• Question: what is your best discovery?????

    Asked by Thunderbolt to Freddie, Jena, Kirsten, Kon, Zarah on 7 Nov 2016. This question was also asked by PotatoBroInTheBlowBlow10, JoeyBigMAMA, Sandy Johanna.
    • Photo: Jennifer Bates

      Jennifer Bates answered on 7 Nov 2016:

      Best or weirdest? And I’m going to stick with plants here as there are so many cool archaeological things!! (Like the tiny dog statue we found in Turkey or the loom weight with the fingernail marks that are 5000 years old or the enamel Roman brooch…!)

      Best would be directly dating the earliest evidence of rice in the Indus Civilisation, but that’s super geeky!

      Weirdest… I found a load of nightshade (poisonous) seeds in a grain pit once. Still not sure why anyone would keep them in a grain pit as they are really not safe to eat and you’d normally remove them very carefully. It’s a puzzle I’m still working on.

    • Photo: Konstantinos Drousiotis

      Konstantinos Drousiotis answered on 8 Nov 2016:

      Hi,

      I’d say the discovery of some proteins I’m working on. Proteins are little chemical particles made out of amino acids and are found in masses in a bacterial cells and are responsible for different tasks.

      The proteins I discovered are found in the membrane of the bacterial cells and they act like metal detectors, however in their case they detect sugars from plants instead of metal. What makes this discovery important is that these proteins are showing particular sensitivity to this sugar found in plants called arabinose (however a particular form of arabinose).

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