Curiosity is extremely important to scientific exploration and discovery. It is curiosity that leads a person to question things around them, which in turn could help them stumble onto new discoveries.
It was Ebright's curiosity that led him to collect items such as butterflies, fossils and coins. His desire to explore and constantly learn served as the foundation for his future scientific pursuits.
It was curiosity that led Ebright to investigate different aspects of butterflies for his school projects. Since he was curious to understand the cause of the viral disease that killed monarch butterflies, that was what he studied.
While in high school, Ebright was curious about the purpose of the twelve gold spots found on a monarch pupa. This drove him to conduct more research on the topic, which indirectly led to his new theory on the life of cells.