what they like about their craft. Today, author and journalist David Dobbs.
What’s a good science story?
A good science story is like any other good story: It has tension and movement; it has conflicts the reader can relate to; it’s usually about someone who wants something badly and faces obstacles trying to get it. What does this paleontologist want to figure out or prove, and why? What stands in the way of her doing so?
In terms of material, I look for three things in particular: an alluring scientific idea or discovery; a scientist who is a highly intriguing figure on his or her own or who can talk engagingly; and either a subject or an event in which we see the idea or process at work. I want as many of those three things as I can get. If I’ve found a well-spoken, brilliant neurologist who wants to test her new theory about depression by doing experimental brain surgery on terribly depressed people, I’m two-thirds of the way there; if one of her patients is herself interesting and articulate and responded to the surgery in amazing fashion, I can’t miss.
What do you need to know to write well about science?
You need to know a lot . Then again, sometimes a few key skills — like interviewing and reading, persistence, and a good bullshit detector — will get you through nicely. Many excellent science writers, including Carl Zimmer and David Quammen, have no formal training in science.
Still, it’s useful to know certain things, and I think the most vital knowledge for a science writer is familiarity with at least one major scientific controversy that was fought and (mostly) resolved before the writer was born. Does the Sun circle the Earth or vice versa? Are species mutable? How do coral reefs form?
The big fights over these questions (the last of which I wrote about in my third book, Reef Madness) show you two essentials it’s easy to miss when you’re reporting on science happening right now: that the science of any age is shaped by (a) the deep philosophical, cultural, and social movements of its time and (b) the personalities, desires, ambitions, and rivalries of the main players. It’s hard to see those things in your own time. But once you’ve seen how profoundly they influenced virtually every scientific controversy of former times, including the way scientists thought and behaved, you’re more likely see similar dynamics and motivations in the science you’re reporting on now. Read more…
Battling chaos: why your desk will never be tidy
President Lincoln writing the Emancipation
Proclamation. David Gilmore Blythe. 1864. Wikimedia Library of Congress
Guru is a science-lifestyle magazine supported by a Wellcome Trust grant. In this extract from one of the recent issues, Jon Crowe describes how chaos is really the default state.
It began with the sound of a tyre rim grinding on the surface of the cycle path I’d been riding along. The sudden sensation of being on a bike that was moving through treacle told me that my rear tyre had punctured. And so it was that, not for the first time of late, I found myself resenting the seeming futility of life: of having the bad luck to get the puncture; of having to spend time and effort buying and fitting a new inner tube – and of my life being enriched not one iota by the whole experience.
As I trudged home that evening, wheeling the now-useless bike beside me, I reflected on the many situations we encounter that mirror this experience – when we find ourselves having to invest time and energy, only to be no further forward.
Life is…running to stand still
Why is it that we have to invest energy merely to maintain the status quo? Why do we find ourselves running, effectively only to stand still? The answer lies in an intrinsic property of all matter; an inescapable universal truth; an order of our existence. This reality has been captured by its own law – the Second Law of Thermodynamics. It states that, in a nutshell, we are living in a perpetual downward spiral in which things just get worse. The universe, and everything in it, is gradually crumbling into a state of ever-increasing disorder. A cheery outlook on life, if ever there was one…
This property of all matter – this collapse into disorder – is given a name: entropy. Things that are disordered have greater entropy than things that are relatively more organized. A glass of water, in which the molecules of water itself can move around relatively freely, is more disorganized – it has greater entropy – than a block of ice, in which the molecules of water are trapped into a neatly organised, rigid network.
Anything that increases disorder (with its associated increase in entropy) is a spontaneous one, and one that happens without us having to do work to bring it about: a coffee mug dropped on the floor chaotically shatters into dozens of fragments. And there is one important corollary: a decrease in entropy – a move towards a more organised and ordered state – requires us to do work to make it happen. This is arguably why housework feels like a chore: a living room doesn’t spontaneously tidy itself, just as mending a mug needs work. We need to invest effort to reverse the spread of disorder, and bring order to whatever degree of chaos had befallen our living space since we last made the effort to tidy up. We are essentially swimming against the natural tide of entropy, with disorder setting in the moment we take our foot off the proverbial pedal. Life’s tendency for disarray takes place everywhere – from the biggest to the very smallest situations. Read more…
How I write about science 2013: Helen Pearson
Helen Pearson
The 2013 Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize in association with the Guardian and The Observer Newspapers is now open for entries.
