Students in science classes usually get the idea that scientific investigations involve careful observation and analysis of data to test hypotheses. One thing that remains shrouded in mystery, however, is how scientists decide on the particular questions they ask in the first place. For example, if you were to ask college biology students what they want to research or what motivates them to study science, they might say, "I want to find a cure for cancer." But if you were to ask which experiments or observations they plan to start with, most students would be at a loss. In contrast, if you were to flip through the table of contents of the journal, Cancer Research, you would find titles like "Ligand-Independent Androgen Receptor Variants Derived from Splicing of Cryptic Exons Signify Hormone-Refractory Prostate Cancer" (Hu et al., 2009). Clearly, the actual research topics scientists choose to study and publish papers about are quite a bit more specific than curing cancer.