just pulled this out of the autoclave to make room for my stuff. the top melted just a little bit lmao

Now do the other grants. California system cannot be the only institution(s) where the grants got terminated like this.

https://apnews.com/article/california-research-grants-terminated-keywords-lawsuit-a0ddb01413ecb68d9668490a20be6207

It’s so cute 🥺

I have found that tissue culture dishes make perfect little pans for mixing watercolors

Was recently talking with my kid, who is still in school, and the topic of Bunsen Burners came up. I realized I hadn’t used one since I was in school. Curious how many of you still use these in your day to day science?

I am a PhD student in a wet lab, and we have several undergrads, all with varying levels of ability and independence. One is very involved and interested, but extremely slow with experimental stuff. A single reaction start to finish can take a week. I want to help them succeed, but something that takes me 3-4 hours taking them 20 hours is not a recipe for success. My method for mentoring has always been first time hands on, guided assistance/demo, second time hands on but the student does it, and after that they work alone. This student needs their hand held to an extreme amount, and even if I step away to force them to work more alone they will just piddle around, then ask me for help.

I do believe they are capable, and they could really succeed, but I think that it may be my mentorship style or that this student isn't confident. Any tips on how to guide them to more success? And force them to speed up a little? My mentor tossed me in the deep end a little, and often gave "higher stakes" stuff to do that meant messing up actually mattered, but I'm not sure how successful that would be to help.

I designed this fixture after getting frustrated pipetting into clear ACC Pyroplates. Since the row and column labels are only on the edges, I found myself constantly tracing over to make sure I was in the correct well.

This stand aligns a full A1–H12 grid beneath the plate so every well is labeled directly underneath. I also angled it to improve ergonomics and help keep hands away from the wells during pipetting.

Curious if anyone else using clear 96-well plates has run into the same issue or found a different solution

I’m not sure if this is the right place to do this but I need some advice. I had a falling out with 2 friends during my third year. It wasn’t really a falling out I left to focus on my severe mental health issue at the time but they hated that even though I told them a million times that I needed space. During my masters year they went around the entire lab including professors and supervisors, postgrads, everyone, and would tell them my private matters and how evil and horrible person I am, calling me names like rat and bitch. People would glare at me when I walked down the hallways while I was still recovering.

I’m not sure what to do about this. Should I report it? Where would I even report this? The main perpetrator is doing her PhD there now so it’s still a relevant case.
I have 2 people that can vouch for me and say it was in fact happening (as they were the ones to tell me)

Disgusting fingers and messed up DNA!

Had a rough day as at lab and would love to know how common royally fucking up is as an undergrad (and stories if you have them lol)

samples on left side wells moved with a curve. what may be the reasons? (ps. i know that gel is broken since we it fell down the floor, however the look was the same before it fell down)

What could be the reason of these bubbles and patches. I never get them. I have my sponges full wet in transfer buffer and i roll out all the bubbles. This has never happened.

A little bit ago, I was feeling very lazy and did not want to design my 96-well plate by hand, since I wanted 3 replicates in each plate but randomly assorted within the plate (with three replicates of each plate where I had multiple plates at different temps, you get the picture....)

Anyways, after passing that task onto my undergrad, I felt that there had to be an easyish way to make an Excel sheet to do this for us, since I also couldn't find a good online resource that could do this for me (shouldn't there be a website? maybe i just didn't look hard enough).

So I made one! Hope this helps someone out there :)

Hi everyone! We usually store our MiSeq cartridges in a drum, which is collected and disposed of in a way that is compliant with local EHS rules, because they're considered formamide contaminated waste. We've also been storing the liquid waste after a run/wash in a HDPE container and were wondering the correct way to dispose of this waste, since it's technically also contaminated with formamide. Thank you!!

Title. I am a rising junior in college that was lucky enough to secure a research opportunity at a prestigious national lab. However, even though I have a good relationship with my mentor/coworkers and I have good technique, one very important experiment I did ended up giving surprising null data, thus almost invalidating my entire summer project. Worse, I don’t have time to repeat this experiment as it involves multiple week-long incubations.

