How often do you technology in your work?

Question: How often do you technology in your work?
- Keywords:
  technology
Asked by anon-176392 to Stephen, Simran, Paul, Mark, Jenny, Ali on 13 Jun 2018.
- Mark Kirkwood answered on 13 Jun 2018:
  
  Yo!
  
  If you mean, how often do I use technology, then ALL THE TIME!
  
  We have to use lab technology to conduct our experiments on the microbes we work on, and also see how they behave.
  We then use computers to analyse and interpret all that information to come to a hypothesis about what’s going on.
  
  Science is always moving forwards, so there’s always a new tech around the corner that you can try and use for your next experiment!
- Ali Hill answered on 13 Jun 2018:
  
  Pretty much constantly!
  
  Much of my day is spent on the computer – I’m talking to you online now, and when I’m avoiding answering emails later I’ll be online reading a scientific paper on the latest research in sports nutrition. I track what athletes are using through an app that they download to their smartphone and I can then see a breakdown of what nutrients they’re having on my computer – I can be tracking the diets of thirty odd athletes at a time. I don’t like using too much paper, so I’ll take a tablet to a meeting to avoid wasting paper.
  
  When I’m teaching students, there is LOADS of technology I use. When I was at university we had overhead projectors to see things (if you don’t know what they are, check your local museum ;)). Nowadays I have cameras over the desk so I can show students on a widescreen TV behind me, or over their workbench so they can see what I’m doing. I get students to use their smart phones in class as well so they can do quizzes I’m running at the front of the class, or so they can do a really quick search on what information they can find online in class and put the information up on an interactive whiteboard, sending messages straight from their phones or laptops.
  
  And that’s before I’ve even got into the lab! We have an amazing sport science lab that I use to run experiments. I might be looking at how much body fat an athlete has so I can use a bodpod (http://www.cosmed.com/en/products/body-composition/bod-pod). Or I might be trying to find out how fit an athlete is, so I make them run really hard on a treadmill until (s)he can’t run any more, and then I use technology to work out how well (s)he uses oxygen – the fitter (s)he is, the more efficiently (s)he’ll use it. Or I can get an athlete to breath into a bag and then use technology to work out how much oxygen he’s using and how much carbon dioxide he’s breathing out. That’ll tell me whether he’s using carbohydrates or fats to make energy. It’s really clever stuff!

Question: How often do you technology in your work?

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