Science and Research

Scientific research aims to advance the knowledge frontier, producing a significant impact - in the immediate or indefinite future - on people's lives.

Or at least, we often hear about it when a result is told in terms of how, and how much, it can remedy a problem, or improve the condition of human or animal life, or the environment. For scientists, it is also an admirable result to have discovered, to have understood, even partially, one more piece of what we consider the universe to be. Scientific results are obtained in fields ranging from microbiology to astrophysics, from the study of human behavior to the movement of fluids. The people who contribute to obtaining a scientific result carry out a wide variety of activities, from performing experiments lasting a few minutes to organizing studies on a multi-year basis, from writing projects to obtain funding to the administrative management of academic work, in the public and private sectors. The techniques used in each particular scientific domain are the most varied, starting from the collection of qualitative data through structured interviews with the people who make up a population sample, up to the detection of variations within a chemical molecule.

The process of scientific research has a single, well-defined core: the scientific method.

However, when we talk about scientific research, there is one thing that remains identical to itself despite the great heterogeneity of the domains of application, the techniques used, the roles and activities of the people involved. It is the process of scientific research which, apart from the different ways of carrying it out, and the different purposes, has a single, well-defined core: the scientific method.

If we consider science as an inexhaustible source of results relevant to our lives, we usually do so by looking at the results of research: from the discovery of a drug that cures a serious illness to the pleasure of using new knowledge about how a spider structures its web.

This magazine certainly focuses on: selecting and presenting scientific results relevant to the reader.

Looking at the scientific process in general, in addition to the specific result, science can also become a source of operational knowledge. This column tells how the methodological principles of science can not only generate new ideas for readers, but also open new perspectives in everyday life. Not only to provide information, but also to convey a method for accessing nature as an inexhaustible source of wonder.

Not only intrigue, but also provide a chance for readers to rediscover themselves, for a few minutes, as explorers, scientists and inventors.

Roberta Bardini is a researcher in computational Biology and systems. She currently works at the Sysbio Group, Polytechnic of Turin, where she obtained her PhD. She studies the development of multicellular organisms, and their enhancement in the business environment.

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