Question: does your research benefit people or change/save lives?

Ben Drumm answered on 19 Jun 2013:

Some of the work done at ISIS (the particle accelerator I design bits for) DEFINATELY gives people benefit – for example, research has been done here into hydrogen fuel storage for cars and washing powders that let you wash at lower temperatures which ultimately help the environment. We also have a beam line which has been used by the aircraft industry to see where wing components suffer the most stress, meaning they can be designed to be safe!