 I'm Adrian Smith, I'm President of the Royal Society, and I'm delighted to welcome you all tonight to the Royal Society for this celebration, and celebration it is. That's hello to those in the room and the millions who are online watching. So I have a couple of housekeeping notes, really tedious. Turn off your mobile devices, or switch them to silent mode. There is no planned alarm this evening, so if there is a bell, be very frightened and move immediately out of the door at the end. And this event is being live streamed on the society's YouTube channel, so behave. We're here tonight to celebrate the short list of the 2022 Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize. And between us, we're very proud to have established this prize back in 1988 and helped it grow over the years since. So the prize is not just a prize, it's part of something broader. An important role in what the society is about in many, many respects is engaging the public. And this particular enterprise is engaging the public obviously with science writing and championing excellence in science writing in all its forms. And I have to say, with a very big thank you, this would not have been possible in recent years without our sponsor, Insight Investment. And join together later and celebrate that, but thank you so much. Support of publishers and everyone gathered here tonight. So, we do see science books and the writing about science more generally as an absolutely essential part of the wider cultural conversation about science. And if I could intrude something a bit personal, in some sense, if you go back to the Enlightenment and in some sense, the civilized agreement about how we arrive at beliefs and what kind of evidence and what kind of thought processes lead us to beliefs. That wider cultural conversation, it's in danger in some sense. I mean, I don't know how many American colleagues are here tonight, but for somebody like me, there's something terrified in that something like 50% of the United States population doesn't think the way that I and I hope most of us in this room think. So, there is something very important about the cultural conversation and the discourse around science, but yes, but public discourse in terms of evidence and so on. So, the prize seems to me even more relevant in recent years as we try to popularize is sort of too vulgar a word, is in that wider public discourse domain to inspire, to educate and inform the public about science. So, this is really important stuff, I think, to all of us and particularly to me in the Royal Society. So, before I hand over to Jim Al-Khalili, who's going to do the hard work this evening and our shortlisted authors, can I just thank this year's judges? I mean, of course it's fascinating and wonderful and I'm sure they've had a great time, but it is a lot of work, all right? And so, they've had to read many more books than those who are just on the shortlist tonight and they've had the difficult task of choosing the winner. So, those who are here, and don't be embarrassed, can I just name and shame, as it were, for judges? It's a bit like strictly come dancing for those of us. So, Maria Fitzgerald, where are you? Stand up, take a round of applause. And, Joss McFadion, where are you? There you go. And Rory Kethlen Jones, they're all sitting together, this is very good. And Mike Gale, is Mike Gale here? Mike's not here and Kate Humble is or isn't here, maybe not. Anyway, thanks to those who are not here for what they've done. So, what we do next then is we'll be hearing from the shortlisted authors in discussion with this evening's host, Professor Jim Al-Khalili, and we'll find out more about their books. So, Jim, over to you. Thank you very much, Adrian. Well, good evening, everyone. And I'd support what you said, Adrian. Thank you very much to the judges for your hard work. This is reading through so many books is a pleasure, but actually you'd have to devote a lot of time to it. So, yes, a pleasurable experience, I'm sure. Wonderful to be here this evening. I'm Jim Al-Khalili, I'm a Fellow of the Royal Society. An academic university of Surrey, but also an author. In fact, I have been shortlisted for this prize twice in the past, not one. Not at all bitter about that, but I had to say, hosting is far less stressful or nerve-wracking than actually being one of the shortlisted authors. There's some nervous faces in front of me here. All the books on this year's shortlist, as all great science books do, ask readers to rethink the way they view both themselves and the world around them. Whether that's looking back into the history of life on Earth and of the Earth itself or at the issues facing us today. These books convey the wonder of science, as well as the limitations of both the scientific process and human nature. To reimagine our world through new concepts, of course, takes both intelligence and imagination in equal measure. Our shortlisted authors all display both these quantities in abundance and we're going to be meeting them to discuss what inspired them to write their books. But first of all, we're going to take a look at this year's shortlist of books. So I'm hoping they're going to come up magically on the screen behind me as I read them out. The first is a very short history of life on Earth, 4.6 billion years in 12 chapters by Henry G. Then we have Age Proof, The New Science of Living a Longer and Healthier Life by Professor Rose Ann Kenney. Thirdly, different what apes can teach us about gender by France de Val. Hot Air, The Inside Story of the Battle Against Climate Change Denial by Peter Stott. Spike, The Virus versus the People, The Inside Story by Jeremy Farrah and Anjana Ahuja. And finally, The Greywak, How a Priest, a Soldier and a School Teacher, Uncovered 300 Million Years of History by Nick Davison. I'm pleased to welcome our 2022 shortlisted authors here tonight. They're all here, so this is a great opportunity to hear from them directly about what inspired them. We have about, well, almost 50 minutes before the announcement is actually made because it's made dead on 7.30 p.m. So we have about 50 minutes to, I wouldn't say grill them, but we have to have a chat about what inspired them, what their books are about. And I will be keeping a close eye on the time, don't worry. Okay, now you can join the conversation, both the audience here at the Royal