Science, Ewan Birney writes in The Observer, can be much more emotional than journal papers can lead people to believe. He recalls a heated argument with a colleague over a set of experiments. "We must have been a sight: two geeks wildly gesticulating and laughing, happy to be friends after a virtual plate-throwing fight," Birney writes, adding "this is not what you write up in your scientific paper."
Other emotions — happiness as well as frustration — come out, too, Birney writes. "Pivotal moments in science can cause an outright physical reaction – a wave of giddiness when you realise you've backed the right idea," he says, but then there also is "the sinking feeling when you just can't make an idea fit."