The Element Song – by Tom Lehrer I think I’m safe in saying that all chemistry students know (or should know!) this song.  It’s one of my favourites, and I think it only fair that you, as molecular biologists, should also get to know it.   First recorded back in 1959, Tom Lehrer was Professor of [...]

Yes, science has always been portrayed by enthusiasts in various guises.  Here’s is a video from the 1970’s with the evidence! The participants are truly a joy to watch (from the perspective of someone who remembers the 70’s well) with their dance and narrative interpretation of protein synthesis in the ribosome.  As one person commenting [...]

Get ready for a battle between two red-hot rappers who have smashed onto the BioPop scene in the last year. Introducing the Contestants Tom McFadden Tom McFadden, a former Stanford biology course instructor-turned scientific communicator  emerged from the California BioPop scene (BioRap branch) with his hit single Regulatin’ Genes, which saw him featured in national newspapers like The [...]

John’s comment on Jode’s recent article here on Bitesize Bio: “Good idea on marking the rotor for 3 tubes Jode. One of those tiny (perhaps tragic) pleasures is when you drop the 3 tubes in quickly and get in spaced perfectly first time. Because usually its drop them in and then move one tube 1 [...]

Being in graduate school can be tough – deadlines, professors, and experiments, can get you down.  But there are a lot of silver linings, too.   Here are a few of my favorite things about being a grad student this summer: Since it stays light so much later, I don’t mind working a few more hours; [...]

Joanne Manaster is a woman on a mission. She loves science and she wants to introduce kids to everything there is to love about science. So this summer, her mission is to stimulate the minds of children and teens everywhere by challenging them to read non-fiction science books. In collaboration with Jeff Shaumeyer, program director of  www.scienticity.net, she has organized a [...]

Murphy’s law states that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.  Nowhere is this law more abundantly evident than in the life of a scientist.  Here are just a few of the examples that I’ve witnessed: if you drop one tube from the whole rack, it will be the one that contained your most [...]

Some time back, Suzanne wrote a really funny article full of ideas for reality TV shows for scientists, and one idea a reality show showing everday life in the lab. About a few days back one a friend of mine twittered me a link to a documentary film shot by Richard & Carole Rifkind. Richard [...]

We recently had a feature from Jode on everyday equipment that you can use in the lab, but what about the other way around? Do you ever take a look at what you’re doing in the lab and think, “Wow, this would really come in handy at home?” Here are a few of the things [...]

Greg Petsko, President of the American Society for Biochemistry wrote a very interesting article recently in which he drew attention to the parallels between the PhD/Postdoc system and the medieval trade guilds, and the problems our profession faces because it is drifting away from that system. In the trade guild system the right of an [...]