Society and those watching online via Slido. I hope people are familiar with that, but if you want to access the event, go to www.slido.com and use the event pin. Shall I slow down until it might or might not appear on the screen behind me because the event pin is important. It's hashtag B2911. Okay, so hashtag B2911. Once you've accessed it, you can then ask questions. They will come through on an iPad, which I will be presented with when we sit down and chat to the authors and I can read your questions out to them. So hopefully we'll have a few audience questions coming in as well. Okay, so without further ado, I would like to welcome two of our authors first of all up on stage. So could you please welcome Henry G and Nick Davidson. Take a big gentleman, but maybe sit close to me. Hadn't you decided where you were going to sit before him? Brilliant. Fantastic. Thank you very much. So before we start, maybe you could each just spend a few seconds introducing yourselves and telling us who you are. Henry, you first. I'm Henry G. I'm a recovering paleontologist. And for 35 years, I've been an editor at the Science Magazine Nature. It doesn't seem like a year over 34. And in my spare time, my copious free time, I write a lot of books of which this is one of them. Fantastic. Thank you, Henry. Nick. My name is Nick Davidson. I'm a documentary filmmaker, a writer and enthusiastic. It has to be said, fairly amateur geologist. So it's been a very steep learning curve writing this book. Thank you. Well, I think I'll be given the iPad at some point to ask questions if Slido questions come through. But I've got a few questions of my own. Henry, if I can come to you first. A very, very in brackets short history of life on earth. 4.6 billion years is clearly a very long time. How do you condense that into a short history? I missed out all the boring bits. Ah, very good. I mean, if you would go to look at a day, a week per page diary of the earth. And I think I worked out how many million miles thick it would be if it were. I did it scientifically. I measured my diary's thickness and extrapolated. And most of it would be small earthquake, not many dead. And then weeks and weeks and weeks would pass with nothing much happened. So I just took out all those bits and just did the exciting part. It's life's life story, I guess. It is the story of life both before it began and also until it actually ends. So I'll give you another billion years for free. Thank you. It's actually 5.6 billion years. Wow. No, no, no, no. It goes after us. Oh, goodness. What is it you're basically trying to convey? I mean, it's more than just look at evolution, isn't it wonderful? Perspective. That's what I ended up conveying. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to convey when I started. I just thought it had been in the back of my mind for quite a long time to write a book on the history of life on earth. And I thought while walking my dogs through the woods during lockdown, wouldn't it be nice to write a book on life on earth? I call it something like Henry's history of life on earth. And he's just got back into the mental shed, you know, with all the rusty bikes and the barbecue that you didn't get out this year because it was raining and the Wellington boots of different sizes. But it was only when a colleague of mine at Nature, David Adam, also a distinguished author said, Henry, he said, that's my name, said Henry, why don't you write a book about all the fossils that you have had the privilege of nursing to publication over your many years at Nature? And I thought that's a great idea. Actually, I didn't say that out loud. I said I'm not going to write another expletive book, which is what I always say after I've finished a book. But that was the germ of it. It was really to talk about the history of life on earth. But it came out as something a bit more than that. It was to show the perspective of how small the human estate is in comparison with life on earth, but also actually how important it is because we have the responsibility for making it as we will. So what was your process in unpicking the very early days of the planets as life first started, condensing that down, you know, eons, millions, billions of years into chapters? You know, how, what's the process of deciding how big a chunk you're going to condense down to a few pages? I had a three word motto and that was tell the story. It was basically to keep the narrative very much to the straight and narrow without too many digressions into scientific asides. I mean, there's a load of notes at the back. So the interested reader can find out the evidential support more or less for the things that I talk in the book. But I wanted to make the book very much a story and I actually started once upon a time. I wanted to do it as a bedtime story for grown-ups using the best, the biggest story that there is, which is the history of life on earth. I have a very cheesy question here. Do you have a favourite era? Yes, I do. I do. Oh, good. You're going to say don't be so ridiculous. I want to know. Well, I could say that. But I'm going to say, but I won't. I'll say I'm going to big it up for the Triassic period, unjustly neglected Triassic period. The dinosaurs originated towards the end of the Triassic period as kind of blinking second violins in the reptilian orchestra. But it was a period of marvellous diversity that had arisen like a valiant vast raspberry into the Permian period in which the earth had tried its best to wipe out all life. And the Triassic period rebounded with the most amazing cornucopia of fabulous, unlikely, weird creatures, most of which never survived the Triassic. Although some of them did. The dinosaurs, the mammals evolved from the Triassic, which eventually evolved to us. So I want to, the campaign starts here, support the Triassic period. In fact, we're going to talk about particularly important periods with you, Nick, in a moment. But one last question to you. Also, I need to cough. Because I wouldn't mind. Those who know. Shall I be mother? I'm lem-siped up. I have a bit of a cold. I'm trying not to breathe on people. Thank you very much, Henry, you're very kind. One last question before I move to you, Nick. Henry, if the reader were to take away from your book, what would you want it to be? Hope. OK. We human beings are a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny