Making Microbes Work

Tonight I'm trying out Blogger on my phone as I'm sitting in my research lab. I'm trying out something new with a reactor and I want to see how it preforms before I leave for the night. Microorganisms aren't terribly speedy though and watching this digital multimeter record a new voltage (at 1 microvolt incriments) isn't thrilling. I wish I could crack a whip and yell "Mush! Mush!" as one would to a dog-sled team and instantly reap the rewards of more power.  Pity things don't work that way.

Poor Plants

I have several houseplants at work.  Most made their way there when I moved apartments this past fall and realized that I don't have the amount of light necessary to keep houseplants thriving.  A few other plants made the trek when my cat showed an increased fondness for knocking the plants off the windowsill and dumping dirt (and plant remains) everywhere.

Most of my work plants are doing quite well.  They're no longer full of brown/yellow spots, one is flowering, and all are much happier in their new home.

Except one.

It's dead!

This one was the victim of Improper Glassware Cleaning.  The fear of every person who works in a research facility.  Improper Glassware Cleaning occurs when people don't wash their beakers as well as they should.  Residual chemicals lurk inside the glassware, waiting to contaminate your next sample or *gasp* kill the plant you were nursing back to health.

You think ivy grows like a weed, that it's hard to kill, that it's hard to stop from climbing all over your garage.  I'm here to tell you that's a lie.  A misconception!  All you need is some improperly cleaned glassware and you too will have dead plants on your hands.

RIP ivy.

PS.  It's probably best to keep a dedicated watering can for any plants you keep at work rather than relying on containers already in close proximity to the plants.  Just in case. 

Bad Project

I'm a bit behind - one of my labmates told me about this video today but it's pretty awesome.  A parody of Lady Gaga's Bad Romance, the Hui Zheng lab at Baylor College of Medicine put this together for the 2011 Molecular and Human Genetics Retreat (and won 1st prize!).  





While the ideas expressed in the video apply largely to those working on a PhD (I want to graduate in less than five years but there ain't no getting out here) they can also apply to anyone who's every inherited a project from someone else (I want good data...but I got a project straight from hell).

City View

The nice thing about my lab is that is has windows. Lots of windows. A whole row of windows in fact!

The bad thing about the windows is that they're high off the ground. In fact, the bottom of the window is just above my eye level. Most of the time I can only see sky when I look out the window...but if I climb up on the lab bench then I get views like this:

At night.

During the day.

Pretty! Especially now when all the leaves are changing color and with Lake Michigan such a nice blue in the background.