This year, our annual blog series to accompany the prize asks several top science writers on the specifics of their personal writing methods and what they like about their craft. Today, Helen Pearson, Chief Features Editor at Nature.
What’s a good science story?
One that you start reading and can’t put down. That might be because the writing style is gripping, or you’re totally fascinated by the subject, or (preferably) both. Good science stories are no different to good stories about anything else — they’re just a great read.
What do you need to know to write well about science?
I’m not sure it’s about what you need to know; it’s about what you need to do. Read stories — about science or anything else — by good writers. Think about how they reported and wrote that story, then try to do what they do. Write a lot. Listen to your editor so you can learn to be better. (I would say that, of course, because I edit as well as write!). Don’t be afraid of your own ideas: tell someone about them. Read some more; write some more. You’ll get better. Read more…
Illustration by Marianne Dear
What does end-of-life care really mean and how has it changed in recent history? Tilli Tansey reflects.
‘Is it really history?’ is a question I’m used to being asked. I’m now a medical historian working on the history of recent biomedicine, but for many years I was a neuroscientist. When I decided to change my career, none of my lab colleagues understood why the recent past could be of any interest, although when I asked the more senior ones to tell me of their early training and careers I would be met with ‘Oh, it was all very different then!’, which illustrated my point exactly. Changes and continuities are the stuff of history, and learning of, and from, the recent past is important. This thought informed and inspired the Wellcome Witnesses to Twentieth Century Medicine volumes, a series of seminars between a range of experts, and their published transcripts.
The phrase “you’ll be history” – a sort of verbal memento mori – is one that could have subtitled our current volume, looking at Palliative Medicine in the UK c.1970–2010 (freely available to download). End-of-life care has been in the news a great deal recently, largely as a result of the controversy over the Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying Patient, a strategy developed between the Royal Liverpool Hospital and the Marie Curie Hospice. With a recent online survey by the BMJ and Channel 4’s Dispatches finding that nine out of 10 palliative care experts would choose the Liverpool Care Pathway for themselves, the issue of how best to care for those beyond the scope of medicine to cure has never seemed more pressing. As Dr Robert Twycross pointed out during our recent Wellcome Witness seminar: “palliative medicine is a form of emergency medicine, because terminally ill patients typically haven’t got a lot of time left; we’ve got to get in there and get on with it. Tomorrow is second rate, and may be too late.”
Palliative medicine has a short history, but an important one in which Britain plays a hugely significant role. According to Dr Twycross, “Hospice palliative care was initially a protest movement against medical neglect in the post-war years when medicine began to evolve into the sort of specialty it is now. As doctors had more they could do to cure, then the dying presumably got more and more neglected”. It now seems remarkable that the formal discipline did not exist before the late 1980s and it was only as recently as 2006 that the US recognised “hospital palliative medicine” as a subspeciality. Previous to this, the phrase “continuing care” was used – chosen, according to Professor Geoffrey Hanks, “because it is meaningless”. Read more…
How I write about science 2013: Jacob Aron
Jacob Aron
The 2013 Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize in association with the Guardian and The Observer Newspapers is now open for entries.
This year, our annual blog series to accompany the prize asks several top science writers on the specifics of their personal writing methods and what they like about their craft. Today, Jacob Aron, New Scientist’s physical sciences reporter.
What’s a good science story?
Something that makes you go “huh?”, “wow!” and “hmm…” at the same time, though the exact ratio of the three depends on the particular story – a weird new astronomical object is going to get a different reaction to North Korea’s attempts to launch a missile, for example.
What do you need to know to write well about science?
Concentrate on “write well” rather than “about science”. Even as a reporter at a specialist science magazine I have a fairly broad beat, jumping between particle physics, pure maths, exoplanets and more on a daily basis, and I’m never going to fully comprehend it all. On the other hand, every article I write needs clear, engaging and entertaining prose – otherwise no one will want to read it. Read more…
Around the world in 80 days – Part 3: Malawi
Scientists in Malawi working with ‘locals’ around 30km from the nearest hospital
Over the course of four months, Barry J Gibb visited the Wellcome Trust’s major overseas programmes in Africa and Asia to make a film about the Art in Global Health project. In the third of his journal entries Barry arrives in Malawi.
Flying to Blantyre in Malawi was a rather ramshackle affair. The flight was in a diminutive 32-seater plane (I counted them). After jamming the camera bag under the seat in front of me, I tried to relax in the dated, rather worn looking contraption that was about to exceed 20,000 feet.
