• Question: What would you spend the prize money on?

    Asked by abbiejayne14 to Daniel, Derek, Ian, Phil, Upul on 18 Jun 2010 in Categories: . This question was also asked by nonny, sammyenn1, bmw325, chloewoods, riverprincess, chloemclaughlinx, kezzily, 8erminerule, megananderson, sandk, real, clairejane, ingham, peyton, pixelator, melissaaa, taylor, jamielovesjenna, tiffany, hannah27897, sutcliffe, paiged, jhu22, aimc, sciencegirl1234, eveyerrell, chloemcarthurx, gavinlyon97, serenaxxx, rebeccaxxx, brandonp.
    • Photo: Derek Mann

      Derek Mann answered on 13 Jun 2010:

      I give a lot of lectures and want to make them more accessible to young people so that I can give talks in schools, this is because I think liver disease is something we can avoid if we can learn how to live, eat and drink in a senisble way. I would spend the prize money on getting a film maker to produce a cartoon movie of what happens in your liver when you drink or eat in excess. I would then use this film in my talks and hope that it would get the message across better.

    • Photo: Ian Sillett

      Ian Sillett answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      I am trying to organise a school trip to a science centre, or something similar. I know a few teachers who would love to do something like that.

    • Photo: Daniel Mietchen

      Daniel Mietchen answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      I want research results to travel faster than they do now, and see blogs as a good tool for that purpose. 

      To keep things manageable, I chose two topics for which rapid research progress is especially crucial — cures for fatal diseases, and cures for the planet (to put it shortly). Since these are still rather vast fields, I chose an especially neglected example in both cases: Chordoma (a rare form of cancer affecting the bones around the spine), and sustainable science, i.e. how science (in the sense of being one part of our society) can serve as an example for how our society as a whole can be restructured such that the quality of life of future generations (yes, you and your kids and grand children, and theirs) is not compromised.

      Traditionally (and still today), research approaches and results are discussed only within the individual research groups concerned, and for discussion between different groups, the official way is through (a) personal interaction, e.g. at conferences, (b) formal Letters to the Editor or (c) a series of separate articles. A number of journals also allow online comments on their articles, but this is tedious, and there currently is no way of aggregating the comments by anything other than the article (one could think of keywords, commenters or institutions as being useful too).

      Discussions of type (a) are generally not recorded, so the wider scientific community (let alone the public) will not be able to take note of points raised in there. In cases (b) and (c), the response may come out months to years later, or not at all. 

      Research blogging means that research is discussed in a blog. Everyone can set up a blog nowadays, while most researchers (and increasingly the public too) have access to a significant subset of the literature relevant to their research. And blogging can be quick — writing a blog post (even if thoughtful) usually does not take much more time than attentively reading the original article it is referring to. For example, the exchange mentioned in (c) took well over three years, while a similar one (on a closely related topic) took place via blogs within about a week.

      Coverage in any media acts as a filter, and neglected topics need help with passing those filters. Blogs can be read (and commented upon) by anyone by default. That is why I would like to reuse the prize money as prize money for good blog posts on chordoma and sustainable science, so as to help patients and our planet in finding a cure in time.

      Finally, the first to come up with a solution to the Beryllium Fraud challenge before this issue of “I’m a Scientist” ends will receive 10% of my prize money.

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