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Asked by anon-380536 to Alexander dB, David B, Erin P, Karen A, Kirsty R, Martin M, Michael S, Viviene DC on 9 Feb 2024.
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Alexander De Bruin answered on 9 Feb 2024:
I don’t study any more but did study Chemistry and Physics at university. My fun fact is that the flavour of wine is mostly determined by the temperature and the colour – I had lectures from someone who works with Heston Blumenthal and he had us try a red and a white wine and talk about the differences in flavours and then revealed they were the same, but one with a flavourless food colouring!
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Martin McCoustra answered on 9 Feb 2024:
My research group investigates the chemistry and physics of processes on cold dust surfaces in space that were responsible for creating the chemical complexity from which life evolved in our Solar System and which will likely deliver life elsewhere in the Milky Way.
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Karen Adler answered on 11 Feb 2024:
I study bacteriophages – these are viruses, just like flu or covid, except instead of infecting people’s noses and lungs, they infect and kill bacteria! There are more phages on Earth than all other organisms combined, and up to 40% of all bacteria in the oceans are killed by them every single day (and grow back, of course)! There’s no need to worry though – they only attack bacteria, and in fact, we can use them against nasty Superbug infections that can’t be treated with antibiotics. The enemy of our enemy…. is our friend!
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Viviene Dela Cruz answered on 12 Feb 2024:
I am studying lasers in space in my PhD currently. I just graduated from my MEng (integrated masters) in Electrical and Electronic Engineering last year and worked as a high energy laser scientist during my MEng. A fun fact about my current research is that NASA recently beamed a cat video from deep space to Earth using lasers! Using this technology, we can research in communicating in space much quicker! 🙂
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Erin Pallott answered on 12 Feb 2024:
I study mucus barriers, and how they work against parasitic worms (helminths).
-Mucus is a lot more than the snot in your nose! It’s a very special gel that forms specific barriers in your nose, eyes, mouth, throat, lungs, stomach and intestines.
-Some estimates say an adult may produce around 1-1.5 litres of mucus a day!
-Parasitic worm infections are still very common around the world. Around 1.5 billion people are infected with at least 1 type of intestinal worms I work with.
-When you have an infection at one mucus site, you produce more mucus in other areas which can help protect against further infections! -
Michael Schubert answered on 13 Feb 2024:
I’m always studying and learning! In science and medicine jobs, you never really stop learning (and a lot of them have study requirements for you to stay up to date on your qualifications). My job is so varied that the things I study change from one month to the next, but right now, I’m studying:
– how to quickly diagnose infections that have gone to the bloodstream
– how changes to the environment are affecting human diseases
– strategies people use to make changes to healthcare laws
– extreme dinosaurs: the biggest, the smallest, the ones that lived in the strangest places…Here’s a fun random fact for you: did you know that herrings communicate by squeezing air bubbles out of their backsides to make noise?
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David Bremner answered on 14 Feb 2024:
I study nutrition and health so what we eat and how it impacts on our health
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Kirsty Ross answered on 15 Feb 2024:
I am currently researching various aspects of open knowledge and the Wiki projects. Did you know that anyone can edit Wikipedia (as long as you are over 13)? Did you know that only ~4000 people regularly edit and improve English language Wikipedia, and in other languages like Gaelic and Scots it is less than 20?!
Comments
Calum commented on :
I study the effects of radiation on metals to make sure nuclear power plants are safe. In a nuclear reactor, there is lots of heat and radiation which weakens the metal structures over many years. My fun fact is nuclear fuel is made of uranium, and that a piece of uranium as small as a gummy bear can power the average home for a whole year!