• Question: what is the most interesting and most fun experiment you have ever done?

    Asked by monicawharram to Zara, Nicolas, Jess, Edd, Christine on 15 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by bilal11, qasim7.
    • Photo: Edward Codling

      Edward Codling answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      The experiments we did looking at how human crowds behave were great fun – and we definitely got some interesting results. I have a photo of the experiment in my profile: /ecologyj11-zone/profile/edwardcodling (click on ‘read more’ in the ‘What I would do with the money’ section)

      I am hoping to run some more experiments like this if I win!

      We want to test how crowds might behave under different conditions – e.g. if there is a time limit on making a decision. From these experiments we hope to be able to get a better understanding of how large crowds behave in different situations – people leaving a crowded football stadium or a fire evacuation from a building.

    • Photo: Christine Switzer

      Christine Switzer answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      I get to set things on fire for some of my work, so I do lots of fun experiments. This morning, I had a planning meeting with one of my students who is trying to come up with a new standard fire test. We came up with a list of experiments to do that will involve burning 50 bits of wood over the summer. Another project will involve burning a model building to test how it collapses. The design guide says one thing but we believe the actual collapse will be different. My third fire project for the summer involves tracking an underground fire and trying to understand why water is not very useful for trying to put those kinds of fires out.

    • Photo: Zara Gladman

      Zara Gladman answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      I did some field experiments to see how many crayfish there were in Loch Ken, which is a big lake in the south of Scotland. I went out on a boat on the loch and caught a sample of crayfish. I then marked each crayfish using nail polish and by pricking a small hole in the tail. After all the crayfish were marked, I put them back into the loch.

      Two weeks later, I came back to the part of the loch where I’d released the crayfish and sampled for them again. I then counted the number of crayfish I caught that were marked, and the number that were not marked. From the numbers I was able to estimate how many crayfish were living there.This technique is called ‘mark and recapture’. I found that the crayfish were living in Loch Ken in enormous numbers (about 10 per metre squared). In such huge numbers, the crayfish are probably having a huge impact on the other animals and plants living there.

      By the end of the project I had captured and marked THOUSANDS of crayfish! It was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed being out on the boat, especially when the weather was nice.

    • Photo: Jessica Chu

      Jessica Chu answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      The most fun experiment is probably in my undergraduate degree when had to look at fruit flies (that were under anesthetic) so they cannot fly around when we placed them under the microscope. We were looking for differences between the male and female fuitflies! And after looking at a few- I placed one fly on its back on to the slide on the microscope and when I went to take a look- I saw the fly flipped up and looked!!! (And they look HUGE under the microscope) and it made me scream and everyone starred at me like .. errr you ok? hahaa then i just bursted out laughing!

      The most interesting is when I am detecting at which cell cycle phase are my plant samples having an affect on the cancer cells!! I just think it is interesting how a machine can measure these sort of thing and then knowing where abouts my samples are having an effect will give me ideas of how the chemicals might act! – whether it binds sto the DNA or it binds to something called the microtubles (that is important in mitotsis and for the cell’s structure)!

Comments

  • Photo: Zara

    Zara commented on :

    @Jess I remember doing that fruit fly experiment too!! I ended up pretty sleepy after that lab cos loads of people left the lids off their bottles of ether

  • Photo: Jess

    Jess commented on :

    @zara! yeah i was really scared of hurting them so had to use the tweezer really gently!!
    haha but after that fruit fly making me jump.. i can’t remember much about the results just that i am a bit scared of fruit flies now!! 😛