part of life on Earth. And ultimately, our legacy will be zero, looking at the world in 250 million years' time. But somehow that makes it all the more important that we do our best to leave the planet in the way we'd like to leave it for the next resident to find it. And to... As I was finishing the book and I was wondering how to finish it, you may know I read a lot of science fiction and I write science fiction. And one of the great unread science fiction authors is a fellow called Olaf Stapleton who wrote this book just before the Second World War called Star Maker. And it's... Even though it's quite a short book, it's a vast, neurasthenic vision of the whole of the cosmos. And the protagonist, who's just this regular guy, says how important it is for even us animal kills to strive to make the best of our brief existence before the ultimate darkness. And I thought that was a very interesting message, not of despair, but of hope, that we can make the Earth better as far as we know, like no other creature as far as we know has had that choice in the past. Thank you. Nick. Can I just pick up on that last point? Yes, please do. Because my book's not about such a long time span as Henry's, but it's certainly about a longish old span. And it set me thinking that it's guaranteed that we will disappear as a species. We will be there. And it made me think, how does that make you feel? Does that make you feel philosophical about it, that it's going to happen, we know it's going to happen, let's just let it happen? Or does it make you feel despair and worry? And I'm still, I'm not as clear as Henry, I'm still wrestling with that one because I'm agnostic, so I don't believe in any afterlife. But I may need something more through the inevitability of our demise. I'm still wrestling with this. I came to a kind of, not fatalistic at all, but a kind of restful, philosophical pose that all is but a moat in the eye of Brahma. You're more philosophical than I'm able to be at the moment. I'm working on it. It was a self-help course, but I'm not as philosophical. I may have to apply to it. Nick, your title, The Greywack, is such a wonderful title and subtitle. Your history of the earth isn't as all-encompassing as Henry's in terms of the whole of the history of life on earth, but as you say, you certainly pick a decent chunk of almost 300 million years, the Paleozoic era. What was so important in that period in Earth's history that lasted for so long? What was important for me about it was that, I'm not a scientist unlike most people here. I'm a storyteller and it was a, when I came across this story, it was a story that just begged to be told. It's one of those natural stories with a beginning and a middle and an end. It's got good characters, it's got bad characters, it's all in love. It's all the ingredients you want. For me, that was actually more important than the geology. It could have been about almost any period. It was the personal relations, the personal process of scientific investigation that really caught my imagination rather than the geology, I think. And how then do you weave these personal stories of the people making the scientific discoveries with the actual science itself? Does it come out naturally? The answer is yes and no, I think, probably. I found the process of getting under the skin of these characters. I was saying this to somebody earlier on this evening. The process of getting under the skin of these characters is absolutely fascinating. So the process of scientific investigation, if you like, is interesting as the science itself. The science, it's 19th century science. It's fundamental to how we work today. But it's not world breaking any longer. But the process of it hasn't changed at all. I found the process of these people learning something, arriving at a conclusion, thinking it's the right conclusion, following out, arguing about it. Totally fascinating. They struck me because it's different characters. Each one of the three of them is a different character. And each one is a sort of, if you like, an archetype of a part of the 19th century. So I found this process of understanding what made them tick. Absolutely fascinating. It gives you an insight into the way the 19th century operated, far more vividly than it would do if you simply read the history of it. How did you hit upon these stories? I mean, how did you uncover and discover them? I spent a lot of time walking in the Welsh marches. And I made me think about what it was that had shaped the hills as they are and made them what they are. So I looked at it, I began to read about it, and I realised that it was the heart of this huge Victorian scientific controversy. The so-called Silurian, Cambrian Silurian controversy, was the heart of it was in Wales. And then you just go to the libraries and you find the diaries and you follow it through as it were. And you walk in their footsteps and you're walking in their footsteps is a very enlightening process. And one of the things that constantly boggles me is just how clever they were. Reading rocks in parts of Wales is pretty difficult. I mean, the strata go vertically, they go horizontally, they go diagonally, they go all over the place, and yet somehow, they managed to trace out these strata over miles and miles of empty barren moorland and heath and so on. And I thought, that's amazing. And even when I read the books and I knew where the strata were, I walked across a section of the Burwin hills, I couldn't find what they were talking about. I was just staggered by it. I had to admire your stamina, Nick, because you actually underplay it in the book, but it's quite obvious same hills that said to it couldn't merches them and that were. I did, I did. Yeah, gosh, my feet ache. Just thinking about it. But one of the nice things about it, I mean, for me one of the nice things about geology is it's an excuse to spend time in wonderful places. There's this lovely phrase from Keats, it's about being in the existence of being or something like that. And it's very much true. It's one of the great things. It's incredibly restorative, just walking through the hills. I found that just a wonderful experience. Fantastic. Well, I think we'll leave it there, gentlemen. Please, a round of applause for Henry G and Nick Davieson. Thank you. One of our authors, France Deval, unfortunately