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…
I have a confession. Despite years of terrible paper work, awful online training, tedious training days and being very sarcastic online I am actually a stickler for health and safety (H&S to cool people). I like being alive and I like that some people have spent quite a lot of Read more…
The average science experiment has two distinct parts to it. The part when you touch it and the part where you don’t. Some experiments require constant touching, but in general these needy experiments are rare. The vast majority require a bit of touching and a bit of standing and waiting Read more…
It was a dark and stormy night, probably. Joe was working in a basement lab with zero windows and hadn’t been outside since he went out for a Halloween themed doughnut at coffee break. But it was October the 31st and it was gone eight o’clock, so if it wasn’t Read more…
The summer is here! The official start of the summer in the UK is a momentous occasion and is triggered on the day that supermarkets move the bottles of Pimms to the shelves at the front of the store. British people then celebrate this by adorning themselves with their traditional Read more…
Experiments are complicated and difficult things. Experiments are amazing sources of unpredictable chaos no matter how simple they seem. In some ways, this unpredictable complexity is a good thing. Many of those researchers and scientists reading this article have based entire careers on the fact that what they do is complicated Read more…