• Question: What is the most interesting thing that has happened to you in your job.

    Asked by rash1997 to Clare, Dave, Glo, Ozge, Sean on 13 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by cmillar.
    • Photo: Gloeta Massie

      Gloeta Massie answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      Difficult question because I’ve had such amazing opportunities over the past five years. One absolutely spectacular memory for me though was of what I now refer to as ‘Otter Fest 2009’. I got the chance to work with a really great group of people in Alaska, dissecting dead sea otters to see what had killed them. (Here’s a cool link with videos of live sea otters!) http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/efc/efc_otter/otter_cam.aspx) (Whereas in humans these are called autopsies, in animals they are called necropsies.) Now – sea otters have the thickest fur on the planet – it’s absolutely gorgeous! That’s the main reason that sea otters were hunted to near extinction, because of their fur. Everyday, before the vet arrived, I would get in about an hour early to start removing the fur from the animal. Let me tell you – it gave me a whole new respect for people living in the pioneer days who had to skin animals to make clothing! We saved as many of the pelts that we could so that schools could request them. Who knows – you should ask your teacher – maybe s/he could order a sea otter pelt for your class to feel and examine! And maybe, just maybe, it may be one of mine. 🙂

    • Photo: Dave Sproson

      Dave Sproson answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      Oooh, that’s a tough one. I think probably it would have to be during the first year of my PhD when we went to Iceland and used a small jet aircraft to take measurements of the energy transfer between the sea and the air. To do this we had to fly really low over the ocean in quite strong winds, which made for an amazingly bumpy ride! On one flight, though, we passed over the sea-ice near the coast of Greenland. The sea-ice stops almost all of the energy transfer, so the plane suddenly stopped bumping about, and we had a few minutes of really smooth flying, with Greenland in the background, and a perfectly blue sky. It was ace!

      I took a bit of video out of the window (on a really old camera, unfortunately!) here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWL3JrGYGT0

      Heh, and browsing around Youtube, I found this old sky news report on the project! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKz0k6If0XM

    • Photo: Ozge Ozkaya

      Ozge Ozkaya answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      – I worked on a boat in a swedish Fjord
      – I got to go to Tasmania and spend 3 weeks there collecting krill.
      – I saw bacterial cells fluorescing at me from a plate
      – I made transgenic flies
      – I listened to famous scientists talk about biological clocks in a conference in Florida
      – I got to go to the house of commons to present my work to the MPs
      Did you just say one…:)

    • Photo: Clare Woulds

      Clare Woulds answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      Hi Cmiller

      My most interesting day was when I got to go to the bottom of the Arabian Sea in a Japanese submarine. I was quite scared before the dive, but when I saw the seafloor (1140 m down) it just took my breath away. I had expected it to be just flat and muddy (I had seen samples and pictures before), but there were tracks all over it where animals had been wandering around. There were alos plenty of animals to see, including anemones, starfish, sea cucumbers, fish, and amazing black jellyfish with multicoloured lights flashing on them. That was a good day!

    • Photo: Sean Clement

      Sean Clement answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      Oh wow. Mostly involving diving truth be told Rash. I’ve been lucky enough to dive with Turtles, swim with Whales and encounter possibly the biggest Parrotfish on the planet! What the rest of the guys have done seems so much cooler to me though!

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