Tom returns for a perfect grab landing and
with face masks on (as to not contaminate
the specimen with people snot) the dish is
inspected and carefully removed - it’s positive
for a sample. A sample of just what exactly?
Well that’s something that only laboratory
work will reveal at a later time. The dish is
covered with another dish as a lid, and then
sealed using the latest high tech stuff - some
duct tape. After a quick photo, it is locked
away into a biohazard storage unit, which
also happens to be a $5.99 styrofoam esky.
This gets me thinking about money, and just
how much the science costs - more so who
is paying for it? According to Olaf, right now
nobody is really paying for it, and his diet of
two-minute noodles and cheese on toast
reflects this. He elaborates on the fiscal side
of this noble cause “At the end of the day, this costs a huge
amount of money and even those ten samples
cost a lot of money. There’s no funding, so
I just have to rely on the support of other
people and other scientists (with access to
the specific lab technology) who say ‘oh this
is really interesting, if we run a sample, we’ll
just put the other ones of yours in with our
batch’ - there’s DNA, then the hormones, and
then if you want to get into the bacteria it gets
very expensive. We want to increase it next
year and get more samples, maybe 60.
“People can of course fund something just
because the believe in it. I think the majority
of human beings fund things they be