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Asked by issiphee1 to Gioia, Iain, Jo, Leo, Mariam on 23 Jun 2010 in Categories: Scientist.
Question: What is the most disgusting science thing you have ever had to do?
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Joanna Watson answered on 18 Jun 2010:
When I was at Uni we did an experiment where we had to skin a frog and remove one of the muscles from its leg. We then passed electric currents through the skin and the muscle and tested what happened.
That was over 10 years agao and I think it was the last time I ever did any experiments involving animals.
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Leo Garcia answered on 20 Jun 2010:
Probably taking ultrasound data from a ‘perfused liver’ – that is, a liver being kept ‘alive’ in a sack of blood and tubing. I thought it was grim.
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Mariam Orme answered on 22 Jun 2010:
I’ve had to mush up fruit fly larvae before… that was pretty gross.
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Iain Moal answered on 23 Jun 2010:
Well, I did chemistry at uni, and now work with computers, so I’ve never had to do anything particularly disgusting professionally.
I did, however, do some voluntary work in Mexico, doing sea turtle conservation. We had to collect data about turtle nests, and why some eggs don’t hatch any why others do. I had to dig up failed nests, which were usually full of maggots, and open up the fertilised eggs and look at the turtle foetus to determine its stage of development. That was pretty disgusting.
Comments
issiphee1 commented on :
ewww, what happened when you passed electric currents through the skin?
Jo commented on :
I don’t remember the exact results, but we were testing to see how well the skin conducted electricity I think. It was a really long time ago, so I only remember the really yucky bits.