What is your most recent discovery and how did you find it out?

Question: What is your most recent discovery and how did you find it out?
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Asked by bweckfast to Andy, Chris, Harriet, Jess, Nikki on 4 Mar 2016. This question was also asked by Ten3ka.
- Christopher Blanford answered on 4 Mar 2016:
  
  Hey Dab
  
  I think we found out how to make a new kind of suncream that blocks the harmful parts of sunlight better than current ones, and has fewer chemicals in it. I’m working with Cancer Research UK to see if it’s as good as I hope!
  
  Chris
- andy chapman answered on 5 Mar 2016:
  
  I was teaching a practical lab to some students that did not go well. One of the chemicals we used had ‘gone off’ – it reacts slowly with water from the air. This meant that instead of making nice yellow crystals of a cobalt compound they made a black solution. I found out later that what they had made were tiny little blobs of cobalt metal -nanoparticles about 10 nanometers in size – if they were blown up to the size of a cricket ball, and we scaled up the cricket ball by the same amount, the cricket ball would be the size of the earth.
  
  they only formed because one of the chemicals had gone off. These little blobs of cobalt can have some very interesting properties and can make some very cool reactions happen that do not happen normally (they are catalysts).
  
  I am now researching this. I/we found out by ‘serendipity’ – such a common word in science (“fortunate happenstance” or “pleasant surprise” from wikipedia).
- Nikki D'Arcy answered on 6 Mar 2016:
  
  Hey Dab
  
  Thanks for the question.
  
  We find out lots of new things every day but I am not allowed to talk too much about it because we have to keep some elements of our research a secret. This is because we work in quite a competitive area of science. It’s not always like this and once we have perfected our work, we will be able to share it. Plus, I think it makes me sound like a mega-scientist spy who is making a monkey army to do my bidding….! It’s not quite as cool as that though, sadly!
- Jessica Groppi answered on 6 Mar 2016:
  
  Hi!
  
  I never discovered anything cool, but I hope that I’ll get to discover something soon!
  
  Jess.
- Harriet Reid answered on 8 Mar 2016:
  
  I think my most exiting discovery was a new chemical that sticks to some types of cancer cell really well. It could be used to get cancer medicines to the cancer (and to to the rest of the body) better. I found it by trying lots of different chemicals and mixing the best bits from each.

Question: What is your most recent discovery and how did you find it out?

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