• Question: if you died doing something connected to science what would it be

    Asked by jenniferno to Christine, Edd, Jess, Nicolas, Zara on 16 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Zara Gladman

      Zara Gladman answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      The main risks when I’m working occur when I’m outside doing fieldwork. Sometimes I do electrofishing, which involves using electricity to stun crayfish in the river and catch them. I have to be careful not to put my hands in the water, or else I might get a shock (although I’m pretty sure the shock would be too small to kill me).

      Probably the biggest risk is being swept away in the river or lake… the water can be very deep after heavy rain. I always have to wear a lifejacket to be safe!

      Either that or being eaten alive by millions of crayfish :O

    • Photo: Christine Switzer

      Christine Switzer answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      There are risks in my job as well. Lab and field work both have hazards. We go through a risk assessment process for every piece of work to make sure that we are thinking about the hazards and how to either avoid them or keep them minor. It is impossible to remove all risks from every activity, but the risk assessment process helps keep them manageable.

      Hazards in my work: coming into contact with contaminants, creating different contaminants by burning the original materials, burns from hot surfaces and so on. Those are the things that people think about when I talk about what I do. The things they don’t think about are more likely and some are more risky. Dropping something, spilling something, broken glass are all possible lab issues. Tripping over uneven ground is possible during site visits. Being in the way of heavy equipment on site is another possible problem. People usually think of driving as routine because we are so used to being around cars. Driving to a field site is probably more risky than actually doing the field work.

    • Photo: Edward Codling

      Edward Codling answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      This is a really hard question to answer – so it’s a good question!

      I think if I was going to die doing my science then I’d want to be remembered for doing something that made a difference and had a positive effect on people, wildlife and the general environment. Saving the last white rhino from poachers or stopping an oil slick from destroying a beautiful coastline – something like that I suppose!

      I don’t really do anything really dangerous at the moment though so hopefully I will have a long time left to do more research!

    • Photo: Jessica Chu

      Jessica Chu answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      To have created an amazing drug that will cure all cancers and because of that, I get SOOOOOOOOOO happy and will be laughing too much and can’t stop and die 🙂

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