7.00
I am woken by my alarm, which is set to BBC Radio 4. It is always best to have heard some of the headlines before getting to work.
9.30
Get into the office, read today鈥檚 Guardian and skim through the science stories in the rest of the papers to make sure we haven鈥檛 missed anything.
10.00
Morning conference. This is the time when people from different sections of the paper discuss what they think of today鈥檚 edition and prepare for tomorrow鈥檚. Lots of ideas will be suggested and I might have to work through the implications of a story in front of a roomful of senior editors.
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10.30
Time to get to work on stories for tomorrow鈥檚 paper. This morning [Thursday 4 March] the Met Office announced the results of its review of the causes of global warming, so I need to get hold of the report and find scientists willing to comment on it.
I also use the morning to set up interviews for some longer-term features I am working on, and to arrange guests for the weekly science podcast.
12.00
The section editors draw up a list of preferred stories for tomorrow鈥檚 paper. Typically I would be working on a few stories at once, but the Met Office report has grabbed the senior news editor鈥檚 interest and he wants to go big on it. He decides to allocate an entire page to the story.
12.20
Lunch usually involves a quick trip to the canteen, which does incredible pies. The canteen looks out over Regent鈥檚 canal so this can be a good place to clear my head when things get busy.
12.50
The afternoon is always spent writing 鈥� and hoping that the scientists I need to speak to get back to me with answers to my questions. The most nerve-racking part of any day is waiting for the phone to ring as the clock ticks closer to deadline time.
16.30
Finally happy with and send it off to the news desk.
17.00
Checking the newslist for tomorrow鈥檚 paper, I can see that my climate change story has made it in. It is not unusual to write a story only to find there is no space left in the paper because of a shooting, an earthquake or even a celebrity divorce.
17.30
With today鈥檚 stories done and dusted, I start writing up notes from last week鈥檚 trip to San Francisco where I followed a group of British scientists as they asked Silicon Valley venture capitalists for investment to fund their .
Hanging out with people who are so dedicated often makes me wonder if I should have stayed in research too. Fortunately my short attention span always snaps me out of that sort of thinking. I am much happier dipping into a whole range of subjects.
19.00
Before going home, I set my email鈥檚 鈥渙ut of office鈥� assistant for tomorrow as I am off to a conference in Morocco about development in Africa. Getting out of the office and meeting the people behind the research is the best part of this job. One day I might find myself driving around the mountains of Lebanon with a group of daredevil botanists on the hunt for the rarest of flowers. The next I might be learning how to somersault inside a European Space Agency test flight. There鈥檚 never a typical day.
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You don鈥檛 need a politics degree to get involved in science policy, says Imran Khan, researcher for the MP Evan Harris. The job is extremely varied: 鈥淓verything from free speech to prescription charges comes up, so you need to be able to keep a lot of plates spinning at once.鈥� In any kind of science-policy role, it鈥檚 essential that you鈥檙e a confident communicator, says Imran.