• Question: how usefull do you think your work is?

    Asked by to Kate, Kieren, Nicola, Rowena, Roy on 17 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Rowena Fletcher-Wood

      Rowena Fletcher-Wood answered on 17 Mar 2014:

      I think my work is a small step in a useful direction. I am under no impression that most research is groundbreaking – it isn’t, and you can’t guess where the next groundbreaking steps will be. Some research is purely theory for theory’s sake, and may turn out to be incredibly useful, but isn’t explored with this in mind. This is valuable because if you only explore what you know to be useful you restrict your options for future techology. However, my work is very practical: I clean up carcinogens from waste water. Systems already exist to do this, but I am also trying to recycle resources.

    • Photo: Nicola Rogers

      Nicola Rogers answered on 17 Mar 2014:

      This is a difficult question really – I hope that the work will be useful eventually – but I am making progress at the very early stages of development.

    • Photo: Kate Nicholson

      Kate Nicholson answered on 17 Mar 2014:

      I would like to think it is, but in the bigger world picture – I know I will only make a small impact. If I can add just a little bit to the world knowledge, and make it possible for as many people as I can to hear about what I do, understand it and talk about it, then maybe one day it will help solve someone else’s problem. Some of the things I have done could be really important, but if they never leave the lab or the pages of my lab book then they will be lost forever. In reality it is rare that a scientist is lucky enough to make a discovery that will change the world, but without the thousands of scientists making just a tiny bit of useful working together – that is how we manage the bigger things.

    • Photo: Roy Adkin

      Roy Adkin answered on 17 Mar 2014:

      My work is useful because it will help us understand how and where organic compounds formed in space and then how the molecules ended up on Earth to start making the chemistry that became life.
      Also the fluorescent molecule can be applied and used in medical research just like they do with fluorescent markers when looking at cells under the microscope.

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