• Question: What do you find tricky in science?

    Asked by NigelM to Nikki, Jess, Harriet, Chris on 9 Mar 2016.
    • Photo: Jessica Groppi

      Jessica Groppi answered on 9 Mar 2016:

      Hi!

      the trickiest thing is when an experiment doesn’t work and you have to find a way to fix it.

      Jess.

    • Photo: Harriet Reid

      Harriet Reid answered on 9 Mar 2016:

      I think coming up new ways to look at a problem. Often when you start looking at a new question the results don’t seem to mean anything, and you have to re-design the experiment to ask the question in a new way. It can be very frustrating and so SLOW, but its all worth it when you make a new discovery.

    • Photo: Christopher Blanford

      Christopher Blanford answered on 9 Mar 2016:

      Hi NigelM

      I like Harriet’s response!

      Personally, I find it hard to be patient with slow experiments. The bacteria we use take a few days to modify, grow up and purify to get a useful protein out. That’s already a pain. Then, sometimes something goes wrong, or something changes and you have to start over. They’re starting to move to having robots run a lot of our experiments for us. One of the ones that have in the basement of my building runs 96 experiments at the same time!

      Chris

    • Photo: Nikki D'Arcy

      Nikki D'Arcy answered on 9 Mar 2016:

      Hi NigelM

      I think I agree with the others about planning and things going slowly. I personally don’t love some of the data analysis we have to do, like statistics! I have had lessons and been on courses virtually every year since I was at Uni but it doesn’t always sink in for me! Knowing which test to use when is tricky!

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