So You Wanna Be A... Flavor Scientist?

Use chemistry and your superior palate to invent new candy flavors

Every morning at Jelly Belly Candy Co., food scientist Ambrose Lee brainstorms flavor recipes for gourmet jellybeans. His taste buds, in fact, are directly connected to his chemistry training. If his assign- ment is grapefruit, a molecule called nootkatone leaps to mind. If it's a grass-flavored Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Bean, cis-3-hexanol is a must. He even developed the buttered- popcorn jellybean on a whim when microwave popcorn became popular. Food scientists like Lee are one part artist, one part chemist. They must have a refined sense of taste, an unfailing willingness to eat any- thing, and the hubris to confine big flavors like pomegranate and jalapeo to a candy the size of a button.-Veronique Greenwood

PREREQS:
-Bachelor's or Ph.D. in food science, or related chemistry degree
-Food-company internship
-Fearless taste buds

So You Wanna Be An... Alien Hunter

Search Mars for ancient life-from the comfort of your terrestrial lab chair

If life exists on the Red Planet, Jack Farmer is the man to find it. The director of the astrobiology program at Arizona State University, Farmer spent his early career as a geologist and biologist looking for hardy life-forms in extreme environments here on Earth. "I never thought of it early on as having any real applications in space sciences," he says. A stint as a petroleum geologist at Exxon helped him develop NASA's step-by-step strategy for tracking down off-world life: Find evidence of water; drill into it. To get your E.T.-hunting career started, Farmer suggests chemistry, geology or microbiology. You may wish to practice looking for needles in haystacks, too.-Jeremy Hsu