This entry in the Science magazine news blog outlines a pretty strange motive for someone to go for a career in science: The Power of Poop.

[...] For marine scientist Ellen Prager (left), the moment came 25 years ago when she took a summer job helping researchers who spent a lot of time swimming behind parrotfish with bags in hand to collect poop as it plopped out of their bottoms. "If that was science, I thought to myself, I could do it too," Prager told the audience.