• Question: do you think your work can or will help others? and how?

    Asked by lmcglone19 to Nazim, Adam, Catherine, Karen, Leila on 14 Mar 2012. This question was also asked by cerys.
    • Photo: Leila Battison

      Leila Battison answered on 14 Mar 2012:

      I think my work is important because it *inspires* others. By finding out about how we evolved from a single cell over billions of years, and by inspiring people to think about how and where we might find life in space, it helps us see how we fit into the universe.

    • Photo: Adam Stevens

      Adam Stevens answered on 14 Mar 2012:

      Space exploration typically has lots of spin off benefits. For example, in my lab a team of engineers built really small instruments that call detect different gases, which was originally designed to go on a comet chasing probe, meaning it needed to be really small.

      The same miniaturised mass spectrometers are now being used to help people diagnose and prevent tuberculosis.

      So I don’t think my work will directly help others, apart from by increasing human knowledge, but you never know what might come of it!

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