Decisive, cheap and practical ways that you could have proved those research questions
#3) Graph the percentage of launches that had serious "burn throughs" as a function of the temperature at the time of launch. Notice that they had increased exponentially at lower temperatures!
Only launch on warm days! Avoid those billions of dollars of re-designing, the true purpose of which was to leave the public impression that the disaster couldn't have been easily avoided.
#2 * Put some calcium chloride in your ATP solution; enough to compensate for chelation by ATP (read the molecular weights of ATP and CaCl2 off the bottle labels, or look them up, or calculate them,
and start off with equal numbers of CaCl2 molecules as ATP molecules. The chelation explanation is confirmed if adding this extra Ca++ results in the rounding up not happening when ATP is added.
I then tried some lower proportions of calcium, and it turned out that half equimolar or lower proportions of calcium chloride were sufficient to avoid the rounding-up effect. (incidentally, in such experiments one should notice whether the salts, the ATP etc. change the pH, and if they do, be careful to adjust the pH of the added solution back to that of the tissue culture medium you are using.
* I cultured cells on thin sheets of rubber, the wrinkling of which would have increased if the cells' contractility got stronger in response to the ATP solution. The cells did round up when ATP was added to the media, but the wrinkling of the rubber was reduced, not increased. Alternatives would have been to culture the cells on collagen gels, or clotted blood plasma, or anything flexible; or one could have pushed them sideways with a microneedle, or hung weights from them.
#4 * Regarding the fish eggs, I tried the effects of several chemical poisons that prevent cell divisions:
first using colchicine (a microtubule inhibitor, which blocks mitosis), then trying cytochalasin (an actin inhibitor, which blocks cell division) and finally trying high concentrations of cyanide.
In each case, a series of petri dishes were labeled "zero minutes", "five minutes", "ten minutes" etc. up to 60 minutes. Then equal amounts of water with poison in it were put in each dish.
Then I reached into the aquarium and grabbed a female killfish, squeezed out about 130 eggs into an empty dish; then put her into the "to be turned loose" aquarium; and grabbed a male, and squeezed out some sperm next to the eggs (and put him in the "to be turned loose" aquarium) Then I put sea water in the dish, pushed the button on a stopwatch, and put 10 eggs in the cyanide solution; then waited 5 minutes and put ten more eggs into the "five minute" dish, etc.
Then for the next two hours, I alternated between putting more eggs in dishes, and looking at the various dishes of eggs through a dissecting microscope, and taking written notes in a bound notebook about whether and when cell divisions occurred in the eggs in the different dishes.
* It turned out that all the poisons prevent cleavage divisions, but only when eggs are exposed to them within less than an hour after fertilization. The results were exactly the same for all 3 poisons.
We had already done some much more expensive radioactive labeling, RNA isolation, and ultracentrifugation experiments, which were what led me to suspect reduced permeability. One result was that pulse labeling of RNA with radioactive phosphate showed a shift from big eukaryote ribosomal RNA to smaller prokaryote ribosomal RNA. I stared at that data for many hours before the little light bulb clicked on over my head! It's not so obvious, is it? Until you 'get' the point.
#5 * Prof B W Wells got the idea from noticing that trees leaned inward all 360 degrees of the way around Bald Head and some other islands. It also dawned on him that trees don't lean away from the shores of Lake Waccamaw, White Lake etc. which have fresh water, but where the wind often blows. (and blows very directionally over Lake Waccamaw!)
Then he bought an ordinary "flit gun" (meant for bug spray) filled it with sea water and sprayed shrubs in his front yard so that they bent inward from both sides over the walk-way to the front door of his house. He was an amateur painter of pictures, and used to accompany my father (and me!) when learning to paint. He was the first scientist I ever met.
His conservation work is widely recognized (try googling him!), but he was also an excellent experimentalist.
# 1) Regarding ulcers. Culture bacteria from the stomachs of medical patients who are being treated for ulcers; either from induced vomiting or from some flexible swabs inserted down the esophagus, or by each patient swallowing a ball of cotton with a string attached, and then pulling this cotton ball back up the esophagus. I actually don't know whether these or some other method was used. * Streak out sub-cultures of the bacteria at low enough population densities that you get many colonies formed from individual bacteria (such as one does with "unknowns" in microbiology courses). Notice an unusual species! * Test which antibiotics kill this species most effectively in agar cultures. Treat ulcer patients with this antibiotic.
Don't give up despite universal criticism by 99% or MDs. * Receive Nobel Prize
The ounce of truth in the "Scientific Method" clich*eacute; is that you often have to guess the truth before the data make sense.
Research is like detective work: Average people try to turn it into "turning a crank". (e.g. genome projects, bigger telescopes)
"And one of the blindfolded men said 'An elephant is like a wall'; but another said 'No, an elephant is like a tree'; but a third concluded that 'An elephant is like a snake', etc. depending on which part of the elephant they had touched" After that, they all applied for a big grant to sequence the elephant genome, as the one sure method to find out whether elephants are more like snakes, or more like trees, etc ! This would have worked, too, if only the elephant hadn't stomped on the poor guy who tried to get the DNA sample. From this they tentatively concluded that elephants don't have DNA...
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