I was promised authorship on a paper, but now I’m worried that is jeopardized. My mentor was supportive and told me that it is normal for science to fail especially with the new setup and bacterial strain we were working with (it’s known to have strange behavior), but I cannot help but be bummed out. She specifically mentioned how none of it is my fault, but I’m worried that it really could be my mistake and I just never noticed.

Was really looking forward to have my name on a publication :(. I haven’t talked to my mentor exclusively about authorship status. I still was productive and conducted multiple other analyses, it’s just this most important one gave no readings. Was also looking forward to a rec letter and a potential return offer but now I’m worried none of that will come because of this failure.

Gonna go and actively troubleshoot now! Whats a good way to cope with results like these?

Even the one that was not that into solubility came out pretty well.

I got a Thermofisher Aspire “Innovate to Elevate” Insulated White Tumbler back in 2024 through the Aspire member rewards program. I gave it as a gift to my Dad back then and it has been his favorite bottle since. He uses it every single day and even traveled around the world with it. A few days ago, it broke and he has been really heartbroken about it since. Does anyone at all possibly have one they would not mind parting with or know where I can possibly get a new one for him? Thank you so much!

bottle picture from their Instagram site

Guys. Vous faites quoi quand vos maîtres de stage vous suppriment plein de trucs de votre stage (expériences, résultats..), que vous avez 40 pages à rédiger mais que vous pouvez résumer votre stage par "coloriage et 5 PCA" ?

C'est-à-dire que je fais un stage en biologie (segmentation, comparaison morphologique via nuages de points, recherche de signaux phylogénétiques et écologiques, biomécha etc), le sujet étant la chaîne ossiculaire de certains rongeurs.

On va poser les bases: j'ai fait un bac L et je ne suis pas biologiste + mes soucis de santé ont un peu f*ckedup le stage et j'ai perdu beaucoup de temps en labo à cause de ça.

On me donne des scans, on me dit "faut segmenter". J'ai segmenté. Les osselets, c'est minuscules et c'était majoritairement tout cassé et dégueu, la qualité des scans étaient plutôt foireux et le PC ramait tellement que j'attendais 10 à 20 secondes entre chaque petit trait/pixel de segmentation + j'ai souvent eu du mal à charger les scans du premier coup et il y a un jour où ça m'a pris une heure pour ouvrir un scan, il m'a fermé 8 fois le logiciel (pour ceux qui ne savent pas, la segmentation consiste à prendre image par image le scan d'un individu et colorier les zones ciblées, ici, les osselets et j'ai fait ça - au - PIXEL - par moment).

Je préviens plusieurs fois que les scans sont caca et que je ne sais pas comment on va sortir des datas viables mais on me dit "fait au mieux"... ok.. bon... bah.. j'ai fait tellement au mieux que tout le monde était émerveillé devant ma segmentation, donc je me dis ok, j'ai bien fait mon truc.

Bref, ensuite je pose mes landmarks (des points qu'on pose sur des parties précises et choisit de l'os). Là arrive un premier problème : j'ai des osselets gauche et des osselets droits mais il me les faut tous tu même côté.

J'explique à un de mes maîtres de stage qui me dit qu'il me fait un programme pour les mirrorer. Je me dis "super". Je lui explique que j'ai posé mes points sur 6 individus de référence et majoritairement, ils ont les osselets gauches (je n'ai pris qu'un côté des osselets par individu, par manque crucial de temps). Il me fait un programme qui modifie les osselet gauches pour en faire des osselets droits......... j'avais 4 gauches et 2 droits..... et ça n'a pas fonctionné tout de suite... J'ai bidouillé son programme pendant DEUX semaines pour réussir à obtenir correctement mes trucs, je n'ai pas réussi et j'ai fini par tout refaire à la mains (la pose des points, le lissage de la segmentation etc parce que son programme a foutu la merde pas possible).

Comme vous voyez, pour ce qui concerne la partie programmation, ce n'est pas possible pour moi, j'ai eu beau prendre des cours particuliers, avoir appris mes cours etc, ça ne passe pas, ça ne rentre pas. On me dit "tkt pour ça c'est nous qui nous en chargeons ! " (vous le sentez venir ? ).

Je ne parlerai pas de la partie ALPACA avec toute la progra qui n'a pas fonctionné correctement (encore une fois hein) et que c'est une personne du labo qui ne sait pas correctement programmer non plus qui m'a pris par la main pour m'aider à obtenir des résultats.... Bref, encore plusieurs jours plus tard je finis par y arriver et je retouche les points pas correctement posés.

