• Question: A new longitude prize was announced recently. Which category are you voting for and do you think you could win any of the categories?

    Asked by anon-50307 to Amy, Anita, Daryl, Nimesh on 25 Jun 2014.
    • Photo: Amy Monaghan

      Amy Monaghan answered on 25 Jun 2014:

      Hey Rorythescientist, what an awesome question

      I think ethically the most people are affected by access to clean water and nutritious food. However personally I would vote for the antibiotics catagory. Increasing clean water, nutritious food and researching dementia are all very well funded (and worthwhile) research areas. Comparably antibiotics get far less funding because for a long time they were taken for granted. Drug companies are also reluctant to fund the search for new antibiotics because they are not considered a huge money-maker or “blockbuster” drug. For this reason the research could really benefit from winning such a prestigious prize!

    • Photo: Daryl Jones

      Daryl Jones answered on 25 Jun 2014:

      I am voting for the Dementia category.
      Dementia is predicted to be the world’s number one health problem within the next 50 years. That’s because people are living longer and so more people are reaching the age where they are likely to get dementia. If we want to live longer, we also want to live with our right mind- imagine being old and not knowing who you are, or where you are, or what you did in your life! It sounds awful. So we should be planning ahead, investing in our own futures…making sure that we do everything we can to find treatments for dementia!!

    • Photo: Anita Thomas

      Anita Thomas answered on 25 Jun 2014:

      Can I be controversial? I don’t think that the organisers are actually being bold enough! We are relatively close to getting answers in several of the categories……………..we need to think BIG>>>>>>>much BIGGER!

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