May 30, 2003
A: FROM MENTOR JOAN LUSK IN RI
The details of course vary with the scientific questions being asked.
Scientists have to learn what is already known in their field and how
the experiments that taught us what we know were carried out.
Courses and lab exercises for students in high school and college
provide the basics here.

Learning how to ask a good question is more of an art than an
science. Paying attention to the past questions and not just the
answers that are now in the textbooks is a beginning. A good
question is one that suggests an experimental test. "Is DNA or
protein stuff that genes are made of?" suggested trying to alter the
genetic makeup of one bacterium with DNA or protein from another.
"What is the secret of life?" might be a more poetic way to phrase
the question, but it doesn't directly suggest an experiment.

Young scientists generally go through an apprenticeship period in
graduate school, where they start out working on their advisor's
ideas and gradually learn how to have good ideas themselves and how
to test hypotheses. Most science now requires fairly sophisticated
equipment, possibly quite expensive equipment, and the apprenticeship
phase give a student access to the needed equipment as well as
intellectual guidance. That phase lets a student prove herself, so
that when it's time for her to start out on an independent project
she will have a track record that inspires the funding agencies to
fund her projects. Many projects are broad in scope, so scientist
work in groups, dividing up the responsibilities.

Experiments to test hypotheses have to be well designed, so that the
results actually decide which hypothesis could be true and which must
be false. The scientist must understand her instruments to be sure
they give accurate results. The materials under study must by pure
enough for the purpose. All the ways in which the experiment might
have given false results must be ruled out. That is especially
important when the first results seem to confirm one's hopes and
expectations!
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A: FROM MENTOR NICOLE O'HARA IN NJ
Laboratory research requires a lot of thorough attention. I've looked into it and worked in a hospital research lab and it seems pretty crazy. You have to get funding (I'm not sure how that works - but you can probably have private donors or from companies or even the government). You have to first decide what youre researching and that "hyped up" word - hypothesis:) The doctor I worked with did many many many trials of the same part of his research. He incorporated a lot of technology, book research and new scientific findings. On top of that, in his lab, there were daily commonplace tasks like preparing solutions, figuring out the molarity of things, etc. It was fun for me,but it seemed like a LOT of careful planning and researching for the doctors. :)