How to write a science feature

A feature is not an essay regurgitating facts. You need to get on the phone and speak to
the people directly involved, or better still meet them in person

1. Choose your topic and length carefully

Be realistic about the issue you are covering - does it have enough dimensions to hold a
reader's interest for a long feature? If the story can be summarised in 180 words, you don't need
to write a 1,800-word feature. And anything beyond 4,000 words is a very long read.

2. Have a plan
Make a list of all the points you want to cover in the article, then put them into an order that
allows you to move with the most ease from one point to the next. Remember to pepper
fascinating points throughout the article – if you put all the juicy stuff in the first 500 words, why
would a reader continue to the end?

3. Come back to the intro again, and again, and again …

Writing introductions is always a tricky business. The best introductions conjure up a clear,
compelling scene, an unusual conundrum or a stark situation. Avoid rambling opening
paragraphs and remember that if a sentence doesn't sound quite right, it isn't right. Move on to
the body of the piece and come back to it. The introductions that seem the most effortless have
probably taken the most work.

4. Get on the phone, or better still on the road

A good feature is not an extended essay, a regurgitation of undergraduate topics, or a stream of
consciousness. Don't indulge in covering too many historical aspects of the issue – use them
only where strictly relevant. The same goes for technical details. Remember, your audience
may not have the burning interest in genetics you do, or be familiar with what an allele is.

A feature should be alive with the voices of those involved in the issue you are focusing on.
Speak to researchers, speak to those affected by the issue and speak to people with different
viewpoints. Record your interviews – when you listen back you may be surprised at the gems
you find.

5. Get building
Once you have your transcripts from all your interviews, make one document with the quotes
you want to use and the points you want to make. Then shuffle these around to create the
skeleton of your feature. Then you can add detail and refine paragraphs as you go along.

6. Choose your structure carefully

A feature could take many forms, for example a long "write-through" or continuous narrative, a
Q&A format, or a series of distinct sections. Would a detailed explanation of how mitochondria
work be better in a separate, pull-out section, suitable for a tinted box on the printed page?
Would a graphic save you 300 words? Use such furniture wisely and it will improve your feature.

7. Know what you are trying to say – don't waffle

No feature can cover every aspect of an issue. There will always be other points or angles.
Make sure you have a clear idea of what is relevant to the overall thrust your piece and don't try
to shoe-horn in tangential information.

8. Get your facts straight

Double check everything. If someone gives you a figure for the cost of a medical procedure,
check it in the literature and ask the experts. Make sure your sources are up to date and
accurate and remember to differentiate between facts and opinion. If your piece will be
published online include links so that readers can easily access your sources, if it's in print give
enough information for them to track it down for themselves.

9. Change the pace

Employing a single, uniform style throughout your article will make for a tedious read. Change
the pace throughout – switching between emotional experiences, sobering facts, funny quotes
and informative sections will keep your reader engaged to the end. Like a good play, a feature
can also move backwards and forwards in time and be set in different scenes.

10. Kill your darlings

Your hilarious sentences and painfully crafted metaphors may seem like works of genius, but
they are probably too esoteric to appeal to anyone else. Write them, love them, cut them.

Do …
Interview a variety of people
Have a clear angle
Get your facts straight
Don't …
Waffle
Put all the interesting stuff in the first 500 words
Write in a monotone
A puff of air could deliver vaccines
needle-free
This Nerf gun-like device may make injections
safer, faster and easier

Imagine if getting a shot felt like getting popped with a foam

Nerf dart. That could be the case with a new drug-delivery
system. It replaces needles with puffs of air.
This innovation could make vaccines faster, easier and
cleaner.
“People really don’t seem to like needles,” said Jeremiah
Gassensmith in a video describing the work. “That’s really
why we invented this thing.”

Gassensmith studies bioengineering at the University of Texas

at Dallas. His team’s new tech goes beyond patient comfort,
though. The device quickly delivers drugs without touching the
bloodstream. And that could reduce the risk of spreading
disease. He tested it out on his own arm. It “felt like being shot
with a Nerf dart,” he reports. “I could feel it, but it wasn’t
painful.”

he technology works by blasting a puff of carbon dioxide, or

CO2, through the skin. That gas carries a powder made of tiny
bits of vaccine wrapped in metallic crystals. The crystal
coating is really strong, Gassensmith says. As a result, the
vaccine powder does not have to be refrigerated while stored.
Once in the body, the CO2 that carries the powder will mix
with water.
This creates a weak acid. The acid dissolves the crystal
shield. This releases bits of vaccine so that it can now enter
the bloodstream.
The new device was inspired by “gene guns” used in
agriculture. These shoot DNA directly into crops. Giving a
plant those genetic instructions “temporarily tells the plant to
do something,” Gassensmith explained in the video. For
example, “You can tell a plant to hold off on fruiting if you
know a frost is coming.”

Gassensmith decided to build a homemade gene gun for fun.

This was early in the COVID-19 pandemic, when he was
spending a lot of time at home. In early tests, he shot table
salt around his home office. But he soon realized his design
could have a more practical use. When he was able to go back
into the lab, Gassensmith adapted it into an air-based vaccine
system.

His team described its device on March 27 in Indianapolis, Ind.

It was at the spring meeting of the American Chemical
Society.

An improved design
This isn’t the first gas-based drug-delivery device. It is,
however, an upgrade over past systems. For instance,
tweaking the gas that carries the vaccine powder can
customize how fast the tiny crystal capsules release the drug.
Testing showed that the drug released fastest when delivered
with carbon dioxide. Plain air, on the other hand, led to a
slower, gentler release.

Vaccines work best when released slowly. That allows them

longer contact with the immune system. But the team hopes
the device could work for other medicines too. And some
medicines must be released quickly. One such example is
insulin, a crucial drug for many people with diabetes.
The new system is also cheaper than previous designs, which
often used gold or other expensive metals to hold drugs, says
Yalini Wijesundara. The new setup uses zinc, which is fairly
inexpensive. She’s a materials scientist who works with
Gassensmith on this project.
To test the injector’s ability to work with vaccines, the
researchers used it to deliver proteins into mice. The test
proteins were not real vaccines. These stand-ins let the
researchers see how medicines delivered by the device would
behave inside the body.

To track the proteins inside a mouse, the researchers dyed

them red. A vivid red glow under the microscope told the
scientists that the proteins had released properly.
The team initially shared its findings late last year in
the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Not ready to go quite yet

Hurdles remain before this technology could replace needles in
doctors’ offices, says Bruce Weniger. A doctor, he teaches at
Emory University in Atlanta, Ga. He also studied vaccine
technology for 30 years for the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention.

In the 1960s, U.S. doctors tried delivering vaccines using

needle-free liquid jets. But problems arose. The liquid could
splatter off a patient’s skin. If that person was sick, that
splashback could contaminate the tip of the vaccination
device with germs and spread disease.

Powdered vaccines could overcome that problem, Wijesundara

now says. Solid material is less likely to bounce off the skin.

But more studies are needed to confirm splashback isn’t a

concern, Weniger says. He also worries that gas-based
vaccines might leave scars. That was a problem with older
gas-based systems. Some visible metallic residue remained in
the skin.

Future research must also ensure that gas-delivered vaccines

build immunity to disease as expected, Weniger says. So far,
researchers have only tested that the system delivers
medicine inside the body.

This tech might even find use on farms — for livestock

vaccines, Gassensmith says. After all, it could beat walking up
to a cow with a big needle.

Fear of needles keeps many people from getting vaccinations.

Gassensmith is optimistic that this new system might get
around that.