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I knew a little molecular biology, but I had no notion of what you could do experimentally. It reminded me of electronics, the idea that you had these tools to splice things together in an ordered way, that you could reengineer things in the cell to do something else. --Mark Goulian

"It would be really heartbreaking to spend 18 days doing work in the submersible and get back home to the lab only to find out you screwed up. I've seen it happen a lot." - Craig Cary

HHMI’s grants, for example, provide "an opportunity to do your work where you might not otherwise be able to get the funding you need," says Conley.

"This is an environment where everyone is considered and assumed to be a responsible, engaged adult until proven otherwise. You do what you have to do to get the job done." -Holly Butler

The specter of such enormous destruction would, you might think, create good job prospects for scientists interested in that sort of thing. But just like the rumored 'big one' it aims to predict, the boom in earthquake-science careers hasn't happened yet.

Biotech companies are gearing up to manufacture product, but they face a shortage of talent as most young scientists interested in biotechnology have congregated to research.

You don't have to pay any of the money back, the government won't ask for equity in your business, and you keep full control of the intellectual property that you develop. Venture investors--if you can find any--will not be so kind.

In 2000, NSF received about 3000 computer science proposals with a success rate of 30%. In 2004, the number of applications had risen to 6500 and the success rate had dropped to 16%.

"You cannot do one project. You have to do a number of projects to try to get to the answer, hoping one of the approaches will work out." --Yimin Zou

"The focus isn’t because this is cheap. In fact logistically, it’s quite a challenge to do this. Whether you’re AstraZeneca, or Roche, or Novartis, you have to pay quite a bit to have that presence. Our focus is to have a presence in China, for China, and for the rest of Asia." --John Ramsey, AstraZeneca

"Many women don't take advantage of it because they believe that the perception is, if they do, they're not, 'real scientists.' " --Sally Shaywitz

"Postdoc work in [the] academy is pretty precarious. ... I wanted something with a more sure footing but that was still technically challenging."

"If some significant fraction of the NIH budget is going to large-scale projects, and a substantial fraction of each project's budget goes into informatics, that translates into a lot of jobs." --David States, professor of bioinformatics, University of Washington

"If you're young and you want a job that involves very intriguing research in industry, you might have to create the company that allows you to do it." --George Whitesides

Malik goes to seminars to learn not just what they're doing, but how they're approaching questions. "It's really exciting to see how this person went about developing the story and making these connections . . . It's really useful to see how a scientific mind thinks about a particular problem."

Give your students skills, not just stories.

The field is rife with opportunities to improve human health and to take part in the inevitable health-care revolution.

"It is definitely an asset to work with more than one system. It opens us up to different ways of thinking and keeps us flexible and less likely to sink into dogma. The differences in how the various systems are wired are as important as the similarities." --Sabeeha Merchant, University of Wisconsin, Madison.

"To found a company and then stay on the outside, the company can take all sorts of different directions. If you really want to have influence, the only way to do that is to join it." - Corey Goodman

Duties might include tracking and analyzing foreign weapons systems and capabilities; coding and maintaining weapon system simulations; C and C++ programming; keeping tabs on foreign threat capabilities against ground, naval, air, and space weapon systems; or maintaining contacts with counterparts elsewhere in the intelligence community and in government and industry.