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LaTeX is a powerful document preparation system that can give you beautifully typeset documents. But getting started using it isn’t the most intuitive process. This beginner’s guide gives you easy instructions on LaTeX document setup, layout, and how to deal with common syntax errors.
It’s easy to let organizing your lab book slide down your list of priorities. Read our guide to easy ways to keep your lab book up to date and organized.
Follow our simple lentiviral transduction protocol and discover expert tips and tricks to make your transductions a success.
Researchers must show the statistical accuracy, validity, and significance of their data. So here are two ways to compare two sets of data.
Keeping track of new literature can be a time-consuming process. Here are some helpful hints and tips to help you keep up to date.
Laboratories brim with nasty chemicals and bugs. PPE protects you from them, but only if you don’t commit any of these PPE sins!
Not sure what we mean by cell passage number? Confused about how to calculate it? Wondering if there is a maximum number? We explain it all.
Thesis defenses are supposed to be grueling, horrific affairs that you fear for weeks beforehand, right? What if there was a way to get through your thesis without tears, torture, and perhaps even enjoy it?
DOIs got you confused? Find out what they are and how to use them.
Working from home but don’t have a garage lab? We’ve got 10 ideas to keep you productive while you’re working away from the bench.
Keeping a meticulous lab record of your experiments is a necessity. And it’s drilled into us to back up our computers, including backups stored in different locations to ensure vital records don’t get lost. But how do we protect the hard copy information in our lab books? You may not have given much thought previously…
You don’t need to be told about how next generation sequencing technologies have revolutionized the way we study the genome and the epigenome. Whether you want to look at transcription (RNA-seq), translation (Ribo-seq) genomes (DNA-seq), interactions of proteins and DNA (ChIP-Seq) or to study epigenetic features such as methylation (whole genome bilsulfite sequencing) there are…
When it comes to publishing your paper you want to show the world what excellent research you’ve worked so hard to produce. Part of that is providing enough detail so that others can reproduce your work and take it further. There are certain details you need to include in your paper; many, but not all…
Bacterial cultures may be much easier to grow than mammalian cells, but if your yields are suboptimal there are plenty of parameters to play with. Here we list a few of the things you should consider to maximize your culture growth. Shaking speed Shaking is performed to allow aeration of your culture, which is of…
Copyright is something that a lot of scientists only give a passing thought to. However, this is something that affects us all. If you publish your work, then you need to understand copyright, the different types of copyright, the difference between open access and copyright and what you can and cannot do under different copyright…
Figures play a central role in science not just as a way of displaying results, although this is obviously important, but also as a way of getting across complicated theories and processes in a relatively simple and direct manner. I’m a firm believe in the power of putting ideas into diagrams and spent a considerable…
So you’ve performed a test such as an ANOVA and have found that there is statistical significance in your data (lucky you!), however you now want to know where that significance lies. When you are comparing multiple sets of data it might seem like a logical thought to simply perform an individual t-test between each…
Last week I focused on the left-hand side of this diagram and talked about statistical tests for comparing only two datasets. Unfortunately, many experiments are more complicated and have three or more datasets. Different statistical tests are used for comparing multiple data sets. Today I will focus on the right side of the diagram and…
The first hurdle in learning about statistics is the language. It’s terrible to be reading about a particular statistical test and have to be looking up the meaning of every third word. The type of data you have, the number of measurements, the range of your data values and how your data cluster are all…
I remember when I first learned about plagiarism during my undergraduate course. The lecturers were so firm in telling us that if we got caught plagiarizing we would face serious repercussions and that all our work, especially our dissertations, would be vigorously checked by plagiarism detecting software. I was so panicked that I would inadvertently…
This guide is full of very simple but effective tips so you can have a pleasant lab experience, and help create a happy lab.
Math is an important part of lab life, from making solutions to calculating protein concentrations, and miscalculations can cause mayhem for your experiments. Therefore it is important that your math is right, or you could spend weeks trying to figure out what’s going wrong in your experiments. I was hopeless at remembering how to do…
I was first introduced to Conrad Waddington’s epigenetic landscape when reading ‘The epigenetic revolution’, a fantastic introduction to epigenetics, and in my opinion, a must read for anyone who is looking for an entertaining and enjoyable introduction to this fascinating field. In his model, Waddington likens the process of cellular differentiation to a marble, which…
Check out our rundown of the key features of the most popular reference managers to work out which one will be best for you and your research.
Co-immunoprecipitation is a method used to detect protein-protein interactions. While it can be wonderful when it works, there are many problems associated with this technique. One of the biggest problems that I have faced when using this method is contamination by the light and heavy chains of my precipitating antibody when performing western blots of…
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