• Question: whos your favourite scientist?

    Asked by to Bethany, Hannah, Keith, Peter, Ramya on 19 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Peter Elliott

      Peter Elliott answered on 19 Jun 2014:

      So many to choose from but due to the impact of his work I would have to say Alexander Flemming. He discovered the antibiotic Penicillin. It has been said that the number of lives saved because of this antibiotic is greater than all the people who have ever died during the history of human wars, a pretty staggering fact I think we will both agree.

      Amazingly, so the story goes, he discovered it by leaving out some bread for far too long and he noticed that only one type of mould grew on the bread and he thought the mould must be making something to kill off the competition. This is why I always reluctant to throw away any of my used experiments as you never know how useful they might be.

    • Photo: Hannah Tanner

      Hannah Tanner answered on 20 Jun 2014:

      I don’t have a favourite but, as a clinical microbiologist, I think Louis Pasteur, one of the “fathers of microbiology” has to be near the top. The experiments he did helped prove that all life comes from other life and is not spontaneously generated out of non living things. He demonstrated that infectious diseases, food spoilage and fermentation are cause by microbes. He also did some fundamental work on vaccines. However, despite his impressive findings, he wasn’t perfect – some of the things he did would be considered unethical now. You can read about him and his work in more detail here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur

    • Photo: Bethany Dearlove

      Bethany Dearlove answered on 20 Jun 2014:

      There’s lots of scientists I could choose, and Fleming and Pasteur are great suggestions, but I’m going to go with someone you’ve probably heard of, but wouldn’t think of as a scientist…Beatrix Potter. She’s most well known for her children’s books about Peter Rabbit and friends, but she was also a very talented amateur scientist. From a very young age, Beatrix Potter made very careful studies of the plants and creatures around her, with a particular interest in flowers and insects. In the 1890s, Potter became fascinated with fungi – making highly detailed drawings of them (over 350 types), and in the process, developing a theory as to how they grew from seed. She even tested her theory by growing some of her own fungi (apparently in her kitchen!). However, she couldn’t present her findings herself to the leading scientists of the time because she was a woman, and instead they had to be presented by someone else.

      When she moved to the Lake District, Beatrix Potter bought a small farm, and was admired for how she experimented with treatments for the common diseases of the prize-winning sheep on her farm. On her death, she donated most of her land to the National Trust, allowing the preservation of the land we know as the Lake District today. To me, Beatrix Potter is one of many amateur female scientists of that period, whose contribution to science was often overlooked – even though Potter’s work is still referred to today, nearly 100 years later.

    • Photo: Ramya Bhatia

      Ramya Bhatia answered on 22 Jun 2014:

      Mine is Harald Zur Hausen. He got the Noble prize for discovering that HPV causes cervical cancer. Everyone at that time believed that cervical cancer was caused by this other virus called Herpes simplex virus and he proved them wrong by his experiments. I think it is very encouraging to know that sometimes you dont have to believe things just because everything thinks that. If you are determined enough to ask the right question and prove your point, you can change some things that people believe to be basic facts.

      Also, i recently met him and even though he has done so much work, he is very humble and a very interesting person to talk to.

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