• Question: Hey do you harm animals during your experiments? :)

    Asked by Lekishan to Chris, Josh, Rebecca, Rob, Susan on 23 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Susan Cartwright

      Susan Cartwright answered on 23 Jun 2015:


      No. We don’t use any. I think a colleague on one of my previous experiments broke his arm falling off a ladder during a routine inspection of the experiment – does that count?

      No leptons or baryons have been harmed in the course of our experiments. Transformed to a different particle, in some cases, but not harmed.

      We do reserve the right to kill bosons. Bosons are not conserved species.

    • Photo: Rebecca Dewey

      Rebecca Dewey answered on 23 Jun 2015:


      No! I’ve never used animals in my experiments. Scientists try to use animals less and less now. We have what we call the “3 Rs”: reduce refine replace. (1) We should reduce the amount that we need animals for experiments. (2) we should refine the experiments so that they use as few animals as possible and need to be done as little as possible and they always get the right answer so we don’t need to repeat them to check that they were right and (3) replace animals with other things like cells grown in the laboratory, or with humans! Humans are much better for doing medical research on because they are the people benefiting from the research and the results are likely to be much more accurate – animals just aren’t that similar to us!

      Also, if people do need to do experiments that involve animals, there are lots of laws that need to be followed about how the animals have to be looked after. They can’t be kept in solitary, as they need social interaction with other animals. They can’t be in pain – if they have surgery done, they need the same care (painkillers, antibiotics) that a pet would get at the vets, or a human would get in a hospital. They can’t suffer – if they need to be put down, it has to be humane, like they do at the vets – animals aren’t allowed to die from the disease you’re testing on them. They need a certain number of hours daylight every day and toys etc to interact with so they don’t get bored. They have a much better life than people think – probably better than animals in the meat industry.

    • Photo: Chris Armstrong

      Chris Armstrong answered on 23 Jun 2015:


      Never!

      Then again there was a spider inside the target area for a while, and all that radiation can’t have been good for it.

      The only animals harmed during experiments in my field are PhD students who drop heavy equipment on their fingertips.

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