One of my favourite projects I’ve worked on was when I was a food scientist in Perth. The first step was to go shopping at the supermarket and buy 200 different food products. Then I had to extract all of the fats out of each food, do a chemical reaction called an esterification and then analyse the fats on an instrument called a gas chromatograph. The point of this project was to see if there were any trans fats in the foods, which are a type of fat that is really bad for your heart, and to see if the company that made them were honest on the label about whether their products contained unhealthy trans fats. It was a lot of fun to do experiments on food like cake, doughnuts, chocolate and icecream – I just wished there was some left over for me to eat 🙂
Definitely my current project – bringing together the ancient DNA research and forensic casework has been really interesting. It’s also the first project that I’ve been really quite independent as a researcher, as I do the all the research, design most of the experiments, generate the data and finally write it up as my thesis – with help from my supervisors of course! It is also my favourite because much of what I’m working on involves working between forensic labs (industry) and more traditional research (ancient DNA) so I get to meet lots of different people. Also a lot of my work involves trying out new methods and new technology, which I also really like.
I would have to say my current project too. I am having a really great time looking at the finer details of Fallopian tubes! They have a really important job in transporting the egg into the womb. This is the first project where I am named as the chief investigator, so it is great experience and also nice because I control everything…except whether the experiments will work first time every time.
Hmm, favorite is hard. When I was playing World of Warcraft, I managed to write a scientific paper on the different types of players. That was a good mix of work and outside activity. I used to be an a warlock in WoW, now I am a regular scientist/academic!
POTBot at the moment
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One of my favourite projects I’ve worked on was when I was a food scientist in Perth. The first step was to go shopping at the supermarket and buy 200 different food products. Then I had to extract all of the fats out of each food, do a chemical reaction called an esterification and then analyse the fats on an instrument called a gas chromatograph. The point of this project was to see if there were any trans fats in the foods, which are a type of fat that is really bad for your heart, and to see if the company that made them were honest on the label about whether their products contained unhealthy trans fats. It was a lot of fun to do experiments on food like cake, doughnuts, chocolate and icecream – I just wished there was some left over for me to eat 🙂
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Definitely my current project – bringing together the ancient DNA research and forensic casework has been really interesting. It’s also the first project that I’ve been really quite independent as a researcher, as I do the all the research, design most of the experiments, generate the data and finally write it up as my thesis – with help from my supervisors of course! It is also my favourite because much of what I’m working on involves working between forensic labs (industry) and more traditional research (ancient DNA) so I get to meet lots of different people. Also a lot of my work involves trying out new methods and new technology, which I also really like.
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I would have to say my current project too. I am having a really great time looking at the finer details of Fallopian tubes! They have a really important job in transporting the egg into the womb. This is the first project where I am named as the chief investigator, so it is great experience and also nice because I control everything…except whether the experiments will work first time every time.
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Hmm, favorite is hard. When I was playing World of Warcraft, I managed to write a scientific paper on the different types of players. That was a good mix of work and outside activity. I used to be an a warlock in WoW, now I am a regular scientist/academic!
🙂
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