It was around this time that I was also beginning to get seriously edgy about the memory cards I was carrying. Backing up the video data wasn’t something I’d considered prior to leaving, which suddenly struck me as very, very silly. For the next trip, I’d ensure there was a portable drive, constantly backed up, in with my main luggage. For now, I’d have to simply accept that every day, hours of precious, carefully collected footage were precariously far from home.
Arriving at Chileka International Airport, the driver who had been arranged to pick me up was absent. Having learnt my lesson in Kenya, there then followed an Oscar-worthy performance as I did my utmost to look like a native, ignoring the numerous attempts to become my new best friend, taxi me around, carry my bags, etc. Fortunately, the driver showed up after several minutes and was so solidly built the other drivers parted like water.
The hotel was not what I was expecting. Having been away from home for a week, I was looking forward to the company of strangers, dinner in the midst of people, if only to soak up a little human contact. Instead, I discovered myself in a gated environment, with no dining area and no bar. And so, each night, dinner would be brought to my room by Frank, a warm, friendly member of staff, who would carefully lay the table, place the array of food he had made on the table and leave. The one time the hotel did indulge in communal dining was breakfast, an experience shared not just by the diners but by the hotel’s pet deer. This beautific creature would show up and just stare at me with its huge, gorgeous eyes as I chewed through toast. Read more…
Creating games inspired by biomedical science
If you are a gamer then games like Deus Ex:Human Revolution, Splice or Pandemic will probably be common names to you. These are all titles of well regarded and successful video games, but more than that all of them are video games that draw ideas and inspiration from biomedical sciences. Deus Ex:Human Revolution is about a future where cybernetic enhancement has become common and the ability of some to expand their flesh beyond the boundaries we are confined to and the social fractures that these developments bring. Splice is an artistic puzzle game where the player has to rearrange cells to create new biological forms. Pandemic is a board game, a browser game and the concept has mutated onto mobile, all themed around mass viral outbreaks that spread around the globe. From the cellular level up to the body expanding to a population, biomedicine provides each of these games with a deep pool of ideas, visuals and gameplay mechanics they can draw from. Putting science into games not only offers inspiration but also shows how it is a part of culture. The future scientists of tomorrow may well get their lifelong passion for the subject from the games they play today.
So with that firmly in mind, the Wellcome Trust has announced an exciting initiative for games developers. Developers are invited to apply for the chance to receive up to £10,000 each to develop a high-impact pitch for their game idea inspired by biomedical science. The ideas can draw on or be inspired by contemporary or historical biological or medical science but in an innovative and accessible way. Those who are successful will go on to pitch their developed game ideas live to a panel of publishers and funders at a live event at Develop Conference in Brighton during July 2013. So far there are key panellists joining the Wellcome Trust from Sony Entertainment and crowd-funding platform Indiegogo. If you or anyone you know is interested, the application process closes on 26th April – full details here.
Tomas Rawlings
Tomas is a Video Games Consultant for the Wellcome Trust.
How I write about science 2013: Michael Hanlon
The 2013 Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize in association with the Guardian and the Observer is now open for entries.
This year, our blog to accompany the prize asks some top science writers about their craft. Today, Michael Hanlon.
What’s a good science story?
Something that is new, and interesting. Same as with any other subject. Who decides what’s interesting? That’s your call.
What do you need to know to write well about science?
You need to know something about how science works. Not reams of facts or figures necessarily, but you need to be able to spot an interesting story amid the ocean of white noise and misinformation and this means, as often as not, a basic appreciation of the scientific method, possession of a functioning bullshit detector, some appreciation of statistics and so forth.
How do you choose your opening line?
With care. With a feature you can meander a bit at the top but not too much. Drop your intro if you want, but not down a well so you can’t see it. With any news story, you tell it once, you tell it twice, you tell it again. The ideal is to convey as much salient information about what is new, and interesting, in the first word. Failing that, the first sentence. Failing that, the first paragraph. In a news story, if you can’t do that then you either don’t have a story or you do not know how to write. Read more…
How I write about science 2013: Linda Geddes
Linda Geddes
The 2013 Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize in association with the Guardian and the Observer is now open for entries.
This year, our blog to accompany the prize asks some top science writers about their craft. Today, New Scientist reporter Linda Geddes.
What makes a good science story?
