• Question: how many breakthroughs have you had since you started to im scientist get me out of here?

    Asked by jkxbl to Emma, James, Jayne, Kara, Sharon on 15 Mar 2011 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Sharon Sneddon

      Sharon Sneddon answered on 14 Mar 2011:

      Well, as we only officially started today, I’m not sure I’ve had much time to do any breakthroughs! That and the fact that I have a broken wrist at the moment so I can’t really do as much lab-work as I like at the moment until I get my cast off.

      Scientific breakthroughs don’t happen that often, they are normally the culmination of lots and lots of little experiments done by lots of people over quite a long period of time. You do need to be quite patient to be a scientist as things don’t really happen overnight!
      I’m in the middle of a big experiment which will take about another 4 weeks to finish, which hopefully will give me some exciting results.

    • Photo: Jayne Charnock

      Jayne Charnock answered on 15 Mar 2011:

      Haha, not very many so far! Yesterday I wasnt in the lab at all as I was visiting a primary school to talk to them about science careers. Although I did have a few ‘sort-of’ breakthroughs whilst I was there- I number of children said they’d wanted to be vets/astronauts/footballers, but now they want to be scientists- EUREKA!

    • Photo: James Chan

      James Chan answered on 15 Mar 2011:

      well, I think I’m currently part of something quite exciting – whether it’s a ‘breakthrough’ or not, time will tell. Our new way of making fractures heal quicker seems to work in mice and we hope to find out whether it works in humans soon. But science is like a giant jigsaw puzzle. Imagine several people working on the same puzzle. Every time you find the right piece to fit in what has been done already, it’s a mini-breakthrough, but of course the big one is being able to complete the entire thing – it’s almost always series of little discoveries. I can’t lie to you though – there’re often times when you reckon you had the right piece but it turns out to be wrong and that’s a bit of a heart sink sometimes. But then if you get lucky every time, it won’t be as much fun.

    • Photo: Emma King

      Emma King answered on 15 Mar 2011:

      Depends what you mean by a breakthrough I guess! I’ve had things which I think are breakthroughs, like when I find somebody else who has done something really relevant to my work and can get new ideas. Not exactly as exciting as it often is portrayed.

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