ON THE WHOLE, it was another triumph for the life sciences. But physics had
some of the best openers in the Opinion Summer Competition. Like this from
John Warr in Hertfordshire: “Albert Einstein stated with some conviction
that `God does not play dice.’ God, on the other hand, was willing to bet that
Einstein was just guessing.” Or this from John McLellan of
Middlesex: “For over sixty years a cat has been sitting in a box. It’s waiting
for someone to open the lid of that box to see if it’s OK, but the cat is not at
all sure that it wants this to happen.”
Cloning and global warming are two of science’s hottest fields.
Phillip Gething from Hampshire had this entry: “In 1980 I left Bob
Winston’s team to pursue research in human cloning and organ replacement.
Strictly speaking such work is illegal, but Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
gave a special waiver to help our gracious royal family. My patient, who must
remain anonymous, is now a healthy centenarian. Her liver . . .”
And this from Colin Varney in South Australia: “I met myself for
drinks at Dolly’s Bar. We were both wearing gaudy paisley ties, but he ordered
ouzo and I baulked. And while my clone was checking out the girl in the short
blue dress, I ogled the waiter.”
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Chris Park of the University of Lancaster drowned the east of England:
“Cambridge had not yet adjusted to the demands of being a seaside town. Its
reputation as a world-famous seat of learning had little prepared it for the
impacts of sea-level rise caused by global warming. Over the past 50 years the
coasts had crept ever closer to it, a casualty of winter storms and higher
.”
While some entries were for books on the latest research, others looked to
keep up with trends in popular publishing. This comes from Kevin Black of
the University of St Andrews: “In 1989, Raymond Siever, a Harvard geologist,
published a book simply (and appropriately) called Sand. Since then I
have seen books published on water and wind. Somebody has even written a book on
dust. So here is my own contribution to monosyllabic popular science. Welcome to
ѳܻ.”
More horror than pop science was this bloodcurdler from Jacqueline
Govier of Wiltshire: “He’d had no choice. The thick, putrid mess seeped over
his collar. He felt its coldness creep into the folds of his body like a dead
lover’s fingers.
He knew the risks.
Two MAFFI men emerged from the barn, their white body suits glowed in the
latent full Moon.”
And from Norway, Baard Bugge sent a machine’s poignant plea: “When you
read this, I’ll be dead. Actually I was dead when I wrote it. I’ve been dead all
my life. This bothers me a great deal. The problem is, I don’t feel dead. On the
contrary, I feel very much alive. But I’m not. You see, I’m a machine.”
If you thought science and supermarket novels don’t mix. Try the
bodice-ripper approach to biology from Gerry Parker of Edinburgh: “His
hands caressed her neck and shoulders as he slipped the filmy material from her.
She gasped as his fingernails raked her back. They kissed deeply as her
trembling fingers struggled with his buttons. “Darling,” she whispered huskily,
“What genes did you sequence today?”
And finally, Ashley Summerfield gets back to basics: “You might not
think that childbirth and the conservation movement have much to do with plain
old shit. But they have. Although it’s fashionable—from organic foods to
escaping city stress—to want a more natural existence, the brutal truth is
that nature is often pretty horrible.” The book of horrible nature? You’d have
to read on . . .
This was a tough one to judge. Our congratulations to the winners and thanks
to everyone who took part. All 10 winners will receive a copy of Mark Buchanan’s
Ubiquity (Weidenfeld & Nicolson), and a bottle of a prizewinning
single malt whisky from the Isle of Skye, courtesy of Talisker.
