I was recently in Nashville, TN when a storm of the century hit the area. What started out as a typical thunderstorm, escalated to a relentless pounding by thunder, wind and rain. After two days of flooding and landslides, many homes and businesses were destroyed and clean water was a luxury. The tragedy highlighted just how quickly things can go from sunny to scary and while we may have insurance on our homes, we surely don’t take out a policy on our bench. But that could be a big mistake…
If You Don’t Disaster-Proof Your Bench Now, You’ll Hate Yourself Later
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Is a Lab Holiday Party Too Much to Ask For?!
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Dear Dora,
Is it too much to expect a holiday party from your PI- even if it’s just a lunch outing?
-TJ, graduate student
You Should Try Some PCP: A Model Scientific Conference
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Recently we asked how many conferences scientists should attend each year. The vast majority of respondents felt two conferences a year was the ideal number – enough to make it to a large society meeting and a small, specialized conference. While most of us are familiar with the format of the usual suspects (ACS, AACR, SfN, Gordon conferences – the list goes on), there is another model out there that deserves some attention.
Social Media for Scientists – What’s Most Popular?
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If you haven’t heard of social media by now, you may want to sit down for what we’re going to tell you next: Astronauts have landed on the moon! We’re at a point where it’s hard to ignore social media – for better or worse. (When Metamucil has a fanpage on Facebook, it’s clearly getting out of control…) However, what may be less obvious are the personal and professional implications of using social media for scientists.
Only MacGyver Could Make a Gourmet Quiche With Fewer Ingredients
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The weekend is here and let’s face it, the same bowl of cereal or piece of toast that does the trick during the week just ain’t gonna cut it on our days off. The weekend is a time to wake up leisurely, walk around in a robe and read the paper while enjoying a veritable cornucopia of delicious brunch food. Well, that would be nice. Unfortunately, we may have to go into lab, we don’t have time to cook, we don’t have money for expensive ingredients and we don’t own a robe. That leaves us with only one question: WWMD (What Would MacGyver Do)?
Seven Steps to Successful Summer Student Supervising
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As finals wrap up in colleges everywhere, graduate students and postdocs across the country can now be overheard exclaiming, “this summer’s going to be so awesome! I’m going to have an undergraduate student working with me and with four hands instead of two, this project is going to take off!” Oh, it’s going to take off – in what direction is the real question…
Superstition Doesn’t Affect Experiments (Knock On Wood)
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Maybe you think twice before starting a new project on the 13th, or perhaps a pinch of sodium chloride flies over your left shoulder at the beginning of every experiment. It can be tough to get experiments to work and when they do, it’s not unusual to repeat every detail – from the reagents used to the underwear worn. And thus, the birth of superstition in the laboratory- but who’s to say all of those details don’t actually matter…
Is it Career Suicide to Work for a Competitor?
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Dear Dora,
We always seem to be competing with this one lab, but they do really good work and I like them a lot. Is it acceptable to do a postdoc with a competitor’s lab?
Gena, graduate student
Meet Your Search for Research Microgrant Winners!
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Last week the inaugural Search for Research competition came to an exciting conclusion. While there was movement all across the leaderboard, the eventual top two finishers battled it out for the top spot with over 1000 votes between them in the final 24 hours! Luckily, thanks to all of your support in downloading and using the toolbar, we raised enough money to fund both of them! So let’s meet the first class of Microgrant award winners.
Licensing Deals: Lab Treasure or Personal Pleasure?
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Ah, remember the glory days of the 20% NIH funding line? Or the feeling of seeing a lab grow? Or when people used to talk about those things called “jobs”? Well, those memories are fading for us too. Surviving tough times in the lab requires a bit of creativity and this is particularly true when it comes to figuring out how to pay the bills.