Vient la partie analyse PROCRUSTE : mon maître de stage me fait un programme qui ne fonctionne pas, lol. Après encore des jours à galérer, j'appelle à l'aide un ami, que dis-je, un messie ! Il travaille dans la progra et à l'habitude de faire ce genre de choses pour des ingé, des scientifiques etc. En 30 mn il me règle le soucis ce dieu. On passe cependant tout un w-e pour réparer toutes les erreurs que je n'avais pas vu dans les programmes précédents, qui ont donc complètement bousillés mes données et qui m'ont fait faire du travail pour rien.

On finit par sortir 6 PCA (sur tous les individus, 1 pca du malleus, 1 pca de l'incus, 1 pca du stapes, 1 pca de l'anneau tympanique, 1 pca de la chaîne de tous les osselets de tous les individus dans leur états d'origine [un état merdique donc] et 1 pca superblock où on sépare tous les osselets, on casse leur chaîne et on met les incus sur les incus, les malleus sur les malleus etc.)

C'est beau, c'est magnifique, je vais enfin pouvoir passer à la bioméchanique. Bon, je sais que je vais devoir demander à mon ami de regarder le code de mon maître de stage mais bon... mon ami est prêt, il est chaud à m'aider. Ce que je n'avais pas vu venir, c'est l'abandon de cette partie par mes professeurs. Parce que trop compliqué et pas le temps. Ah. Bon. Bah. C'est tout mdr.

Bref, je rédige un premier brouillon de mon rapport, avec la moitié de la discussion, la description des résultats etc, j'arrive à ~27 pages. Je me dis "dommage, avec la partie biomecha, j'aurai eu 40 pages intéressantes et là j'ai pas grand chose... ca me fait chier, je sais pas comment je vais reussir a avoir mes 40 pages..." en plus je galère un peu car, comme dit plus haut, je ne suis pas biologiste et on me demande un vocabulaire que je n'ai pas forcément réussi à acquérir.

Mes maîtres de stage corrigent et là, c'est le drame. On me supprime la PCA superblock dans les résultats et on hésite à me retirer la PCA chain et le diagramme des axes de variations des PC + on me supprime des figurés et des choses écrites plus hauts qui ont été validés des mois en avance..........

Je me retrouve avec une vingtaine de pages, seulement 4 figurés de résultats de sûr et 2 figurés en sursit et 20 pages à rédigés de discussion, sachant que la partie sur les limites rencontrées au cours du stage, elles me l'ont fait déplacer dans matériel et méthode, donc je n'ai plus rien ou alors je me répète. On m'a donné ce stage car il y a un manque de l'espèce ciblée dans la littérature donc la partie de la discussion où je compare avec la littérature euuh..... je vais comparer avec une espèce proche mais bon...... et voilà....

Donc là je me retrouve à ne pas savoir quoi faire, ne pas savoir où je vais vraiment, j'ai absolument rien à mettre dans mon rapport, il est vide.. Je ne vois pas comment je vais gratter 40 pages même en mettant de très belles images et de beaux tableaux, au bout d'un moment, c'est pas un livre pour enfant que j'écris (même si je pense me reconvertir en artiste après ça, quitte à finir de toute façon au chômage..) .

Est-ce que vous avez des conseils ? est-ce que vous vous êtes déjà retrouvés dans cette situation ? Quoi que je dois faire ? Je dois rendre dans 1 mois le rapport.... j'ai pas le temps de faire de nouvelles analyses etc et surtout, j'ai l'impression que mes maîtres de stages sont tellement débordés par leur travail à courir à gauche et à droite qu'ils ont abandonné en fait....

Alright nerds, I love me an expensive fully featured thermocycler with a touchscreen and attached massage chair but I’m trying to build a lab space cheaply. Whats a quality gradient compatible 96well thermocycler that works without breaking the bank?

After dreaming of a PhD for over a decade, and two years working towards one, I have finally made up my mind to do my unthinkable and "master out" this fall. Not exactly looking for advice, but I want to get this all off my chest. Maybe it will help somebody make a difficult decision.

