lab rat

Why God Didn't Get Tenure

1. He had only one major publication.
2. It was in Hebrew.
3. It had no references.
4. It wasn't even published in a refereed journal.
5. Some even doubt he wrote it himself.
6. It may be true that he created the world, but what has he done since then?
7. His cooperative efforts have been quite limited.
8. The scientific community has had a hard time replicating his results.
9. He never applied to the Ethics Board for permission to use human subjects.
10. When one experiment went awry he tried to cover it up by drowning the subjects.
11. When subjects didn't behave as predicted, he deleted them from the sample.
12. He rarely came to class, just told students to read the Book.
13. Some say he had his son teach the class.
14. He expelled his first two students for learning.
15. Although there were only ten requirements, most students failed his tests.
16. His office hours were infrequent and usually held on a mountaintop.

Maybe the problem is just that you are stressed and anxious all the time. Creativity doesn't work under presure. Take a leave someplace exciting, take an internet course about different scienticis topic than you are doing, start a new hobby and stop worrying about not being creative.
And even a rote memorization and droning over busy work can be compensated with something creative, actually unless I'm completelly exhausted I do compensate a lot for doing mundane tasks, I drew a face to a silicon oven glove (and actually many other places like centrifuge, old dusty flasks, computer mouse,..), taped a monster above our department head door sign (OK, this one probably would by bit risky, but he still keeps it there so I assume he actually likes it), keep small balls with drawn eyes on to leave at certain places whenever someone ask me to "keep an eye on it", regulary overwriting department signs I found unappropriate or unfunny, make new signs that are needed (like a crusade for reinstalling our coffee machine or poster protest against printer monitoring), planning reality hacks like "mesuring the radioactivity of bananas in local supermarket" and these are just examples that were in my head right now.
If you want to be creative, nobody can take it from you, doesn't depend on what type of work you do. Just BE creative, not just in work but all the time, but don't force yourself into it,  you need some space.
You would feel better and more interested in work in general (and if not, maybe it's time to change it) and you will be creative in research too.

IMHO.

I added Absolute Vodka to my water bottle and took it to my Viva, and I talked like I could be a candidate to replace Steve Jobs

Being a senior lab rat, I decided to take the role of teacher instead of persecuter and approached the co-worker in a non-confrontational manner. Privately, I spoke with her, told her what I had observed and explained why her "method" was not the way to go and what it could lead too. I kept a freindly and encouraging tone (to my surprise). The end result was that the experiment will be gladly repeated, additional controls added and everyone is happy, it was a great day! I'm going to sleep much better tonight.
Thanks again gang

Oh well if the atmosphere is generally healthy then I guess you can always choose to trudge through it.
However, I think its pretty messed up that your PI isn't clarifying whether you are MS or PhD. I don't know how it works elsewhere, but at my old uni you had to apply through the school (even if you were formally offered a PhD candidate position by a PI) before you are officially a grad student. It's in this school registration process that your designation as a MS or PhD student is determined. Although I think everyone enters as MS and then as their term progresses they can choose to apply for PhD candidacy or are asked by the uni itself if they want to continue as PhD.

Anyways I think its great that you are holding your composure during his unprofessional comments. Hopefully your email to him explaining how you felt will change the way he blows off steam.

My advice it to read, and read, and read. Get up to date with the advances in your field (and do a little broad reading too, to see what is going on outside of your research scope).

Go to local conferences and meetings to hear other researchers speak about their work.

Discuss with others in your lab (from your supervisor down to the research assistants) about what they are doing, and why

desertrose, on 06 July 2012 - 04:41 AM, said:

hey desertrose....but if you say that you already have a potential supervisor, then the funding for your PhD studies shouldn't be your problem unless your actual acceptance depends on your getting a scholarship. And I also thought that you just finished your masters recently so you shouldn't be so worried about starting off in a new lab.

You shld already know some basic techniques in the lab, how to follow protocols, do literature search etc and as leelee already pointed out- you've to read a lot, observe experienced people in the lab, discuss with them and your PI, attend seminars- all part of the long journey of a grad student. But perhaps one of the most impt things is to stay motivated. You had an unfortunate experience during your masters but don't let that discourage you or be your reference point. A PhD will be a tougher ride and there will be a lot of obstacles, some potholes (even a giant sinkhole ) but if you stay focused, persevere, believe in yourself and you know your ultimate goals, then hopefully it would be worth it. Goodluck.

What if everyone cleaned up behind themselves, stocked whatever they emptied and reordered reagents when using the last (or gasp, almost the last) of it?  Would be nice but then the world would apparently come to the end.

You unlucky bunch, I have arrived!

I am AlphaOmegon, call me Alph. I have just started a Bachelor's degree in Biological Sciences, with the intention of specialising in either Ecology or Genetics (quite different, but I have a wide range of interests)

I'm here to learn from other scientists, get other (and some not-so) educated opinions, and to possibly give my own opinion to a few topics brought up.

Laters.

Neither antibiotic will kill eukaryotic cells.  However, as kfunk said, chancing something like this and then getting a funny result will (at least, should) result in you thinking to yourself "Is that result because of the change in antibiotic or is it a real result?".. which basically means that you should just make up a fresh lot of medium rather than waste time and money trying to figure out odd results.

The general rule is "If in doubt, throw it out".

Ideally you would not be using any antibiotics in your cell culture.  They tend to hide poor technique and cryptic infections which can alter how your cells behave.

If you're that worried you could just get some more media and combine the two together to double the volume and create a 1% solution (remembering to add extra FCS to keep that at 10%)

So latest news, I've made a new gel concentrating on the buffer. Which means, I used the same amount of DNA, same loading dye, not even bothering to centrifuge the samples this time. So as I said I focused on the buffer, adding at least 300mL of buffer on top of the gel and this time everything was ok. DNA stayed in the wells.

so just letting you know  

cancer


Morning people

nice theory


why doesn't it matter? and next week I'll diet I guess...