Working in a lab for too long and you'll acquire a type of lingo that we call "X-speak". It happens to everyone you borrow words used within one environment and apply them to other situations. With so many members of our lab preparing solutions we (as I'm sure many of you) many here are fluent in X-speak. This is exacerbated by food preparation:
"Do we have any chicken broth."
"Yeah, it's pretty concentrated, it's about a 100X stock."
"I see that would explain why it's sold in such small aliquots and why it is gelatinous at four degrees."
"Right, just remember to add enough water to get the slurry into solution."
"Why is there anything in the mixture that can crash out?"
"No, heat it up and it'll be fine. It's just very nasty at high concentrations, plus you don't want the salt to be too far above physiological levels."
"Great. And how long until it's completely solubilized?"
"Once the water is boiling it should dissolve quite rapidly."
"I'll let you know how it turns out."
I am actually eating chicken soup at this very moment. Thank you. Appetizing ;-)
"Give me three aliquots of 100X, stat!"
I don't want to be a downer, about half of those sound completely normal... and I'd just call the rest excessively nerdy.
Guys......how about some outta lab activities??? Did you ever try to leave lab early..read a book...have a good time with your friends. It's just frickin science !!!!!! ;-)
So if doing experiments is comparable to cooking (in languange and in technique), does that mean that all good scientists are also good cooks?
Corie, I would say yes to that. My stuffed peppers are pretty good ... and I make a decent loaf of bread too. A fellow gradstudent was a master beer brewer (and yeast geneticisttoo.) I can go on and on ...
Being in an inter-disciplinary field, I can generalize that most biologists are good cooks. It's just a matter of following protocols. With chemists and physicists, you are taking your chances.