Don't Forget to Share

There are times when the "engineer in every scientist" comes out to play, says Benchfly's Carlton Hoyt. Researchers are always tweaking and refining their methods and tools to make them more efficient, but there are times when the idea isn't easy to act on. For example, everyone has ideas for completely new tools, but not everyone can build them themselves. "There is value in anything that would allow researchers to perform work faster, and it's in the best interest of science as a whole that you give your ideas a venue to realize that value," Hoyt says. Even if the idea doesn't have commercial value, or isn't "profound" enough for a methods paper, he adds, it's still worth it to share the idea, for the "greater good of science as a whole."