Music plays an essential role in movies, theater and yes- even protocols! (See this week’s Technique of the Week)  However, unless you’ve got a rich uncle with connections in the music industry, you may want to forget about adding “Stairway to Heaven” to your “How to pH a solution” video…

The issue is the copyright.  It’s understandable why artists don’t want people using their videos without asking.  It would be like showing up to a conference and seeing someone presenting one of your old posters.  So are you left to bust out a kazoo and start making your own tracks?

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Out of how many?  That should always be the next question.  If your paycheck was deposited successfully into your bank account only once a year, I hope the conclusion would not be “Direct deposit works.  It just works one out of twelve times…”

Returning to the basics, it’s important to remember this definition, from the Merriam-Webster dictionary:
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It’s the end of our first full week and we at BenchFly would like to take a minute to say:

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An “Elevator Pitch” – the idea that you should be able to explain your idea, project or lab within a 20-30 second elevator ride – is like explaining your project in a Tweet.  You’ve got to trim the fat and get to the point, or else you just get cut off.  Never has the art of brevity been more important than in today’s society, where people face constant information and sensory overload.  In every interaction, people are constantly forced to make a quick judgment call on whether what they’re hearing is worth their time.

Despite understanding the concept of the elevator pitch, it can often be very difficult to craft, especially when you’re working on a very specific problem that needs a few minutes of background to be put in context.

Or so you think….

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Pepé le Pew: funny.  Beer: delicious.

Pepé le Pew in your booze? Not funny OR delicious.

Occasionally, you may hear friends complain of “skunky beer” – but what does that mean?  Is it just slang for a terrible brew?  Did they just insult your drink?  Actually, there is some truth to the term, and a little bit of chemistry helps make sense of it.

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You’ve decided to join a small company, so you sign the contract and celebrate with some friends.  The next day, amidst a pounding headache, the stress sets in.  A new world awaits… what’s going to happen?  What do they expect?  Was that the right decision?

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The last thing most of us think about when pulling a tube out of the centrifuge or taking a vial out of the desiccators is eating it.  Unless you’re willing to grow a third arm out of your back, consuming your experiments should never cross your mind…

Or should it…

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Like when you pick a single colony from a bacterial plate and it sequences correctly…YOU’RE A WINNER!!

Actually, you haven’t won anything yet.

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One of the classic choices facing grad students or postdocs looking to move into industry is whether to join a large or small company.  For most of us, who have only academic research experience when looking for that first job, there is little opportunity to understand what really goes on in companies.  In many cases, it’s not until you accept the position and begin working that the consequences of the decision are finally apparent…for better or worse.

To shed some light on small company life, we interviewed Patrick Hillas, Ph.D. about the transition from academics to biotech, the pros and cons of the decision and the expectations placed upon new hires.

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It was almost midnight at the end of a very long day and my friend Walter and I were sitting at our benches, half-delirious, joking about protocols to film.  As if sent from above, our labmate, whose language would make the father from “A Christmas Story” blush, walked into the room right on cue.[Continue Reading…]