• Question: What exciting new things await for the next generation of scientists in your field?

    Asked by zmzmzm to Allan, Angela, Diva, Harriet, Nathan on 27 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Allan Pang

      Allan Pang answered on 27 Jun 2012:

      Biotechnology is an interesting area of research in protein science. It’s interesting how much we can alter the structure of proteins and ultimately the function of the protein to what we want.

      For example, in my research, I am looking at the protein assembly of bacterial microcompartment. With this, I can do alteration of the assembly to fit in and be used for different functions; for example, as drug delivery and energy production.

    • Photo: Angela Lamb

      Angela Lamb answered on 27 Jun 2012:

      Great question! Technology is improving all the time so there will always be new challenges for the next generation of scientists. In my field, science-based archaeology, we look at the chemical make up of bone, teeth, hair etc to understand how ancient people lived. In the future I hope we will be able to do this with smaller and smaller samples, so museum collections can be kept as intact as possible. For example, we can now analyse a single human hair and get a picture of that persons diet over the last few months of their life.

    • Photo: Nathan Langford

      Nathan Langford answered on 28 Jun 2012:

      Hi zmzmzm,

      I think the most exciting possibilities awaiting the next generation of scientists in my field will all come from what happens when we build complex quantum machines that truly go beyond what can be achieved or simulated using “classical machines”, like normal computers.

      I think we’re right on the verge of this at the moment and that probably we’ll start getting there within the next 10 years or so. When we do, I think it really is going to be a case of “all bets are off”. So many new possibilities will open up at that point that imagination really will be able to run wild.

      Cheers,
      Nathan.

    • Photo: Diva Amon

      Diva Amon answered on 4 Jul 2012:

      Hey zmzmzm,

      Deep-sea biology is still a fairly new field in the grand scheme of things and that is mainly because it is so inaccessible to us humans. There have only ever been 3 people that have made it to the deepest point of our ocean – 2 in 1960 for 5 minutes and now 1 in 2012 for a few hours. The surface of the moon has been mapped in much higher detail than our own deep-sea floor. This is remarkable considering that the deep sea is the largest habitat on our planet. This shows about how unexplored our deep oceans are.

      With that said, I think the in the future more secrets of the deep will be exposed. Thousands upon thousands of new species will be found and many many more exciting habitats. It was only in 1979 that scientists realised that life can exist totally without the influence of sunlight, only using chemicals for energy from the deep-sea hydrothermal vents like this one found in the Antarctic covered in crabs:

      Scientists never anticipated finding such abundance of life in the deep sea as it was previously thought to be a barren desert. Many of these potential new animals may contain compounds that would be able to help mankind in some way – be used to help make cures for diseases or have amazing properties that could revolutionise technology.

      I also think that as technology improves, the deep sea will become more accessible. Only a few research institutions have the submarines and robots capable of diving deep down. In future, hopefully this will become more common making it easier to study the weird and wonderful life down there.

      Who knows, maybe someone will even discover the kraken!

Comments

  • Photo: zmzmzm

    zmzmzm commented on :

    so Allan would you say that the next generation of scientists will have an easier time i n your field –

    • Photo: Allan

      Allan commented on :

      Not really.

      In fact, it will become harder and harder because if you think about it, there will only be so much that you can discover and do research on, and every day, there’s discovery happening and therefore, in the future, the things you want to discover is less than what right now.

      Also, come to think of it, all the discoveries we have right now happened because it is easier to achieve… this leaves research area that are “harder” to get results from, and therefore, you need to do extra effort on it.