• Question: what is the most interseting thing you have found out as a scientist?

    Asked by suby2k11 to Jess, Edd, Nicolas, Zara on 22 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by gogoleonrangers, keanna123, johnfraser, hotcherry98, runnerbean24.
    • Photo: Jessica Chu

      Jessica Chu answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      Hi suby2k11,

      In one of my lecture I have heard a cancer case about a woman who had ovarian cancer and when the ovary was surgically removed by the surgeon – they found hair and teeth growing in her ovarian cancer cells!
      This is because the cells responsible (called teratoma) even though they can be normal in themselves, they can be totally different to the cells they are growing around. Teratomas can grow into: hair, teeth, bone and even the eyes, torso, hands and feet etc. How strange! So even though these types of teratoma might not be very dangerous but it has the potential to be very deadly too.
      Here is more information on Tetraoma: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teratoma

      Gross right?

    • Photo: Zara Gladman

      Zara Gladman answered on 22 Jun 2011:

      Hey suby2k11, gogoleonrangers and keanna123! 🙂

      Ooft that’s a difficult question… in my research, one thing I have found is how BADASS crayfish are! The species I study, the signal crayfish, can survive really extreme conditions!

      One time I was out doing fieldwork during the winter and I found a block of ice with a crayfish inside it…. surely the crayfish is dead, I though! But when the ice melted, the crayfish started wriggling around! :-O that’s pretty hardcore!

      Crayfish are also really aggressive… if you try and pick one up, it’ll do its best to attack you! Even though I’m a lot bigger than it… crayfish aren’t scared of anything! 8)

    • Photo: Edward Codling

      Edward Codling answered on 22 Jun 2011:

      One of my colleagues (Steve Simpson) has done a lot of work on coral reef fish (we are currently working together to study their behaviour). He found that baby coral reef fish like the clownfish Nemo can actually hear and respond to sound before they even hatch!
      (There is an interview with Steve here: http://www.laurelneme.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=265:coral-reef-reef-fish-corals-steve-simpson&catid=48:the-wildlife-on-womm-lp&Itemid=251 )

      It is thought that they do this so that they learn to recognise the coral reef where they are born and so can return there by following the sound of the reef when they need to return there.

      I found this really interesting and am now helping to study this behaviour more and find out new things about these fish!

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