• Question: is it time consuming

    Asked by 877mutg33 to Thomas, Sinead, Sebastian, Monica, Emma on 9 Nov 2016.
    • Photo: Sebastian Gornik

      Sebastian Gornik answered on 9 Nov 2016:

      Its a very time consuming job. Most scientists actually have no regular work hours, like at a bank, where you only work from 9am to 5pm. Scientists often work late and on weekends, because experiments do not know how to stick to work hours. I often come home late because I had to finish a long experiment. But as a reward I can also come late in the mornings some days when I have no experiments planned or time at my hands. It is a very flexible job in terms of work hours, but definitely very very time consuming :-).

    • Photo: Sinead Loughran

      Sinead Loughran answered on 10 Nov 2016:

      Biology takes its time…. the branch of science that studies living cells is probably one of the most time consuming because we have to wait for those things to grow and for reactions to happen.

      For instance, when we want to study cancer cells, we grow them in special dishes in the lab and we feed them every few days with fresh food that is called media. It can take weeks of minding them, incubating them and feeding them to get enough cells to do ONE experiment.

      It’s a bit of a love-hate relationship; in the beginning you think of them as ‘your babies’ because they need so much care and attention…but after all they are cancer cells so in the end the aim is to find ways to destroy them….

    • Photo: Emma Roycroft

      Emma Roycroft answered on 14 Nov 2016:

      Yes but the time flies!

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