Favourite Thing: Science allows you to see things, and find out things that usually you would never get to know about. I especially love working with DNA, and it is really cool when you actually get to see it!

What I do: Currently I am working on a large project which looks at how lignin is made in barley. We want to find a mutated plant with a reduced ability to make this tough compound called lignin. This would allow us to more easily access the energy stored inside the plant in the form of sugars. Then we want to use these sugars to make ethanol which can be used as a biofuel.

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Favourite Thing: To look at samples from real humans and see what is or happens inside is so fantastic! I am a really curious person and normally very happy to get and interpret any results (except when they show me that the machine is broken …) – I just want to KNOW what’s going on! And I really love to take blood samples!

What I do: I try to find out how eating different kinds of foods, epsecially dark chocolate, can influence someone’s risk of getting cardiovascular disease (things like heart attacks, strokes etc.).

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Favourite Thing: Solving problems! I love having a problem that requires thinking about from lots of different ways. And, being amazed by the wonderful things that are being discovered all the time. My favourite thing to do at the moment is to show people how we design spacecraft and space missions, and the science that can be done from space. I think space and space application is a fascinating area and the UK has such a huge involvement that very few people know about!

What I do: I design spacecraft that do cool science, helping us understand climate change.

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Favourite Thing: The challenge of putting together and performing an experiment when you know you only have a week or so of “beamtime” to get the data you want. Also – showing kids science using liquid nitrogen and exploding pringles tubes!

What I do: Looking at how atoms move about inside amorphous materials using neutron scattering

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Favourite Thing: Discovering things! The best part of science is finding out things that you didn’t know before or, better still, finding out things the WORLD didn’t know before. It doesn’t matter if I’m uncovering unknown bushmeat markets or figuring out just the right mixture for dry ice rockets–I love that thrill of discovery.

What I do: I look at diseases that can “jump” from one kind of animal to another–including humans.

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