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It is hard to see the importance of basic research until someone is clever enough to transfer the knowledge to everyday life. When fluorescent dye was first produced, who could imagine it might be used for cancer surgery? Who knows if one day we will be using bacteria instead of fossil fuel to power our homes?

Debbie said:
What I've heard is that researches are not very well paid...
Researchers in the academia are not well paid at all. Graduate students get about 25k USD annually. After six years getting a PhD degree, the salary goes up to 50k for a post-doc or a college lecturer. I believe the starting salary for a full time professor is about 90k.