Something that makes the reader think “wow”, or see the world slightly differently as a result of reading it.
What do you need to know to write well about science?
Some understanding of the scientific method is helpful, but more than anything I think you need insatiable curiosity and an enthusiasm for new ideas. I don’t think it’s necessary to have done a PhD, and in some cases too much knowledge about a subject can prevent you from seeing the big picture and asking some of the “stupid” questions that are actually what a non-specialist reader will want to know the answers to.
How do you choose your opening line?
If it’s a news story, the first thing I try to do is summarise the story in a single sentence as if I was telling a friend about it in the pub. You can play around with it after that and be a bit more creative, but you’ve got to work out your angle – what you’re trying to say – from the start. For longer features, you need to think about the full story you’re going to tell before you start writing, and then find the part of that story that is going to intrigue the reader and make them want to read more. Read more…
April 2013 public engagement events
You Are What You Ate at Pontefract Castle
Our regular scamper through upcoming science and medicine themed events funded through the Wellcome Trust’s public engagement awards.
First up, the ‘Wonder: art and science on the brain’ season culminates in a spectacular street fair and events offering at the Barbican in London over the next week. With talks, films, body illusions, knitting, comics, surgery, walking tours, 19th century costumes, and an evening with Ruby Wax, there’s lots on offer. See the full schedule on the Barbican website. It’s all coinciding with the British Neuroscience Association’s Festival of Neuroscience – one of the biggest neuroscience conferences in the scientific calendar, which this year takes place also at the Barbican. The conference brings together hundreds of the world’s top brain researchers. Our sister blog ThInk will have comprehensive coverage of the conference and Wonder over the coming week from a team of reporters, including Guardian science blogger Mo Costandi. You can also follow the conversations on Twitter via the hashtags #BNAneurofest and #wonderseason.
Matters of Life and Death Medical Talks at Arnos Vale cemetery continue in April exploring the life or death role of medicine through history. ‘Angel of Death – The story of Smallpox’ takes place on Thursday 4th April, 7:30-8:30pm in Bristol followed by ‘Antivaccinationist and Antivivisectionist: Dr Hadwen of Gloucester’ on Thursday 18th April also from 7:30pm-8:30pm. Read more…
This film is from a government-sponsored series aimed at parents and looking at different aspects of parenting in the 1940s. It was made by Realist Film Unit and comes to us courtesy of the BFI Archive. The film tapped into the emerging field of child psychiatry, fuelled by governmental concern for the emerging generation post-war, this whole generation had grown up without two parents being at home.
In terms of narrative structure, the film explores common childhood sleep problems covering many of the typical disturbances encountered by parents. This subject is also being looked at in a television series currently airing on Channel 4 dedicated to sleep-entitled Bedtime Live, presented by Dr Tanya Byron who is government adviser on children as well as a psychologist. ‘Your childrens’ sleep’ delivers sensible, practical advice, although the problems may seem rather tame to modern day parents! Read more…
How I write about science 2013: Geoff Brumfiel
Geoff Brumfiel
The 2013 Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize in association with the Guardian and the Observer is now open for entries.
This year, our blog to accompany the prize asks some top science writers about their craft. Today, Geoff Brumfiel science reporter for NPR.
What’s a good science story?
A good science story can be lots of different things. It can tell the world about new research, or warn about a potential threat posed by a new technology. Or it can just get people thinking about the world in a way they hadn’t before.
What do you need to know to write well about science?
My first editor said it was more important to be able to write than to know science. I think that’s largely true, but a scientific background certainly helps!
How do you choose your opening line?
Carefully. Especially on a news story, if you don’t get the first line right, the whole thing falls apart. Read more…
How I write about science 2013: Video
With the Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize 2013 open for entries, three science writers – Geoff Brumfiel, a former senior reporter for Nature; Jo Marchant, author of Decoding the Heavens; and Linda Geddes, a New Scientist reporter – discuss their tricks of the trade.
“I don’t have a lot of things I don’t like about bad science writing because I’ll just stop reading it – and that’s what other readers do too,” says Brumfiel. Geddes warns against the pitfalls of over researching, and Marchant says you have to find ways to excite the reader.
You can read more science writers’ tips here.
As researchers describe a new way to make vaccines to fight diseases like foot and mouth disease in animals and polio in humans, we look at a related human viral infection called hand, foot and mouth disease. Recent outbreaks in Cambodia and Vietnam raise the prospect of what is often considered to be an innocuous childhood infection spreading further, causing increasingly severe illness, even deaths, and straining health systems around the world.