can't be with us tonight. Author of Different What Apes Can Teach Us About Gender. However, he has been kind enough to send us a video which we're going to play now. Hello, I'm very pleased to have been nominated for this award for my book Different. And I have a long history of popularising science and that's partly because the literature that we produce we scientist is unreadable for most people. Lots of statistics and all of that. And I do want to reach a larger audience and make them aware of the complexities of primate behaviour and animal behaviour. And in this case, this book, of course, is on a very controversial topic. And initially my plan was to just compare what kind of sex differences do we see in the primates and what do we see in humans and how do they compare but it became a much more complex book, which is partly because our two closest relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos, they are so different from each other so it's not easy to generalise. And I also feel that they are cultural beings and so people think that in the primates you see biology, but you also see culture and the humans, you don't just see culture, you also see biology and that's a complex comparison. And then in addition, I dove into gender diversity, like gender expression, gender identity, sexual orientation. And all of that can be found in the other primates. There's not a lot of research on it, but it can be found for sure. And I find it so interesting, that's what I describe in the book, is that it doesn't cause any problems. It makes a big fuss over it, and the individuals that I describe who are a bit different from the rest are perfectly well accepted in the society. So it became a very different book from what I had originally intended, even though clearly the topic was sex and gender. And I'm pleased that the book has been nominated despite the controversy that surrounds this topic. And I wish you a very pleasant evening there in London. It's unfortunate that I cannot be there, but I'm there in spirit. And I thank you for the nomination. Thank you. Well, I'd now like to invite our last three authors to come up on stage and join me. So that's Anjana Ahuja, Roseanne Kenny and Peter Stolt. Oh, good. People have been good. Well, we did belakely have the Slido information coming up on the screen behind us. So if you've gone on to Slido, then you can see the hashtag there. B2911 is the code. So, yes, so clearly questions have been coming in. So I'll try and remember. I don't know if there's any questions for our first two authors. We will just have to shout out your answers from the audience. Okay, so maybe I could ask each of you in turn just to introduce ourselves briefly. So when do you go first? I'm Roseanne Kenny. Physic in Trinity College in Dublin. Chair of Medical Guarantology, and I'm a clinician in geriatric medicine and have been for 35 years. Thank you, Anjana. I'm Anjana Ahuja. I'm a science columnist at the Financial Times. I've been a science writer for many, many years, a couple of decades at least, and originally trained as a physicist. Thank you. I'm Professor Peter Stolt. I'm a scientist, researching the causes of climate change, and I also have a position at the University of Exeter as well. Thank you very much. Okay, well, I've got a few questions for each of you, and now I have slido questions as well, so that'll be very exciting. Okay, Roseanne, I'll come to you first. Your book, I think, should be a central reading for people of a certain age that are starting to be aware of their mortality. I mean, is that... Would you regard it as like a self-help book? I mean, is it something... Do you practice what you preach? 80% of the time. So, actually, what I would really like is if people read the book who were of a younger certain age. Before it's too late. Yeah, because the whole thing is that the ageing process starts very early on, and I don't think that that's well enough recognised. And any younger interviewers or audiences that I've spoken to, they really enjoy the content and the fact that physiological changes, biological changes can start very early on, and that 80% of them are modifiable, and more modifiable the earlier they start. So, I guess that's it. And the other challenge, I think with writing a book like this, is, frankly, the socio-economics, frankly, the socio-economic divide is one of the major determinants of poor health in adult life. And that's the very cohort that's most difficult to access. And I struggled with that. How do I actually pitch this so that it will resonate with those that are actually most matters too? I've been really lucky to establish and run a longitudinal study on ageing. My own background training was in cardiology before and cardiovascular disease before I went into geriatric medicine and then I've extended that into the other tapestry, the other elements that influence the ageing process, which are social and economic as well as a multitude of health and physiological contributions. So having run that study, we're part of a larger global network now of longitudinal studies and ageing. There was an awful lot of information available from that, which I was able to use, of course, in the book and that was the purpose of writing the book. The reason I wrote it was I decided to take our research findings that were in the so-called ivory tower of the college and did a road trip around Ireland speaking in hotels. The first one would come up to me afterwards all ages because we did it with a national football association, which had a fantastic federal network throughout the country. So people of all ages came, but many older persons came afterwards and said that that was the first letter they had ever attended. And then one person, I remember paused and said, well a part of course from the sermon that the priest gives on Sunday. OK. So, yeah. After those lectures people would say we'd love to read more and have you got any more information? And I haven't. This is the first book. I've written a lot of textbooks, etc. and contributed to a number of textbooks, but I'd never written a book to communicate to the public. So that was my journey with the book. Some of the issues you mentioned there, we should be starting to think about our health a lot earlier than most people do. We're releasing it. Very important. Is there anything that would surprise