I've wanted to be a chemist since middle school, and as one of those former academically "gifted" kids I've wanted a PhD since around then too. It has always felt inevitable for the path I've followed thus far. I didn't get into any programs after undergrad, so I spent a year working in AR&D making pretty solid pay (for fresh out of college) + crazy benefits, and a decent culture as well (we're talking free ice cream from the ice cream truck a few times, and most weeks only 45-50 hrs). I still wanted a PhD and so many people encouraged me, so I reapplied and started in my current program F2024. Unfortunately, I didn't get my first or second choice advisors (I put too much hope for my first choice, and they weren't willing to hint at who was in/out)... and when I met with one of my other groups of interest, the PI essentially told me I was committing at that moment or never. Since I wasn't sure what other options I had, I joined. Funnily enough, it turned out *everybody* in the lab (me, the other student from my year, the 2 students who just graduated, and the post doc) was here after not getting their first choices.

Things started a little rocky, as my PI was investigated by the office of civil rights for racist behavior a few months into my stay. The investigation was entirely a mess and we all essentially had to defend them (our interviews were recorded & non-anonymized transcripts were shared with our PI, so anything negative we said would be screwing ourselves over, and we were all set up with the questions/"answers" in advance, despite the fact that we were supposed to know nothing by that point). Since then, their horrifically racist behaviors have continued: Refusing to publish in journals with "too many" Chinese authors (lying and stealing is "in their blood"), telling me about Muslims ("those peaceful people") taking over the UK and US... misogyny (referring to female students as "b*tches" and one recent grad from the lab as a "failure" and "disappointment" and justification as to why they don't like taking female students (in their words, women are "incapable of working as hard as men", which is proven by the gender disparity in Nobel prizes))... referring to suicidal people as "losers" that they "has no remorse for" (in reference to a recent incident in the department). They are also generally just a deeply unpleasant person (insults my weight, mocks us behind our backs, calls me into their office to go on political rants, gets angry when we are sitting down or talking to people in the hallway or even talking to each other in the lab...). Sometimes doesn't show up or speak to me for weeks, and sometimes is calling me on the phone 3-4 times a day to talk about progress and results. When I tried to set the boundary of not wanting to be called on weekends unless it is an emergency, they got incredibly angry. Just recently, they made me completely switch my research theme after 2 years because of a specific ACS award that they want to win.

Beyond the personality issues, the lab is also just sort of... underwhelming. There's no funding, and now only 2 grad students (including me). To make up for the void, they have taken a small army of undergraduates (I now have 5 of them, including one who is a CS major and hasn't even finished gen chem). There's barely any access to instrumentation besides the department NMR, preventing me from developing a lot of the chromatography skills that I want to (HPLC, GC, etc.). They are completely infatuated with reaching 300 papers before retirement, so all of the projects I am put on are dull low-risk, low-reward "ideas" of theirs (which are often just seeing a recent paper and swapping one reagent) to milk publications (they want me to produce at least 2-3 papers a year), and at this point I want so badly to do something higher-risk and higher-reward that would be actually intellectually stimulating and require PhD level skills. All of the actual PI duties (writing grants, reviewing papers, managing the lab) are performed by a post doc who has been in the lab for nearly 5 years now and can't find a job to escape to... and I just saw our two 5th years graduate with absolutely no help whatsoever in finding a job. So, I really don't feel like I would gain much out of 3 more years here besides the actual degree.

Could I have switched labs? Yes. Should I have put my foot down regarding all of this sooner? Yes. But I spent two years waiting for some "last straw" incident to break me, and now I am so fully disillusioned with academia that I just want to be out of here ASAP. I know the job market is terrible, but I would rather take my chances than spend 3 more years in this setting. The most humiliating part has been the pure shock I have received from everybody who thought the idea of me "quitting" was impossible. I notified my PI via email a week ago, but they have chosen to ignore me (they are currently out of country, but the post doc told me that my PI called them about it later that evening). On one hand, I have never felt more desolate and dejected... but on the other, I actually do somehow feel some sort of excitement for the future and its uncertainty now that I no longer have 3+ more years of this looming before me.

TLDR: The classic racist/sexist/narcissistic PI has ruined my opinion of academia, and I am leaving to the rocky waters of the job market, but I want to complain about it first.