Much concern is rightly focused on influenza and the risk of pandemics, but there are other emerging and re-emerging infections that demand our attention. In this post, I look at hand, foot and mouth disease from various perspectives, taking in epidemiology, clinical medicine, structural biology, virology and public health, to try and understand what threat it presents, what we are doing to counter it, and what difference an effective vaccine would make.
It starts with a high temperature, though that’s no surprise – children under five are always getting fevers. But then the spots appear: a rash on her hands and feet and around her mouth. And then you notice her finger twitching.
That trivial twitch means she already has grade 2 hand, foot and mouth disease, a viral infection that is no problem for most children to ride out but which in a few cases leads to severe neurological illness and, rarely, death. The difficulty is that there is no way to know how the infection is going to progress in any individual.
Faced with this uncertainty, countries where severe hand, foot and mouth disease is endemic end up admitting hundreds of thousands of children to hospital each year, just in case, putting their health systems under great stress.
As the number of endemic countries rises, as the virus spreads slowly but surely through populations and across borders, is this often harmless childhood illness becoming a serious international problem? What action are we taking to defend ourselves against the possibility of a ‘creeping pandemic’?
Read more…
How I write about science 2013: Penny Bailey
Penny Bailey
The 2013 Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize in association with the Guardian and the Observer is now open for entries.
This year, our blog to accompany the prize asks some top science writers about their craft. Today, Wellcome Trust writer Penny Bailey.
What’s a good science story?
Something that feels ‘alive’. The feeling of ‘aliveness’ comes from a cocktail of some or all of the following:
- the human aspects of the story (the character and personal journey of the protagonist(s) – the scientist perhaps, or the people whose lives will be affected by the science);
- any inherent elements of drama (e.g. seemingly insurmountable obstacles, competing needs, difficult choices, surprise/reversal, and a sense of urgency);
- the jaw-dropping ingenuity of the science itself; and
- the story’s newness (if it’s not a new story per se, then it should offer a new way into an old one). Read more…
Wellcome Image of the Month: Dandelion
For many, March represents the end of winter and the start of spring, though some controversy still exists over the exact date when the seasons change. In meteorology, spring begins on 1 March, whilst historically it did not begin until the spring equinox on 20 March.
Throughout time flowers have been used in a variety of ways from sources of food or medicine, to national emblems or tokens of affection.
The dandelion (Taraxacum), is considered a weed by some and a versatile, nutritious food source by others. The flower is made up of lots of small florets clustered together into a composite flower head. This month’s image is a transverse section through a dandelion flower bud taken by microscopist Spike Walker. He explained “several florets are visible each consisting of five petals fused into a tube. Inside these are the anthers (pollen boxes) of five stamens (also fused). The anthers are ripe and their walls are splitting to release the pollen. At the centre are the two halves of the stigma (which is forked like a snake’s tongue). The space between the florets is packed with hairs which will eventually form the ‘parachute’ of the dandelion fruit (achene)”. Originally acquired with a light microscope, this image has subsequently undergone solarisation, a technique which alters the tones in the image. In 2010, Spike Walker was awarded the Royal Photographic Society’s Combined Royal Colleges Medal for his ‘outstanding contribution to photography and its application in the service of medicine’. He has also won a total of 24 Wellcome Image Awards to date.
Dandelion flowers mature into a spherical seed head sometimes termed a dandelion ‘clock’. These were used by children to ‘tell the time’ by the number of breaths required to blow away the fruits. This year British summer time begins on 31 March so don’t forget to turn your clocks forward at the end of the month!
Image credit: Spike Walker, Wellcome Images (TS dandelion flower bud, light micrograph)
Wellcome Images is one of the world’s richest and most unusual collections, with themes ranging from medical and social history to contemporary healthcare and biomedical science. All our images are available in digital form so please click the link above if you would like to use the picture that features in this post, or to quickly find related ones. Many are free to use non-commercially under the terms of a Creative Commons licence and full details of the specific licence for each image are provided.
SNOWS on World Water Day
A woman collecting water from a river in the Masai village of Rosalin, Hai District of Tanzania.
Water and sanitation are two of the most fundamental factors in health yet we still don’t know how best to tackle these in Africa due to the lack of evidence-based research. Today on World Water Day, Samira Abd Elrahman introduces a collaboration aiming to put this right.
