Throughout my career in science AI and automation have been things that were ever-improving tools in helping do science quicker and in bulk. AI and machine learning have slowly been improving the rate of data processing and even expanding the kind of data processing that’s possible. Automation has led to Read more…
One of the things we absolutely love is getting photos of our cartoons stuck to walls, fridges, equipment and even chairs but it was a surprise to see our work hurtling in an incalculable number of pieces all over the New Mexico desert.
Given the exotic and exciting things that scientist play with and produce you’d think that waste disposal would be staggeringly complicated. Special buckets for certain kinds of goo, shredders for tentacles and mops specifically for flaming puddles would seem to be the bare minimum an average lab would need. Actually Read more…
Humans are an inventive bunch. We’re not long out of the trees and our brains have already given us literature, art and the sciences. We are a creative species that constantly seeks to invent, create and problem solve. However, as smart as we are Nature is often one of the Read more…
There are lots of reasons that you may need to take a break from working in the lab at some point. Over this year an unprecedented number of people have spent a significant time away from their labs and are only just now starting to go back. This is a Read more…
From my first experiment in primary school (when I dissolved salt in some water and wrote down how long it took) all the way up until the last time I made a saline buffer, I have been writing things down in a lab book. Well I say “writing” obviously most Read more…
In my lifetime as a researcher I have made more buffer solutions than I’ve had hot baths. That is to say that, if all the water from all the baths I’ve ever had was compared to the volume of buffer solutions I’ve made, it would be like comparing a glass Read more…
Health and safety (H&S) inspections are a fun annual tradition in research that we all immensely look forward to in much the same way as I look forward to having my foot stepped on or falling on some sharp wood. A H&S inspection has two aims. The first aim is Read more…
In movies science is mostly about what is known as the eureka moment. A moment where you have an amazing idea, stare off into the middle distance and say something like “but of course – the cheese!” And then jump cut to an amazing cheese-based new form of physics solving Read more…
When I first started as a researcher I had a Sony Ericsson flip phone. The flip part was a piece of plastic that served no function other than to look cool when I answered the phone and cover the buttons in my pocket. It could take photos but these photos Read more…