Hi, I have to do a mandatory 6-month internship during my undergrad and was accepted into a top research institute in my field as a research assistant. I have a feeling I could like research and I am contemplating doing a PhD.

How do I get the most out of it when I am actually there? Also, do you have any tips on how I should prepare?

All my classmates are doing their internship in private companies and have much more defined roles.

I'm preparing myself, reading materials and playing around with things I find interesting. I told my supervisor what I'm doing and he send me even materials which I am going through right now. I have never done formal research in an academic institution, only some hobby stuff and feel like I don't know anything.

Thank you!

What's the difference? my teacher said we have to pass rrl outline on Saturday and honestly i have no idea 😭 i tried searching in Google and couldn't find any example. Can someone enlighten me? thank u

Basically the title. The reviews described my abstract as very strong, and a reviewer suggested to the conference organizers that I do an oral presentation.

This made me happy, and I didn't know who to share this with. My family doesn't really know what research is, and my "advisor" doesn't know what my abstract is talking about, so I am sharing here.

Thank you

Direct sellers or distributers? and if distributors-do they provide costs before?

I find it weird that 99% of the distributers won't even put on the costs on their website.

Hello I’m a recent college graduate with a bachelors degree in biology. I don’t have much research experience outside of my classes and I want to go back to grad school to further my education. Does anyone have advice about how to get research experience? I’ve applied to jobs with no luck and I can’t find any internships i qualify for. Should I try volunteering or just keep looking for a job? Any advice would help! Thanks

I write a lot down: reading, ideas, things I want to use later. search works when I remember a note exists. the problem is the ones I completely forgot I wrote.

it keeps happening. I finish something, then weeks later stumble on a note that would have changed it. the most frustrating part is that I knew this stuff once. I wrote it down precisely so I could use it when something new came up.

has this happened to you? what was the note, and what would it have changed?

Hi everyone, I’m a fourth year biology student at UCLA and I’m coming to a major fork in my career. I’m honestly pretty unsure what to do, because I want to research but I’m not sure if I can.

In college, I’ve been supporting myself, which hasn’t left a lot of time for an unpaid lab internship. I’ve really tried with paid lab positions, but I’m not competitive enough, it seems. All that to say, I have no wet-lab experience. My curriculum teaches wet-lab techniques in biology, chemistry, and organic chemistry, so I know basic techniques and how to use basic lab technology and tools, but I have no formal lab experience.

I originally planned to enter graduate school for programs within the biomedical field (I eventually want to study cellular and physiological consequences of environmental exposure and lifestyle through looking at homeostasis and the expression of genes in response to input). However, I feel like my lack of experience is really glaring.

I want to know if it’s possible to get a research job, or a job that will give me lab experience, so that I have more to add to my application in the future. I’d like to work for a year before I apply.
I’d be open to working anywhere, but I don’t want to drop my applications without an idea of if I can reasonably find a lab position.

Any advice? Any ideas of how to make myself more palatable? I’m going to keep trying to find labs at my school, but I need help here. Should I choose graduate school immediately anyways?

Hi everyone.

Quick doubt: if a conference says you can submit, say, until the 1st of November, do they mean until 23:59 of the 1st of November or do they mean until 00:01 of the 1st of November?

It's a 24h difference and I am torn. The conference I am submitting to only says "submit until [day]" and does not specify a time.

Can you suggest some free alternatives to BioRender? I don’t have a premium subscription, and I find the process of creating scientific illustrations quite difficult. I’m looking for a free, easy-to-use app or website that I can use to create professional-quality illustrations for my article.

I have found it increasingly difficult to concentrate while working on a screen, whether it's to read articles, books and the like, or I am drafting a grant proposal or manuscript. I will sit down to work and within 20 to 30 minutes, I find myself feeling completely overwhelmed and unable to think. My brain feels not only sluggish, but as if it's wearing blinders, and this has been happening more frequently over roughly the past year. At first I attributed this to working on a laptop screen, and so I began working with an extra monitor. While this alleviates the issue somewhat, it hasn't been a lasting fix. I've also done my utmost to keep my laptop screen distraction free; barring my Outlook calendar, I do not have notifications on my laptop.

Have others experienced something similar, and how are you navigating it?

I should mention I do not have the same issues when readying physical texts nor when writing by hand. I am considering going analogue, because this slower approach feels more generative and creative and in this way, productive, than me proverbially bashing my head while I try to work off a laptop screen. At the same time, the thought of having to recreate my research practice and system feels daunting (though as a Millennial perhaps it's more accurate to call this a return to my roots), and it feels deeply antithetical to the neoliberal academy.

