[schorndorfer]

Just a guess, bu biology research is probably rewarding to some at least in part because there are so many important consequences to our lives for understanding how it works. Curing disease seems pretty rewarding, doesn't it?

[amichail]

I wouldn't find it rewarding. As I said, it's like trying to understand and debug code written by very poor programmers.

I would rather use genetic algorithms for my own purposes rather than trying to understand the messy artifacts of nature.

But yes, the fear of death will give such research a lot of funding.