Alexander Bastidas Fry

5 July 2012

Chance Favors the Prepared Mind

Chance favors only the prepared mind, said Louis Pasteur. Indeed history is filled with stories of great discoveries through serendipity. As Douglas Osheroff said, "most advances require both insight and good fortune" in his talk about how scientific discoveries are made. Biology is a field that has a particularly interesting history involving good luck as […]

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Markus Pössel

3 July 2012

Remind me again why we are doing this?

To be sure: it’s probably not fair to try to deduce something so fundamental – what motivates you to do research? – from a brief text that, presumably, was part of an application form. You do not fill out those forms as a soul-searching exercise, but for a concrete reason: you’re applying for something. In […]

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