readers in the book that maybe your research had uncovered that probably unexpected factors that play a big role? Yeah. And this is the good news that the things we find fun like quality friendships, social participation and sharing problems laughter, creativity, curiosity, nature. The last two speakers both spoke of walking and their ideas came to them as they were walking and that resonated very much with me. Continue walking is very good for you. So the fun things actually that those sorts of elements can act at a biological level is remarkable but also it's a good news message and that's why the earlier we start those behaviours and indulge and engage in those behaviours in a positive way knowing that those fun things are good for us the better, longer term. There may be questions for you on Slido. So I'll come to you and Jenna next. You were, as a reporter, the forefront of reporting on the pandemic, on COVID and the outbreak. Jeremy Farrow, of course, as a scientist was very heavily involved. He was very much involved so you're both very much finger on the pulse over the past few years. When it came to writing spike what was that experience like? Taking a step back, having a sort of retrospective look at everything that's transpired and then condensing it into a book? Well the first thing to say was that I thought before we got together to write the book was that I thought I knew everything that there was to know about the pandemic. So the first column I wrote about it was on the 8th of January 2020 so it's almost the first week of Jan when I didn't like the look of this pneumonia that was in Wuhan and thought, you know what, maybe it's going to not come to anything but it reminded me very much of SARS-1 in 2002 which went on to be not a very pleasant epidemic. Obviously Jeremy was at the sharp end being on stage but he also had a very pivotal role in the World Health Organization and when we got together initially I thought, you know, what's he going to tell me that I don't already know and we spoke for a couple of hours and by the end of it my jaw was on the floor really about it was the inside story of what happened both here and there. Across the world really and I just thought we had to write this book but I'm really interested that you say it's about a step back because it really isn't that because both of us felt that it was important to get down what had happened not really with hindsight but what was happening in the time what were the facts available at the time what were people saying at the time what was actually happening in the time what was actually going on and we wanted to back it up with this is where I came in I suppose was the narrative but also the documentary evidence we have the WhatsApps, the emails the sage records, meetings on the record interviews off the record interviews and it was really important for us to get this contemporaneous record which is actually as Henry very kindly described as a first draft of history because and I think we're beginning to see a little bit of that now but it doesn't come along later and say actually this is what happened with a revisionist eye that was really really important to us and in terms of doing it I really wasn't I mean I was keen to do it but I don't take on projects like this lightly I mean I'm a journalist I mean we asked off Chip Paper the next day so I'm used to kind of doing a subject a mix of subjects writing it moving on forgetting what I do it was really important to get it right not just for the people who had participated in it but for the people that you know the bereaved for example who you know all the people who suffered in the pandemic and found it very traumatising as many of us did it was really important to show what had happened what could have happened and what needs to happen next time and what was it like co-authoring the book I mean was it a natural partnership did you both slot into your own roles or was it there with attention? Good question I wouldn't team up to write a book with everybody but I met Jeremy in 2004 He's so nice He's a really nice guy but it's more to it than that I'd actually worked with him before when there was an outbreak of bird flu in Vietnam I'd gone out to Vietnam for a week and worked with him and did it big at the time I was working for the times I kind of kept in touch loosely ever since and what we did was we had because it was in lockdown we had Zoom interviews we had a weekly slot and I do remember there was once we were in the middle of a Zoom interview and he said and he'd never done this before he said I've got Tedros on the line do you think we can postpone this and I was like you go so we had that and the first time I'd heard Jeremy say this he said doing those Zoom interviews was a bit like being on the psychiatrist couch so I think it's processing what happened I did say to him if I'd known that I would have charged him but it was a really fruitful partnership and I think we'd established at the outset and it was very important for me to establish that we were going to write an honest book not a diplomatic book so that was we had to get the nitty grid we had to warts at all I mean that's interesting because science scientists and the scientific process were all under the spotlight for 18 months, two years dirty blining and all did you have to tread carefully were there sensitivities given the passions and not everyone was in agreement and of course as we all know it was a learning process the virus to begin with mistakes were made inevitably because that's how science progresses did you have to worry about what you could or couldn't say or the way you said something? No I think that was the important thing was to tell the story and the amazing thing about it was was the access that we had because a lot of people were willing to be a part of it and actually talk frankly sometimes off the record and again it was about what was actually happening so we had the documentary evidence we had the private email some people had never revealed their stories before and it was really important to piece it together in a way that kind of made sense for me doing the book was a bit of a sanity check because I remember writing for the FT and writing columns about what we did know what we didn't know what was going on and you know you kind of think and there must be something I'm not getting but