• Question: what is the best science equitment you have got and what does it do?

    Asked by shonagregory to Daniel, Jon, Louise, Sharon on 23 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Sharon Sneddon

      Sharon Sneddon answered on 23 Jun 2010:

      My microscope is the best equipment I have, It cost a lot of money (about £40,000) but it allows me to see all the way through my embryos and re-construct them in a 3-D manner!

    • Photo: Louise Dash

      Louise Dash answered on 23 Jun 2010:

      My computer!

      Most of the calculations I do run on a souped-up desktop computer with a really fast processor and lots of memory. Some of them are too big even for that though and then I use a supercomputer – a massive one in a big room with lots of airconditioning and blinking lights! It looks like this:
      http://www.csar.cfs.ac.uk/services/hardware/newton.shtml (I don’t think I’ve used that actual one though)

    • Photo: Jon Copley

      Jon Copley answered on 23 Jun 2010:

      It’s an underwater vehicle, called Isis. Isis is about the size of a small car, and can dive to 6000 metres deep. We remote-control Isis from our ship, and Isis carries cameras so we can see what’s down there, and has robot arms so we can pick up samples and do experiments. Bascially, Isis is our eyes and arms for working on the ocean floor, and it’s great! There are very few vehicles in the world that can reach the ocean floor, so we’re very lucky to have Isis.

      Here’s a video of our team getting Isis ready to launch from our ship (and for the full effect, make sure you have your computer’s sound turned on!):

      http://www.thesearethevoyages.net/ias/isislaunch.html

      😀

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