I am actually going into research, although I started college a bit late. I intend to study Alzheimer's or something related to mad cow disease. I, like you am a research geek, and I read a lot of articles about mad cow disease, other diseases, genetic topics, and even articles about space, the universe, and tweaks to Einstein's relativity, such as bringing ether back into the picture.
I first heard about the Spiroplasma theory of mad cow in a documentary, and became interested in it. Your article here article showed up in a Google search on the topic of Spiroplasma in 2019. In fact, your article here is one of the reasons I joined Hive in the first place, so that I could connect with open minded amateur science geeks. I joined in 2020 but haven't been very active and ended up writing mostly about politics because of all the political garbage of the time. I hope to start writing more about science soon.
Politics is a swamp and can make you many more enemies than friends. Usually, no one is persuaded by what you say. They either clap in agreement or jeer in disdain. For me, there is not point.
Science, history, literature, movies--these are fun to write about and are not likely to alienate anyone.
Glad you've decided to return.