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I’m not sure when I’ll be able to eat Au Bon Pain again. Probably not for years. There are only so many bagels and pastries one can eat in their life. And thanks to group meeting, I’ve filled my quota for a while.
I’m the first to admit that I lack all imagination when it comes to supplying the lab with food. Generally, my mornings to get food unfold as follows:
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A number of factors influence the stress levels we feel in lab including our project, boss, funding, spouse, kids, weight… the list goes on. In research, there are predictable periods of elevated stress, such as the Ph.D. qualifying exam and defense, which undoubtedly shaved years off the end of our lives. But are there global trends to the stress patterns we can anticipate through the early part of our career in research?
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This type of inhibition is used in blood pressure regulation, amino acid synthesis and glucose degradation. If it’s good enough for our bodies, then it’s good enough for our site… what are we referring to?
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We’ve been getting a lot of questions about which cameras to buy for filming in the lab. There are a dizzying array of camcorder types and functionalities available these days. Sites such as cnet provide general information in addition to detailed reviews on specific makes and models.
Here we help sort through the information in order to focus on a limited number of functions relevant to filming in the lab.
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Like food, water and deodorant, the importance of the side project cannot be overstated.
The rationale behind voluntarily piling extra experiments on to our already busy schedules can best be explained in gambling terms: the more bets on the table, the greater our chance of winning one.
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The Problem:You’ve been on the job market for nine months now and not a single bite from anyone… don’t they see the two Science papers?! They do. Unfortunately, they also see the 15 keg stands, the six mug shots and the four streaks across campus…
Yikes.
We’ve all made mistakes. Not managing our online reputation would be another one. A few simple steps can have us back in control in no time.
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I recently had a long conversation with a colleague of mine regarding life after a PhD. It is interesting to see how your classmates progress after finishing the grueling free-form haul of graduate school. At first pass, you could categorize the career choices of most of your colleagues as follows:
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Standing in the magazine section of Walgreen’s, I ran across a list of the “Top 10 ways to run a risky business”. As I read it, it became clear that the principles were arguably more relevant to creating a successful scientist! I’ve reworked the list and tailored it to the bench researcher and our experiments in the laboratory.
Interestingly, the title of the original list included the word “risky”. Considering the inherently risky nature of scientific research, I think the list is more appropriately titled:[Continue Reading…]
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I was driving home from lab one evening when my phone rang. I normally don’t pick it up when driving, but I was expecting a call, so I answered:
Me: Hello?
Guy: This is Sergeant [Jones] of the SFPD, can I speak to Alan Marnett?
Me: (Quickly pulling car over and beginning to sweat) Speaking.
Sergeant: Mr. Marnett, SWAT just busted a house in south San Francisco. On the kitchen table was a mound of cocaine and credit cards with your name on them – can you explain this?
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It was another late night in lab and we were looking to film a protocol that would demonstrate a common technique while using a minimal number of words. We quickly came up with a pretty large list of candidates, but decided on the spreader because it’s just plain fun…
