• Question: What is the next big thing that scientists are trying to solve?

    Asked by Sweeney:) to Áine, Ciarán, Eoin, Lydia, Victoria on 21 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Lydia Bach

      Lydia Bach answered on 21 Nov 2014:

      Hey Sweeney,

      I think in biology and conservation it will be all about understanding and dealing with the human impacts on the natural world. So in marine biology for example, right now people are trying to forecast and understand the effects of climate change on ocean systems, to predict from that how it will affect the animals and plant species that live there.

      The main current research theme in conservation biology is called biodiversity and ecosystem function. Its about how changes in biodiversity (the number of species) will affect how ecosystems (broadly speaking natural enviroments) will continue to function and work.

      So for example, if we have species extinctions, or invasions, will that change a function in the ecosystem? Functions can be something like how much mass of plants are produced, which will affect the food chain because they are basal species and then affect everything higher up.
      – Then the next question is: how will a change in function affect the services and products we get from the natural systems?

      In other areas of science there will be other questions that become important, as we are trying to deal with problems we are facing (how can we deal with antibiotic resistance developing in bacteria?) or to satisfy our curiosity and answer life’s big questions (What was there before the big bang)?

    • Photo: Ciarán O'Brien

      Ciarán O'Brien answered on 21 Nov 2014:

      We’re a pretty diverse bunch, there’s a lot of next big things we’re all off working on 🙂

      Some of the big things in physics would be developing a working fusion reactor for clean nuclear energy, or figuring out what links gravity to forces like electricity/magnetism.

      In (micro)biology one of the big things I’m fascinated with is how scientists are looking for ways to cure genetic diseases, or “gene therapy”. It should be possible to engineer a virus that cuts out faulty genes and replaces them with healthy ones, which would wipe out some kinds of cancer and a whole load of other diseases, but it’s tricky and delicate work, and there’s a lot still left to understand about our bodies and how they use DNA before the technology works.

      I haven’t been following chemistry at all (It’s a subject I’ve never been good at), but last time I checked one of the big things was developing new metal alloys in space: on Earth, gravity causes metals in a mix to separate quickly, making it hard or impossible to make alloys from some metals. In zero gravity that wouldn’t be a problem, so there’s a whole load of new combinations they can look into!

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