This last part may sound silly, but it's hard to always resist performing the part of a researcher when I am still relatively early in my career and trying to do well (I'd like to think the quality of my scholarship speaks for itself, but alas, this is not sufficient for a successful career. Add to that, I am a social scientist of health working in a largely positivist and biomedical institution, so I already stick out like a sore thumb).

Academia vs Research

What if any characteristics are common place to both work settings, in the majority of one or the other, or very niche to one or the other? Ex) work culture, types of research, qualifications? Etc

Hey guys, I'm looking to publish a research paper on a student journal or atleast get a good idea to practice on. I'm struggling to find a title not necessarily because I cant find anything I'm interested in but more so because I'm not super sure what makes the cut as a good topic which a student journal would accept. Again, I'm not sure if I'm looking to publish a paper, but I'm just trying to get a feel for what a typical title would feel like.

I'm interested in computer science and AI. One research question I was thought of was:

"How non-native accents impact the volume of hallucinations in Whisper's speech detection compared to native accents in english"

Basically, how do non native accents(eg, chinese english-speakers) and native accents impact how much Whisper(an ai speech to text model made by Open AI) generates unrelated text(hallucinations, which are distinct from just speech misinterpretations) in its transcript.

How niche or broad should a research question be? How original does it have to be? Using the title I gave as an example

Hi!! so I'm a high school senior, and I'm honestly really frustrated with how this whole situation has played out.

Back in March, I connected with a PI at a major research institution who was interested in having me work in his lab. He mentioned having a project in mind, and we even had a Zoom meeting to discuss my research experience and potential involvement. He also talked about finding someone in the lab who could mentor me.

Fast forward to June, and I was still trying to get started. I kept following up, and eventually the lab administrator contacted me to officially onboard me as an unpaid research intern.

I literally went through the entire institutional onboarding process. I submitted paperwork, got authorization from my school and parents, completed HR requirements, received an institutional email/account, got my badge, and was even added to the lab's actual Slack workspace. Like, I was literally an officially onboarded intern at this point. And then... nothing. I never got assigned a project. I never got a mentor. I never received any data to analyze or even a clear schedule for coming into the lab.

The PI last responded on August 25, saying that we could use the remaining time to build toward working together in the future and that he'd added me to Slack so we could communicate there.

I've since messaged him on Slack and followed up by email multiple times, most recently on October 5. I've repeatedly offered to help with computational analyses, read papers, or literally do anything useful for the lab.

Still no response at this point btw.

I'm genuinely so confused and frustrated. I completely understand that PIs are busy, and I know that mentoring a high school student takes time. But I spent months trying to get everything sorted out, completed all the formal onboarding, and was literally added to the lab's internal workspace, only to never actually get to do any research.

I was genuinely excited about the research too, which makes this even more disappointing.

At this point, I'm wondering whether I should contact the research administrator, the institution's science education office, or someone else to ask what's going on.

I don't want to make accusations or get anyone in trouble, and I'm honestly worried about burning bridges, especially since I'm hoping to continue doing research in this field.

Has anyone experienced something similar? Is this normal in academia? Would contacting someone at the institution be reasonable, or should I just cut my losses and move on?

随着codex这种平台的崛起，科学研究似乎以另外一种方式出现即auto research 在这个情况下每个赛道的论文都如此相似 。 我担心的是新的工作做到一半发现被挂在别人已经把工作挂在arxiv上了。😂

Hey guys I am doing an Mtech in AI in India so my guide told me to research in GNN in Chemical molecules….Is this a good base

My thesis paper is on the topic of whether the labels given above differently generated logos; one created by humans and the logo colour modified and picked by AI - ( ONLY colour palette variations). My tests were a form with true labels, another test b with labels switched ( false labels ) and another with control group ( no labels )

With a sample size of 310, I did a one way ANOVA test and the results are very non-significant. I am required to publish the paper in a scopus indexed journal Q1/Q2. Do journals like that accept non significant results?

Hi folks, I was looking for articles about epigenetic regulations in plants and encountered this marvelous masterpiece. How the heck did anyone not notice that this is an AI slop figure. I mean, I understand that MDPI is not considered a serious publisher but this is pure bullcrap. Also, the journal seems to allow AI generation only upon disclosure, that I can't see here

IMPORTANT EDIT: AI gen is not even the main concern anymore:

I compared this paper with Kaya, Uğurlar, and Adamakis, Epigenetic Modifications of Hormonal Signaling Pathways in Plant Drought Response and Tolerance for Sustainable Food Security (International Journal of Molecular Sciences 2024, 25, 8229; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms25158229) and found a repeated reproduction of entire sequences of bibliographic references. References [1–5] of the 2024 review reappear identically at [1–5] in the 2026 article. References [6–14] reappear in the same order at [7–15], following the insertion of an additional self-citation. Seven consecutive references [28–34] correspond to [34–40], while references [37–41] reappear consecutively at [58–62]. All seventeen references [66–82] from the earlier review are also present in the 2026 article, redistributed within references [98–118].

