Biology, and synthetic chemistry. Unfortunately all anecdotal. I live near a major research university, have lots of friends who are involved at all levels, and

Biology, and synthetic chemistry. Unfortunately all anecdotal. I live near a major research university, have lots of friends who are involved at all levels, and relatives who are even closer to it. It tends to be in areas that require minimal capital investment to pivot into a new study. Also, the student pursuing the original idea is hampered by their own emerging skills. "My student's thesis just got scooped" is something that every professor has experienced or knows about. My field, physics, much harder. Building my experiment required a bunch of expensive equipment (maybe half a million in today's dollars), gear that I built myself, the technique of operating it, and so forth. My career, much harder. I work in business. You learn about my ideas when a patent comes out. ;-)