• Question: what do you think was the best ever discovery in science

    Asked by Glen to Chris, Joanne, Kathryn, Kieran, Sarah on 3 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Joanne Duffy

      Joanne Duffy answered on 3 Nov 2017:

      I think the best discovery was vaccinations. Vaccinations comes from the word vacca, which means cow. A guy called Edward Jenner had a bright idea one day to inject the puss (ew) from cowpox into a human being, hoping that it would prevent the smallpox disease in humans. Cow pox is a very similar disease to smallpox, so your immune system can learn to fight against it, but it’s different enough that it doesn’t cause a serious illness in humans. And it worked! The vaccine eventually got rid smallpox completely; the disease doesn’t exist anymore. I love anything related to vaccines and vaccine development, there’s lots of really interesting science with really great benefits to human health.

    • Photo: Chris Werner

      Chris Werner answered on 4 Nov 2017:

      For me it has to be something which the human race cannot do without and for me that is being able to harness electricity. When you get a power cut, you feel you can’t do anything! It is the power source for communications, central heating, the list goes on!

      It had been studied numerous times but never really used until the 19th century. The big step forward for me was the invention of the common light bulb, credited to Thomas Edison in 1879 (many previous attempts!). He also has one of my favourite scientific quotes. When asked of his invention he said that he never failed, but found 1000 ways of how not to make a light bulb, but he only needed to find one way to make it work. Never say never!

    • Photo: Sarah Guerin

      Sarah Guerin answered on 5 Nov 2017:

      Ooh that’s a tough question- vaccinations and electricity would definitely be up there. I’m going to say something a bit different, that I use almost every day which is electron microscopy. Electron microscopy allows us to see some of the smallest things on the planet on a computer screen by firing tiny particles called electrons at it. If you google ‘electron microscope images’ you will see really cool images of zoomed in insects, blood cells and even atoms. Electrons are like tiny bundles of light, so an electron microscope is like an extremely small flashlight, allowing us to see and understand things that we could never see with our eyes.

    • Photo: Kathryn Schoenrock

      Kathryn Schoenrock answered on 6 Nov 2017:

      That’s a really hard question! So many things to say…. I think the study of evolution through natural selection by Darwin and Wallace was HUGE for science. There is also internal combustion which drives our fuel driven machines (we need to develop new technology to get away from this!). For me SCUBA (self contained underwater breathing apparatus) has changed marine biology- maybe revolutionized how we study underwater habitats.

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