Students frequently approach application time without having any professors from whom they are comfortable asking for letters of recommendation because they do not know them that well. Make yourself known to them, especially in labs where you have an informal atmosphere. Federal budget issues. Some of the most useful findings have resulted from basic research. Applied scientific research has an application and comprises most research.
Budgets often determine whether equipment is fabricated or purchased, if available.
Sometimes, experiments requiring a particular kind of equipment that must be fabricated are postponed or not done at all because the labs budget does not permit that expense. So costs frequently enter into the decisions to perform certain experiments and not others, and experiments must be carefully evaluated to determine if the information to be gained warrants the cost, relative to other experiments that are less costly. Graduate or undergraduate students often don't get involved in this kind of decision making, but it may explain why certain approaches are taken and others are not. The process of science is for the scientist to publish the results of experiments, and, from that point on, the information is freely available to all to use and build upon, with, of course, proper acknowledgment. It is not acceptable behavior to visit another's laboratory, pick up ideas that are being developed, and hurry home to develop those ideas and publish first.