“He doesn’t fit into any business.” For science, 15,000 volunteers adopted a blob
A participatory scientific experiment, “Behind the blob, research”, was scaled up on Saturday February 19 in Toulouse. 15,000 volunteers, including 1,000 French speakers living abroad, were able to adopt one of these hybrid organisms, neither plants, nor animals, nor fungi.
This Saturday, Jezabel and Norah Souche opted for a rather original family outing. Mother and daughter thus traveled from Tournefeuille (Haute-Garonne) to recover, at the Quay of Knowledge in Toulouse, their own blob: an organism made up of a single cell and which arouses the fascination of researchers.
Like 15,000 people, they will contribute to an unprecedented experience, organized by the CNRS: “we were asked to equip ourselves with equipment“, explains Jezebel.”We bought a UV lamp, thermometers… But we don’t have the protocol yet.“
Starting point of the experiment: to assess the consequences of global warming, still unknown, on this strange living being. And the participants come from all walks of life. Schools but also nursing homes were approached. They have four months to follow their blob, observe it, make it grow, take notes.
For Audrey Dussutour, CNRS researcher and blob specialist, the organization is, in addition, perfectly suited to study the impact of global warming: “without unicellular organisms, like the blob, there are no plants, therefore no animals… and therefore no humans!“
Norah, 13, was in any case seduced by the initiative: “it’s novelty and science, I find it interesting to see how it will develop.” “We know that we will have to stress it, increase the temperature, to represent climate change a little and see how it evolves“, specifies Jezebel.
As a medical student, Aymeric Zambiaisi was driven by his natural appetite for science: “it is a being that does not fit into any box! That we are still discovering. Studying global warming through this cell that can be seen with the naked eye is fascinating.“
The CNRS was surprised by the enthusiasm surrounding this experience: 46,000 people responded to the call for applications. Because the blob, many already knew it… Thanks to Thomas Pesquet. The astronaut piloted, from space, the operation “Raise your blob” in schools.
Audrey Dussutour emphasizes that the experience will allow participants, aged 8 to 89, to better understand the very nature of scientific work. “It’s important to know that it’s long, hard, that it requires rigor. I think people will be more able to think critically when they see scientific results in the media“, she advances.
The data indicated by the participants must be transmitted to the scientists before June 6th. The results of the experiment were not to be known before the end of 2022.