LiQUiFY Magazine December 2014 | Page 38

is profoundly hinged on the dedication and commitment of the scientists. All season with day after day spent on the water has yielded just a handful of samples so far for the team. Regardless of how few, each one is a highly sought-after prize. Our conversation now gets a little deeper into the science “On the first day we went out, it took just 10 minutes to get the first sample, so that was definitely not what I expected - I thought we would spend hours out there trying to get this thing going. The mechanical part worked quite well - using the drone, getting over the whale, capturing some of the snot. But of course there is another element to it. We need to now find out if the amount that we captured will give us enough DNA and enough hormones to see that it will work. It’s a very difficult process because it’s so heavily diluted (with seawater) - we’re talking about microlitres and such small amounts here, so I did make some calculations on the quantification, to try to quantify just how much we actually captured. Our best sample has about 0.07 grams of material - that’s water plus everything else. So we’re dealing with the smallest amounts imaginable, and there’s only one way to deal with that and it’s to do controls, more controls and blanks - through the lab process you have to have collected negative controls. We basically run about the same amount of controls, as we do samples. “At the moment we have ten potential samples (from the season), and even if only three of them are working out, and we can get the It takes nerves, skills and a bit of luck, but launching and retrieving the drone by hand whilst bobbing in the wind on the open ocean is a sight to behold - miss the catch and not only do you lose your sample, but Tom the drone could end up in the drink and ultimately in landfill if soaked in seawater // Photo Luke Sorensen