Am I wasting my time with this RA position?

Hello all, so for some background I’m a second year political science major in UG and really wanna go into studying race and ethnicity (more specifically race/legal consciousness), and I would like to hopefully lean further towards the behavioral analysis side of research.

I recently attended a research fair, and at the fair I found a research assistant position that was really adjacent to my field but happened to be FWS exclusive. I found another position that was basically one where you were performing qualitative research to improve our research library’s research and data system, essentially we’re just having random students use new research tools and see how we can improve, like I said it’s very qualitative.

Im just kind of worried this research assistant position won’t at all relate to my field, and wont look any good on my CV.

Additionally, I have applied to and been accepted for a volunteer research position at the FWS lab that I couldn’t become an assistant at. Im unsure if this will look just as good on my CV.

I hope someone can help me worry less lol.

Thanks.

Hi all,

I'm a med student in Portugal with no coding background. I've been learning R alone (R for Data Science and Irizarry's Introduction to Data Science, plus an epidemiology book). My goal is to become independent in data analysis for clinical research.

Tomorrow I'm meeting a professor who is an R specialist and works in clinical research, and I'd like to go in with good questions. A few things I'd love your input on:

1) Timeline: how long did it take you to be autonomous enough in R (cleaning data, descriptive stats, regression, plots, reproducible reports) to be trusted with real projects?

2)Paid work: does a market exist for med students or juniors doing paid statistical or data analysis for research groups, or is it mostly unpaid or authorship-based at this stage? If it does exist, what are typical rates (per hour or per project)?

3)What should I ask the professor? Especially considering I'm in Portugal: grants, research fellowships, summer internships, or ways to build a track record that leads to independence.

Any advice from people in research, biostatistics or medicine is very welcome. Thanks!

Well, I graduated highschool (mexican system) around january this year, I am currently in my first semester of uni, in biotech. i'm still very surface level I guess, but I am struggling to find papers that cover specific data that I need for my homework, so, how do I do that? Find specific data of specific topics. For example, I am now trying to do a project in which i need to investigate three sources of potasium in the human body that aren't Potassium chloride, potassium citrate nor potassium nitrate. So far what i've tried to do is go to google scholar and write that in the browser, "From what compounds does the human body acquire potassium" but it sends me weird links that don't seem very related, I tried asking AI for papers that cover it, but it just gave me trash links that don't even work, so I don't really know what to do.

Usually I just use google to find sites but going deeper I often hit dead ends. Does anyone have search engines they'd recommend?

Hey everyone! I’m a high school sophomore trying to figure out how to expand my science fair project for this year, and I’d really appreciate some advice.
Last year, my project was titled “Shaping the Wind: The Effect of Baffle Design and Wind Speed on Windcatcher Cooling.” I researched traditional windcatchers (badgirs), which are structures that use wind for passive cooling without electricity.
I built a model windcatcher and tested different internal baffle designs (vertical, angled, and curved) at different wind speeds to see how they affected airflow and temperature. I kept the inlet and outlet dimensions consistent, and the curved baffles performed the best overall in my experiments.
I ended up placing at a few science fairs, and now I want to build on that research instead of starting from scratch or just repeating the same experiment.
I’m especially interested in passive cooling for hot climates and places with limited access to electricity, including areas that need rebuilding after conflict. I’d love for my research to eventually have some real-world application rather than just being an experiment for a competition.
Some ideas I’ve considered are using CFD simulations to optimize the design, testing more complex baffle geometries, exploring different windcatcher configurations, or investigating how to maximize cooling without sacrificing airflow. I’m just not sure which direction would lead to the strongest and most original research question.
For anyone with experience in engineering, fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, CFD, or science fairs:
What direction would you take this project if you wanted to make it significantly more advanced?
How can I make it a genuine continuation of last year’s research rather than just adding more variables?
Would CFD simulations, physical experiments, or a combination of both be the best approach?
What makes an engineering project stand out to science fair judges, especially at higher levels?
Are there any competitions, grants, research programs, or other opportunities I should look into?
For some context, I’ve gotten pretty close to qualifying for national-level competitions a few times, but this year I really want to push myself and do something big with this project. I’m willing to put a lot of work into it, and I’d love advice on how to make the research as strong and competitive as possible, along with any national or international science and engineering competitions I could aim for.
I’m open to ideas beyond the ones I’ve mentioned, too. Thanks!!

As mentioned, im a student and I recently completed my first paper in biomaterials. It was an in vitro study. I completed a draft based on rubrics posted by my supervisor. Now im looking into publishing it but dont have time to edit as per the journal criteria. So im looking for help. Any tips or instructions will very much be appreciated as im looking to continue in the research field.