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Asked by cellman to Andrew, Emma, Marianne on 17 Jun 2010 in Categories: Your Research. This question was also asked by scripps, purplewolf9, apjk03, chrisjums, septembersunshine.
Question: have u made any important discoverys
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Andrew Maynard answered on 14 Jun 2010:
Hi cellman,
I’m not sure I have. But I hope my work has contributed to a general understanding of how things work that will help others make important discoveries.
The reality is that most scientists just chip away at what we don’t know, and the big discoveries emerge over time – like a fossil being chipped out of the surrounding rocks – rather that individuals suddenly coming up with a flashbang discovery out of the blue.
Of course there’s always some genius that comes up with their own great discovery (although it’s usually built on the previous work of hundreds of scientists) – I’m not one of them though I fear!
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anon answered on 14 Jun 2010:
No doubt my friend. No doubt and they get more important to me all the time.
I’m hoping to make a more important discovery in the near future and then maybe it won’t just be me that’s impressed….
Seriously, it’s a career where it is highly likely you could discover something noone else has before…
PS Andrew M’s being modest. He has made important discoveries he’s just setting the bar too high. I agree with his sentiment though. Big massive discoveries are called paradigm shifts and they are very rare.
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Marianne Baker answered on 17 Jun 2010:
Hey cellman.
Our lab recently published some findings about how Down’s Syndrome (where people have about 250 extra genes, because they have 3 copies of chromosome number 21 instead of the usual 2) can protect against cancer development.
That wasn’t just me though, it’s a team effort and led by one of the experienced post-docs in the lab.
Every new discovery could prove to be useful sometime in the future, though – we can’t tell!
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