actually writing the book it all made sense nobody knew what they were doing and that's not to be unkind it's a wicked problem it's not a pandemic you've got so many moving parts you've got the fear you've got the actual virus itself you don't know it's biology even at the beginning you don't know the infection rate you don't know the fatality rate you don't know what you're doing you've got the closures you've got the vaccines there's so many moving parts and that's why it was very difficult sorry very important to capture that sense that I hope we do capture in the book of what's going on but really not to say it was all terrible but just to say this is what happened and maybe we should think about how we might want to do it better next time Thank you I have one that we haven't sought out yet pizza starts of course you've been a climate scientist for many years you've had to see how public attitudes have changed and how there are still the people who will deny whether it's climate change at all or whether it's anthropogenic climate change would you say there's been a moment that's been most impactful in terms of shifting attitudes or beliefs or is it just a gradual accumulation of evidence that wears people down into realising this has really happened So in my book I have the opportunity to tell the story of the twists and turns of this whole saga of the scientific discovery and then the fossil fuel industry inspired attempts to delay action and there have been all these ups as a climate scientist perspective and ups and downs in that story but if I was asked to choose one part of this story that for me had the most impact maybe not immediately but in terms of its after effects was the heat wave in Europe in 2003 So this was really where climate change which arguably up to them at least in terms of public perception was something for the future we ran our climate models of course the 21st century 2003 at least for Europeans was the moment that the future became reality in the present and it's estimated that over 70,000 people died during that heat wave it showed populations in the UK particularly in France Paris for example how vulnerable people were and also for me it was a very key part of my scientific journey because I was in the position to be able to write the first paper it was the first paper that made a direct link between an individual weather event the European heat wave and human induced climate change by relating it to the risk of such a heat wave so it was also a moment when in terms of writing a paper I really saw the impact of that it was a moment when I found gosh there's all this media I want to hear about this it was a journey for me the communication of getting out from the lab and talking about this and actually the thing that really made the most impact on people was at the time it was a surprise to me because when journalists asked me about this there was an aspect to it that was quite technical we'd made this link between the risk of the heat wave and human induced greenhouse gas emissions but the thing that really hit home more when I actually started talking about it than I had to realise when I was doing the work was oh my word the impact of heat wave is going to become a regular occurrence there's something that was so exceptional so extraordinary and so damaging is what we face potentially every other year in the 2040s and that was the message that really hit home and actually only hit home with me after I actually written the paper and started talking about it and that was two decades ago and of course we are seeing records tumbling year after year and yet there are still those out there who will try and find an argument on that conspiracy theorists aren't new they didn't just appear with social media they've been around and I guess for a lot of it just the flat earthers or the moon landing denies a bit of fun really is not harmful but when you get anti-vaxxers or climate change denies we as a scientific community have a moral responsibility to stand up to them I mean people should read your book but I mean can you summarise what is the approach that you should take to try and get this message across you can't just well let people believe what they want so I think just to sort of answer the question is just to paint a little bit of a picture of what they do so the reason I use the term climate denial in the book is because the term that these people would like to use is climate sceptic and it's very important and people in this room will understand this of course that science is by its nature sceptical and we challenge all the time what we do that survives is survives that robust challenge so we're all sceptics the two arguments the two ways of and this has happened over and over again that the climate change now will work is first of all to sort of cherry pick bits of data and present this as though you know there's some new discovery shows that global warming has stopped or extreme weather ends on changing and to put that against the great massive evidence in terms of how no longer the case I think the large part the media have had this sort of false balance they have put a so called climate sceptic against climate scientists and the other way is just to attack the scientists and you know I talk about Ben Sander I talk about Phil Jones I saw myself in Moscow this extraordinary incident in Moscow in 2004 about how this works but they will then attack the scientists for being you know on a path for example with this promoting the use of eugenics for example in Nazi Germany which is something that I faced in Moscow so they'll do this so how to respond to that partly actually that was a big motivation writing the book actually because part of the difficulty here for scientists is that it's a bit like whack-a-movell they'll come up with an argument let's say you know global warming has stopped and you will explain why this isn't the case although talk about extreme weather ends although talk about the last ice age or something like this also it's about presenting the whole narrative I suppose the whole reason why people should care which I think ultimately for me now comes back to the impact on whether it be flood strats, heat waves, hurricanes people can now see for themselves what's actually happening and I think that's actually the thing that's really changed the dial if you like