We live in an age of unprecedented access to scientific knowledge. Tens of millions of peer-reviewed articles are available at our fingertips, searchable in seconds. However, while reading about new discoveries is easier than ever, understanding and reproducing the experiments behind them remains a significant challenge.1,2
Most scientists can recall the experience: staring down at a procedure described in a few tightly packed paragraphs, trying to reconstruct what actually happened in the lab. The protocol seems complete, but the nuance is missing. How long is “briefly”? What kind of pressure is “gentle”? And what exactly did the author do when they “prepared the samples according to a modified protocol”?