• Question: Have you ever discovered something that can help people?

    Asked by Blobfish to Connor, Jillian, Lidunka, Sarah, Steven on 15 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Lidunka Vocadlo

      Lidunka Vocadlo answered on 15 Jun 2015:

      Hmmmm. No. My science is what we call “blue skies” research – that means it is curiosity driven. So no saving lives I’m afraid.

    • Photo: Jillian Scudder

      Jillian Scudder answered on 15 Jun 2015:

      In terms of something like cancer research, I’m not saving lives. But I do think that communicating with people -asking questions, giving thoughtful answers, can help people both with reorienting how they think about a certain topic and with not having them carry around a curiosity they’re ashamed to ask about.

    • Photo: Steven Thomson

      Steven Thomson answered on 15 Jun 2015:

      Not directly, not like my friends and colleagues who work on curing cancer and similar medical projects.

      My research is more on understanding the basic science that we can use to build new technologies and materials. Once we understand this stuff, other people can take that understanding and use it to help people, but that takes many years!

      As an example, Einstein wrote down the equations for a laser in the 1920s, but it wasn’t built until 1960 – now, though, lasers are used in all sorts of technology and communications and are a huge part of modern life, even being used to treat things like skin caner. So it might also take 50 years for my work to help people, but hopefully it will one day!

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