• Question: What do you do if you find something very harmful while looking through a microscope?

    Asked by hollieeeeeeeeeeeee3 to Aaron, Ananthi, Ashley, Christopher, Emma, Lea on 12 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Ananthi Ramachandran

      Ananthi Ramachandran answered on 12 Nov 2017:

      Usually when looking down a microscope I know what I’m expecting to see as I’ve made the slide up myself. So for me there are very rarely any surprises (good or bad). When we are trying to look for tiny viruses using the more powerful microscopes it’s bad news if we don’t find them and good news if we see them!

    • Photo: Emma Stevenson

      Emma Stevenson answered on 12 Nov 2017:

      If you are looking at something unknown down a microscope then hopefully you would have written a risk assessment. This is a document which covers potential scenarios that could arise from your work and ways in which you would deal with them. So, if you were to find something harmful, then you would know what to do to minimise any danger.

    • Photo: Aaron Brown

      Aaron Brown answered on 12 Nov 2017:

      You usually know beforehand if you are likely to have anything dangerous underneath the microscope. If you are likely to have something dangerous you would carry out the work in a special lab with the right equipment and procedures (rules) to tell you how to deal with the situation.

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