Each lab is like a tribe, it has its own particular traditions and rituals. X is stored here, Y is stored there and Z is made up fresh. We share reagent A, we make our own reagent B, we buy a kit for reagent C. It's hard when you enter the tribe, you have to learn all of these unwritten rules.
- A good friend (who just started working in a new lab).
- Log in to post comments
More like this
Long time readers of ERV know that I do not believe a 'new' retrovirus, XMRV, is the causative agent of any human disease. It does not make sense as a real human pathogen, unless you disregard field basics (or make up new 'rules').
New cell transformation/cancer rules.
New transmission/…
I'm on the last bit of my protracted vacation. I'll be back on Monday. To commemorate work (got to get back into that mind-set) here's a little rant I posted last year.
Here's a tale from the lab.
Today we had an interesting discussion. It started off with PBS and ended up on the topic of…
I'm not anti-government. I'm pro civilization. But I'm also an anarchist, of a sort. I think institutions should be dissolved and reformed regularly. What really happens is that institutions add bits and pieces over time, in response to things that happen, as solutions to interim problems, until…
End of summer is a really good time to sit down and look at your preparations and your food storage and take inventory. What have you put by? What do you still need more of? What did you use over the last year? What did you have too much of? Whither from here? September is National Emergency…
It is funny how lab standards get set. I've watched it develop in my own group and it is funny how some things quickly become status quo for no apparent good reason. I've even found that trying to input some rationality into the choices tends to make some thing worse. The worst part of this process is that some things become default and people will do things they have no idea why except that it is in the protocol. I guess that is the nature of the business.
My strategy is to become alpha-postdoc as soon as possible, so that I can enforce my rules on the tribe.
It's working so far.
Also each lab has its own lingo and set of biases and standards.
When my lab started using coverslip-bottom MatTek dishes for live cell GFP experiments these were dubbed "NWO"s as they represented a "new world order" for live cell imaging in the lab.
Years later, we all say NWOs instead of MatTeks and new lab members are always amused to learn the meaning behind the acronym they have been using for months.