• Question: what is your favourite chemical

    Asked by 665nepk48 to Ed, Kerrianne, Nina, Oli, yoyehudi on 6 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Oli Wilson

      Oli Wilson answered on 6 Nov 2017:

      Ooh, that’s an interesting question! My favourite might be sporopollenin. It’s what pollen’s made from (so my research depends on it), and it’s so tough we don’t really know what it’s made of – we can’t break it into bits to find out! It’s basically the diamond of the plant world, and it can survive in rocks for millions of years. Not too shabby for something that most people just think makes them sneeze in the summer 😉

    • Photo: Kerrianne Harrington

      Kerrianne Harrington answered on 6 Nov 2017:

      Isopropyl alcohol, because my work would be hard to do without it. We use it for cleaning optics, which need to be clean and transparent to do good experiments with. No dust, no fingerprints or smudges.

    • Photo: Yo Yehudi

      Yo Yehudi answered on 6 Nov 2017:

      I wish I could say I worked in a lab with chemicals – that sounds like something that could be a lot of fun! I mostly work with computers though, so how about silicon? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon It’s one of the important elements that makes up computers – hence why the “silicon valley” is full of technology startups.

    • Photo: Nina Jordan

      Nina Jordan answered on 6 Nov 2017:

      I don’t work in labs much these days, I can’t think of a favourite chemical, sorry!

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