Tiny, Tragic Lab Pleasures
Posted in: Fun Stuff
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 space over and then 1 other tube 1 space back.” made me laugh in recognition.
How many of us can identify with that small surge of pleasure when something tiny and insignificant goes right in the lab? Here are a few things that will make me smile any day:
- getting tubes balanced in the microfuge on the first try (so right, John!)
- weighing out a sample to exactly 20.00 g on the balance
- having just enough paper in the printer to print out an article
- entering sample 1000 in the -80°C database
- grabbing the right number of tubes for all your samples without counting
- ejecting all 8 tips from the multichannel pipettor at the same time
- finding the microscope already set to the right objective and filter
- having enough different Sharpie colors to label all your different samples
- dividing a piece of tinfoil exactly to cover bottles for autoclaving, with no scraps left over
- filling up every well of an agarose gel
What tiny pleasures in the lab can make your day?
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Loading samples for SDS gel, the loading dye floating down in the gel pockets..aaaah what pleasure! The gel running smooth and in the end having beautiful blots!
Stretching the parafilm around a plate without breaking it. Or winning a parafilm stretching contest. Anything with parafilm, really.
A day when everything works. Finding that someone has replaced the pipette box with a full one.
weighing the exact quantity in the first trial…thats indeed a pleasure.
and ejecting the tip from a micro-pipette to make it fall right in the bin which is 5 feet away from u ! Thats indeed a trickshot.