We recently featured an article about how to streamline your cloning.  But what about those days when you have too much on your plate, and need to put some things off until later?  Here are a few hints on where you can pause in your cloning experiments while working on other projects: Restriction digests can [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

I always keep an ear open for helpful tips in the lab – those little tricks that can make your experiments faster, easier and better. Here are a few tricks I’ve picked up for trimming down the time it takes to do your cloning: Restriction digests Many digests are complete within 10 minutes of digestion [...]

In an ideal world, every PI would be a nurturing and challenging mentor who carefully guides your project and is invested in developing your skills as a scientist. In the real world, however, that kind of leadership can be hard to find. In any case, one of the most important and useful mental steps you [...]

Presenting your work is a fantastic opportunity to get feedback on your project, demonstrate the significance of your results, and make the connections that will enhance your future career. And yet, how many incomprehensible lab meetings have we all sat through? How many seminars have you attended that left you feeling more confused than inspired? [...]

Chances are, in the course of your scientific career, you will encounter a common problem in research: losing time due to someone else’s mistake. Whether the problem is an incorrect strain or plasmid given to you by another lab, incorrectly made buffers or media from within your own lab, or, in the most extreme case, [...]