Night Science

In this episode, Stanford professor Michael Fischbach discusses insights from his course on how to choose meaningful research problems. Highlights include:- Invest time in problem selection: Spend more time upfront selecting the right research problem.- Date ideas: Before settling on an idea, explore multiple alternatives without emotional attachment.- Fixed vs. floating parameters: Early on, clearly define what aspects of your research idea are fixed and which can be flexible.- Manage risks: Embrace risk but systematically de-risk projects.- Killer experiments: Identify early “go/no-go” experiments.- Turn crises into opportunities: Use a project's crisis to find out what it's really about.This episode was supported by Research Theory (researchtheory.org). For more information about Night Science, visit https://www.biomedcentral.com/collections/night-science .

James Kaufman, Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Connecticut, discusses the psychological underpinnings of creative thinking with Itai & Martin. Together, we delve into the complex nature of creativity, exploring its roots as both a trait and a skill that can be nurtured. We examine the role of personality traits in creativity, the impact of interdisciplinary team dynamics, and how creative metacognition—the ability to recognize one’s own creative strengths and weaknesses—plays a vital role.This episode was supported by Research Theory (researchtheory.org). For more information about Night Science, visit https://www.biomedcentral.com/collections/night-science .

MIT's Bob Weinberg is perhaps the world's most prominent cancer researcher. In this episode, Bob emphasizes that true innovation often comes from blending ideas from different fields – a synthesis that transcends the boundaries of one's primary area of research. We discuss the vital role of human interaction, with many scientific breakthroughs coming from informal collaborations between researchers, celebrating the collective "lab brain" as a powerful driver of creativity and discovery. And given that modern experimental methods could facilitate an essentially infinite variety of alternative projects, Bob recommends that we continually question the relevance of what we have chosen to work on. This episode was supported by Research Theory (researchtheory.org). For more information about Night Science, visit https://www.biomedcentral.com/collections/night-science .

Manu Prakash is a professor of bioengineering at Stanford University, asking biological questions with insights from physics. His most widely known contribution is the FoldScope, a $1-microscope made from paper and a lens – 2 million copies of this have been distributed to would-be scientists around the world. In this episode, Manu emphasizes how science is a sense of wonder and a personal journey with no set roads. To get to new and deep questions, Manu feels he needs to “embed” himself in the world he's studying, e.g., by spending weeks on research vessels on the open sea when he’s interested in deep-sea biology. In his view, the most important consequence of a discovery is not how it impacts the world, but how it changes the scientist making the discovery.This episode was supported by Research Theory (researchtheory.org). For more information about Night Science, visit https://www.biomedcentral.com/collections/night-science .