• Question: Do you ever come across anything different when doing your research? If so do you investigate it?

    Asked by ella97 to Cat, Daz, Holly, Johnson, Pamela on 14 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Pamela Lithgow

      Pamela Lithgow answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      Yes and Yes!!! I am very lucky and my boss lets me investigate things which I find and see where it leads. I was investigating what cells my virus (African swine fever virus ASFV) infects when I had an idea that the environment the cells were in could effect if the virus could infect them or not and I have been allowed to investigate this too! And you know what it does effect the infection too!

    • Photo: Cat O'Connor

      Cat O'Connor answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Hi Ella97,

      This is a really great question, thanks for asking it! Like Pam, my boss is great and will let me research something if I have a hunch! In the past it’s worked out great! I’ve ended up travelling to New Zealand and South Africa presenting some research that resulted from such a hunch! I think that as we become more senion scientists, we’ll be working on more of these things that come up when we’re investigating something completely different!

      Would you like to become a scientist?

      Hope we’ve answered your question 😀

      Cat

    • Photo: Darren Braddick

      Darren Braddick answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Hi Ella

      Yes, I have found some things that didn’t agree with what was published. About half these times I was (probably) right, and half wrong. It depends on the area, but usually you always have to remember that science is very sensitive.. I’ve heard of experiments working and then failing in different countries, after many months of looking people realised the only difference was the temperature of the rooms being different by only a few degrees. Many parts of science are very very sensitive. In my work, some stuff I do uses biological systems which are really very poorly understood…

      I hope that helps!

      Daz

Comments

  • Photo: ella97

    ella97 commented on :

    Thanks for answering.
    Its good to know that if I ever did pursue a career in science, I would be able to change my topic if I found something more interesting.

    • Photo: Pamela

      Pamela commented on :

      Yeah it is one of the best things about doing science research that you can pursue things you find interesting. It does depend on your boss though! Sometimes you will have to keep at a topic to see what information you can get from it. But generally if you work hard and have good reasons to research the “more interesting” thing you will get a chance. 🙂