The previous post was my entry for the Guardian and Wellcome Trust science writing competition 2011 – as you can tell from my having posted it here, my effort was not shortlisted.

I suffer my usual hang-ups on reading it again.. there’s so much more I could have added, different directions I could have gone in, better insights that I could have delivered. I’d be interested to hear any feedback from others, as I’d like to improve, and to see whether my thoughts on this piece (which I’ll hold back for now) are similar to those that others might have. I do tend to cringe upon reading previous pieces, but hopefully with perseverance and posting more regularly on here then I’ll get over that! Or I could just get better at writing, and then I won’t have to.