that's really really changed things is that you know there's a lot of science extreme weather is changing but people can see for themselves so again you know like going back to the 2003 heat wave unfortunately it's with us now and you can't really deny that I suppose the other thing about that is that in the past few years climate scientists themselves have been a lot more outspoken about attribution attributing extreme weather to climate change and that has always been the thorny missing link I think which is now sceptics a get out that's right and that's absolutely right and you know this it takes time for the science to mature and you know we rightly I've been very worked a lot with the intergovernmental climate change we talk a lot about the we frame it in terms of the uncertainties but when we communicate this work and the work with the attribution and linking to extreme weather was so important I think it directly linked to risk and I think actually people have a perception you know when they get insurance on the house that people sort of understand risk and I think that's really clear statements on the risks I think has helped a lot How do you personally then stay positive in the face of what is actually a public situation? I think you know we've sort of touched on a bit in some of these conversations already actually it's about being creative and engaged for me the opposite of denial is engagement and so being creative telling these stories being involved in my own personal things in terms of for example putting settler panels on the house or how I travel is part of it but also it's about the discussions and the engagement and I do actually find a huge change now to just a few years ago in terms of friends and neighbours people are talking about and that's really changed things and that's really helpful I think Thank you Okay well we've got a few more minutes so I should I guess at least read some of the slido questions there's a few here have come in the obvious one are any of you already working on a new book idea? I mean here we are being shortlisted for a book that's come out this year has anyone already got something, some plan in there? Well I am but you mustn't tell anybody Okay Just tell me So my other passion is the autonomic nervous system which is somebody described to the man inside the man it's this system that's ticking away all the time and I run a sink play clinic and I've seen some amazing manifestations of dysfunction of that system but it's a hugely important system so that's what I'm working on and I feel it would be important for people to understand more about that system so that's my current system I'm back on my chip paper schedule I'm really happy to do it but also because I know I've co-authored two books and I know what an immersive experience it is and it's really demanding because you have to kind of live I think to do it well you have to live and breathe your topic and certainly I took four months book leave actually to write the book because I just wanted to be in that narrative and in that story and it's an enormous privilege to do it but I think it's very intense and I'll give myself a break I mean for academics I know what it's like you can't take months of book leave you can block off a day and say right I've got no meetings or no classes to teach or whatever today's going to be a book writing day what you can't do presumably is say I've got half an hour before the next meeting and I decide a chunk of time and is it a process that you enjoy that you want to do again? I did enjoy it but as you say it's hard and it's a big project in terms of bashing out getting that first draft down of a whole book I was six o'clock, twenty o'clock every single day maybe Sunday's off but just that way I found over a course of days and weeks and so on that was the key for me and then you've got then you've got the rest of the day to do the stuff you get paid for dedication OK Angelina what was the thing that most shocked you in the course of writing your book? I think I particularly loved writing chapter two which was the very kind of not heated isn't quite the right word the flurry of discussions around the origins of the virus because as everybody knows and the debate and the discussion goes on there were suggestions that the virus over its origins where did it come from was it an actual spillover event or was it a laboratory leak and there was a whole host of stuff in there that I didn't know and in fact Spike was the first kind of public record of that discussion which involved people all over the world people like Christian Anderson Eddie Holmes and obviously Jeremy Farrar and the security services and Jeremy got a burner phone to use at the suggestion of Eliza Manning and Buller the XMI5 head who was at the time the chair of welcome so you have this extraordinary kind of collision of events where you've got the security services involved, the scientists involved you've got this virus coming towards you you don't know what's happening government doesn't quite know what to do and how big it's going to be and you just you can just feel the tension the other thing I loved about that really stuck out in my mind were the untold stories the people who made a difference and who decided to put their head above the parapet to speak out and I think it's something we don't talk enough about in science although there are plenty of sense about science and we have something called the John Maddox Prize which is standing up for science but there were people in there I'd never heard their stories and again we were the first to tell them in Spike but one of them was a Dutch researcher called Teech Kuken who had been given in early January the copy of a paper that hadn't yet been published and it was all about this new virus he realised the paper contained evidence that the virus could spread between people and also asymptomatically and as you know as scientists in the room know peer review can be a long process he didn't quite know what to do and he had to make the decision about whether he was going to break cover break the golden wall of secrecy and confidentiality and actually as he told to me in a very moving interview that I still remember you know scientists might never trust him again so there are all these people in these moral dilemmas Steve Riley is another one that comes to mind who decided