The African SNOWS (Scientists Networked for Outcomes from Water and Sanitation) Consortium takes its inspiration from Dr John Snow, who not only founded the science of epidemiology but was also the father of evidence-based interventions for environmental health. He famously halted an outbreak of cholera in 19th century in London, by removing a water pump’s handle to prevent its use, as he lacked the funds to provide something like a better water supply.
Ever since then, environmental health has lacked its fair share of resources, and environmental health practitioners have had to use all their creativity and innovation to achieve challenging goals, such as behaviour change, as cheaply as possible. Environmental health research has also suffered, particularly in Africa where resources are scarce. At the start of 2008, the International Year of Sanitation, nearly two-thirds of the population of sub-Saharan Africa are still without a toilet.
Diarrhoeal disease kills as many children globally as AIDS, malaria and TB combined. One third of these children are in Africa. For those who survive, repeated episodes of diarrhoea contribute to malnutrition, which in turn causes impaired cognitive performance, late entry to schooling and ultimately to the work force, which according to a recent study (World Bank 2008) robs a typical African country of some 8 per cent of its potential GDP. This loss of life, productivity and wellbeing is preventable, chiefly by improved water supply, sanitation and domestic hygiene.
Indeed, hygiene promotion is the most cost-effective of all interventions against the high-burden diseases of the developing world, yet, little research is conducted to determine how to implement such interventions to the best effect. Read more…
Around the world in 80 days – Part 2: Kenya
A photograph by Miriam and James, exploring the juxtaposition of science and nature.
Over the course of four months, Barry J Gibb visited our major overseas programmes in Africa and Asia to make a film about the Art in Global Health project. In the second of his journal entries Barry arrives in Kenya.
Within minutes of arriving at Nairobi airport, en route to Mombasa, I was fleeced by two apparently well-meaning gentlemen. On arrival at the diminutive airport, I found myself needing to change planes quickly and, in the absence of clear signage, clearly looked like a confused and wandering target. This was my first important lesson when travelling alone – never look confused, never look lost. As I wandered aimlessly around, I was approached with the offer of help to carry my bags. Thinking this gentleman was staff (bright yellow jacket), I gratefully received his assistance. Thirty feet later, we had ‘arrived’, as had his friend who began badgering me for cash. Initially reluctant, their persistence veered towards light threats. From that moment on, no one carried my bags again.
Mombasa airport was an entirely different experience. Collecting my bags at this tiny airport, a charming woman asked if I worked for the Wellcome Trust. This was how I met Vicky Marsh, wife of Kevin Marsh, the Director of the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme. Together, we shared a jeep ride for the hour’s journey to Kilifi, home of KEMRI, and my home for the next few days. Animals walked alongside the road, just as much as the people. And there were so many people, just walking. The drive passed quickly as Vicky explained how she and Kevin came to Kilifi, as young scientists, how the place had transformed from a quiet seaside village to a burgeoning town and holiday resort, the tremendous impact the building of a simple bridge had had for locals and the way its culture had embraced them. And, of course, the impact of building a state of the art research centre – the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) – with around 700 employees right in the middle of it all. Read more…
How I write about science 2013: Roger Highfield
Roger Highfield
The 2013 Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize in association with the Guardian and The Observer Newspapers is now open for entries.
This year, our annual blog series to accompany the prize asks several top science writers on the specifics of their personal writing methods and what they like about their craft. Today, Roger Highfield, author, former Editor of New Scientist and former Science Editor of the Daily Telegraph.
What’s a good science story?
There’s no one-size-fits-all rule, since stories come in many flavours, shapes, colours and sizes. There are Eureka moments, disasters, personal battles, amazing discoveries, baffling mysteries, power struggles, quirky findings, weird insights, you name it. Here’s one way you can tell: if you find yourself excitedly recounting a story to a friend who cares not one jot for science, and they don’t reach for their beer in despair, or start twiddling with their mobile phone, you’re in business.
What do you need to know to write well about science?
Whatever the subject, angle, tone, length or style, your story has to tickle the fancy of your readers and maintain their interest to the very last word. The aim is not to impress a professor with your knowledge, amaze your mum or to get something off your chest. Think hard about your intended audience. They may be ignorant but they are rarely stupid. They have all kinds of interests and preoccupations and, when it comes to getting their attention, these are the best places to start. Remember that they always have better things to do with their time. If you don’t grab them with your first sentence, you might as well give up. Read more…
