Everybody's Working for the Weekend

It's Thanksgiving Weekend in Canada. Despite the holiday, many people will still make their way into the lab to get some work done, whether it's big experiments or simply maintaining cell cultures. The rest will be travelling to visit family or otherwise enjoying some well earned time off, right? Or maybe they just lack passion. That's what Dr. Scott Kern of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institute thinks.

In a recent editorial in Cancer Biology and Therapy, Dr. Kern takes a swipe at cancer researchers' lack of passion. Their "country-club mentality". Their desire for a life outside the lab.

During the survey period, off-site laypersons offer comments on my observations. “Don’t the people with families have a right to a career in cancer research also?” I choose not to answer. How would I? Do the patients have a duty to provide this “right”, perhaps by entering suspended animation? [...] Should I note that productive scientists with adorable family lives may have “earned” their positions rather than acquiring them as a “right”? Which of the other professions can adopt a country-club mentality, restricting their activities largely to a 35–40 hour week?

Read the whole thing if you don't mind being irritated.

Or just skip that part and read one of the many great responses by the likes of Isis the Scientist, Mike the Mad Biologist (here also), Drugmonkey, Scicurious, and Janet Stemwedel (and here).

Or just skip it all, and just watch this video:

Pocket Protector

I always use a pocket protector on my lab coat. Sharpies can explode!! It's as much a part of laboratory bling as a HUGE capacity USB stick around your neck, or a sweet iTouch for rocking out in the tissue culture room, or a nice green coloured laser pointer, or a personal copy of Sambrook & Maniatis.
Check out the interesting history of the invention of the pocket protector on Boingboing.
Is there any cool laboratory bling that I forgot to mention?

Laboratory Wisdom

Making my usual TAE agarose gel for electrophoresis of some DNA constructs I am attempting to make, I was wondering about some of the 'lab wisdom' that I have received over the years. I think molecular biology is particularly full of superstitions passed from person to person. Probably because it is such usually a 'means to an end' instead of actual science. Specifically I was wondering about the practice on our research floor of cooling the molten agarose to below 70C before addition of Ethidium Bromide (EtBr). The wisdom is that if EtBr is added before the agarose cools you are exposing yourself to vapours containing EtBr. Not good if you know about EtBr.
Quickly, EtBr is a chemical often used to visual DNA in agarose gels. It intercalates between DNA strands and in such an environment is a fluorescent orange/gold colour. Useful, yes. Also it is a mutagen, as determined by the Ames test. According to the Ames test EtBr is somewhere between mothballs and a cigarette in terms of mutagenicity. I guess this is not surprising because of its intimate interaction with DNA.
Lab wisdom is often suspect, as the previous link discusses. Check out some forum discussions on the very topic of EtBr in agarose gels. Scientists apparently like to talk about anecdotal evidence.
My favourite example of bad lab wisdom is about ethanol precipitations of DNA. Most people when performing this common procedure keep the solution of DNA, salt and ethanol on ice or at -20C for a certain time before centrifugation to pellet the precipitated DNA. You can be the biggest annoying know-it-all if, next time you see someone doing this, slap down this reference. This says that this cooling is completely unnecessary and can actually decrease yields. I keep a couple printed out on my bench for just such occasions.
A quick look at the MSDS for EtBr reveals that its vapour pressure is undetermined as is its mutagenic and carcinogenic potential. Sounds like this particular lab wisdom is unfounded but in this case perhaps it is wise.
Any other examples of bad lab wisdom that you happen to know about? Pass it on to the bayblab so that we can correct everyone in a very annoying, know-it-all manner.
[the festive agarose gel was ganked from tim holzer.]

iPOD Culture in the Lab

Black Knight over at Life of Lab Rat has a couple of humorous remarks on iPOD etiquette in the lab:
"I suspect that if someone is working at a bench in the wet lab then you have to look at how many earbuds are being worn. One means "Yup, I'm listening". Two probably means "Do not disturb: I've already made a mistake setting up this PCR and if you talk I shall ignore you. If you persist, I shall stab you with my Gilson". Whether the hands are gloved or not might have some bearing on the situation."

Works the same way here. I don't have an iPOD but I appreciate not having to guess when someone's trying to drone me out.

Funny how iPOD lab customs have evolved in parallel in our lab on the opposite side of the world. Maybe it's a colonial thing .

PS - Watch out. Black Knight is apparently not his real name.

Have a look add your iPOD etiquette lessons to the mix...