• Question: what is the coolest thig you have ever done

    Asked by kjday to Hazel, Elliot, Ellen on 17 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Hazel Garvie-Cook

      Hazel Garvie-Cook answered on 17 Jun 2016:


      Great question!
      The coolest thing I’ve ever done in my work is making samples for microscopy that were about 10 microns in width and height, and around 0.3 microns thick. That’s 0.01 mm big and 0.0003 mm thick. Samples that thin are transparent to electrons. We can use thin samples like that in transmission electron microscopes. From the way that the electrons interact with the sample they’re moving through, we can learn about the sample structure and what makes it. To make samples that small, you accelerate atoms and fire them at the sample. The atoms then chip away at the sample and you’re left with something very small! I thought it was so cool that it’s possible to make something that small.
      The coolest thing I’ve done outside work was probably travelling to Madagascar. The animals and scenery there are amazing – it’s like a totally different world! I saw so many lemurs, chameleons, really weird insects and snakes.

    • Photo: Elliot Jokl

      Elliot Jokl answered on 17 Jun 2016:


      In my project I made see through fish embryos using DNA editing technology – you can see some examples on my profile page.

      Outside my project I visited the Large Hadron Collider whilst it was being put together. It was very cool and interesting to see so many smart people coming together to achieve something really huge and important.

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