Life of a Lab Rat

There's a misconception around that research — especially scientific research — is performed with a specific aim in mind. Ghassan makes this mistake:

Research is any project undertaken to reveal new knowledge. Research can be scientific; such as, testing to find cures for illnesses or improve medical treatments.

Actually, most of my friends, family and other acquaintances are not that eloquent. They want to know what disease my research will cure. Which for most of us labrats is a question that does not admit to a satisfactory answer.

But a few years ago I realized that there was an incredibly liberating way to answer such questions, that is truthful and forces the questioner to examine his own preconceptions. It's an answer the response to which measures how developed is the society that asks the question.

Scientific research, and in fact, even non-scientific research, asks the question 'how does stuff work?' So when people ask me the point of my own research, my answer is,

I want to know how things work.

And answering that, my friends, is a high calling indeed.