• Question: What is the best question you've come across? and Why?

    Asked by anon-223304 to Valerio, Sreejita, Sam, Kate, Anastasia, Adam on 19 Nov 2019.
    • Photo: Anastasia Aliferi

      Anastasia Aliferi answered on 19 Nov 2019:

      In my work I analyse blood from a crime scene and calculate the age of the person that left it behind in order to help the police narrow down their search. Someone asked me today what would happen if the blood I found was a mix from more than one person. I think that was a brilliant question and actually it’s a problem we are still trying to work out!

    • Photo: Sreejita Ghosh

      Sreejita Ghosh answered on 20 Nov 2019:

      A student asked me today if it would be possible to ‘delete’ the bad memories and nightmares using computer programs. It’s the best because it was this question which inspired me to move my focus to neuroscience using pattern recognition. This question reminded me of a younger me. While it would cause some of the pains to reduce (and a film made on this concept was the “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”) it would also remove some of our experiences which these bad and sad phases caused us. Sadness is as important as happiness,. I understand certain traumatic experience or memories might paralyze us at times, but there would be a lot of ethical dilemmas about it. I really enjoyed this question because it came from a school student. I don’t know what bad experience the young fellow has been through but I wish the person strength while I keep pondering over this.

    • Photo: Adam Wootton

      Adam Wootton answered on 20 Nov 2019:

      I quite like this question – it might be the best! I think the thing about scientific development is that it’s not all about one big, brilliant question, but lots of little questions that push us to discover new things.

Comments