that he was on a skiing trip in February 2020 and was building his own model of how the virus was spreading was looking at what was happening in Italy and Iran and realising that the numbers don't lie this was going to be big it was going to hit quickly and very likely going to run out of bed capacity for it and getting people to go back into those moments share what they knew share the private correspondence that was again it was a real privilege to do but it was a really important thing to do it will always stay with me some of those interviews Thank you Well we've got time for one final question here and it's addressed to all three of you and it should be addressed to you two guys on your behalf they may answer it to all authors what advice would you give to someone who wants to write a science book is there a is there a pilly one sentence write every day write every day thank you Henry right okay was that anything I think know your subject you know be confident in your subject it's very important and be passionate about your subject is very important and then it makes it much easier to want to communicate it Thank you I would say do you want to write a science book or do you want to tell a story and that's the important distinction if you've got a story to tell and it happens to be a science book write the science book the other thing actually I should say my big bugbear is if you've got a story to tell write a good book science books are books and very often we we silo them away it's kind of these little niche things but actually this has been really the bugbear of my whole career is that is I call myself a science writer I'm actually a writer I tell stories and so tell us if you want to tell a story write a book Thank you Peter Yeah I was going to say but same as a scientist writing my first book it's about learn about narrative and learn about how that works you know you've got your story you want to tell as you say but as a scientist you need to understand how narrative works Thank you very much well we are coming up to the the important hour so I think we should all thank our three authors again So thank you everyone thank you to all our shortlisted authors now to find out who's won please welcome back to Adrian Smith and Angus Wilhau from our sponsor Insight Investments Well thank you to Jim and all our authors and thanks again to Insight Investments for their generous support of the prize and for sharing all our passion for championing science writing So now we come to the moment of truth it's a bit like the Oscars I have an envelope here and I have no idea what's in it but before I announce what we're going to call the winner I think we'd all like to say that all of the shortlisted authors are winners So are you ready the winner of the Ross IT Science Book Prize is Henry G but you don't get the prize unless you come up so Congratulations Well thank you Very well deserved Thank you It's very heavy It's very heavy So can you do it in one hand while I shake your hand So we know we're now going to do photographs so you have to don't drop it Oh my god it's full of stars Well including yourself Thank you Gosh Shall we move in? Yeah How come I never said Okay Do we do what? Yep One more photograph and then Henry will say what Okay Whatever you tell us to do All the rest is true but this is difficult Oh my goodness With a bottle out Yes that's me Congratulations Thank you very much Well they said on the screen they said I am privileged to be in your mighty company Ladies and gentlemen I've read all the books and enjoyed them all Everyone is a worthy winner We are collectively trying to make science more of a part of the demographic demographic I can't speak I'm sorry I can't actually I've got to thank my agent We're trying to be a part of the democratic process by making the electorate the public the people who matter more informed about the things that matter as we've seen every time in the news most serious news stories that aren't serious news stories that aren't sport or gossip usually have some science content and it's very important that people have some idea of the background and to echo what my fellow shortlisted authors have said especially and just now is you're not just writing science books you're writing books and what all the authors have said is basically we're telling a story and it should be a story that people will like to read irrespective of whether it's about science it should have characters it should have narrative it should have a plot it should have a page that you want to turn and find out what happened in the end during the course of doing publicity for this book I was amazed that there are people who are afraid of nonfiction they simply do not read nonfiction because they're afraid it'll be a bit like being at school what we need to do is schools out people break out from the classroom and teach people about the fun the joy, the wonder, the terror of science and publicising it to the people and I'd like to thank lots of people my wonderful agent Jill Grinberg in New York who's represented me since we were both young girls together back in the last millennium and I'd like to thank my publisher Ravi Merchantani I don't know if he's managed to arrive hi Ravi, there he is we haven't actually been in the same room for 35 years this is another long story and I'd also like to thank my wife Penny Jim and I were talking about how we manage our time and we say it's our wives who manage our time and whenever I say to Penny I'm not going to write another expletive book she says she just smiles sweetly and says yes of course dear and puts me in my study with a cup of tea and two digestive biscuits and locks me in to do the decent thing so thank you very much everyone I'm very very privileged and proud to be the recipient of this award from the Royal Society and Inside Investment thank you very much so it just remains for me to thank you all for coming tonight and congratulations to all of our winners and I'd like to invite you now to join us in the adjacent rooms for some drinks and food and the incentive of course to come for drinks and food is if we go back through the shortlisted books we're all doomed long term we're not going to be here shorter term if climate doesn't get us the bloody diseases will and what I did learn is that walking is good for us so why don't you walk and have a drink