I'm playing as Kul ul alulan lue ul or whatever, just accepted his current empire, and I have nothing to research. I realized nothing was getting better, then looked, and I was at level 7 for imperium, and nothing. I sent the screens to dropbox, sorry too lazy to do a pic sharing site right now. 
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8949112/Elemental_1279400207.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8949112/Elemental_1279400211.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8949112/Elemental_1279400212.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8949112/Elemental_1279400214.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8949112/Elemental_1279400215.jpg
Oh yeah, it was the same for every research category. As the 5 screens kind of imply.
