• Question: What do you think is your best experment

    Asked by 466evnb42 to Thad, Thomas, Adam on 18 Mar 2015. This question was also asked by 492evnb42.
    • Photo: Thomas Clements

      Thomas Clements answered on 18 Mar 2015:

      My current experiment looks at what happens to fish when they rot.

      Why you ask? Well some fossil fish have squishy bits preserved in the fossil such as eyeballs or gills or skin.

      Now most fossils take millions of years to form but by rotting these fish we know that the eyes decay within two weeks. Therefore the fossil had to have been formed two weeks after the animal died……or did it? We need to understand how things like temperature, light and surrounding sediment (to name a few variables) effect the fossilisation process. So in a weird way I’m trying to make a fish fossil in my lab 😀

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 19 Mar 2015:

      I love the experiments I do that help me to work out how we can look after wildlife better – it means that I can share these discoveries with people who live in the area and encourage them to care and make the changes they need to make to help the wildlife survive.

      For example I spent some of last year learning more about the precise places that salmon lay their eggs, we learned enough that I was able to help people understand how they can keep rivers on their land suitable for the salmon to lay their eggs in 🙂

    • Photo: Thaddeus Aid

      Thaddeus Aid answered on 19 Mar 2015:

      Hi,

      My favourite experiment was either when I pulled the DNA out of a strawberry, which was tons of fun (and I got to eat the left over strawberries) or when I extracted some of my own DNA and then got to sequence it. I got to find out what some of my very own building blocks look like!

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