This type of inhibition is used in blood pressure regulation, amino acid synthesis and glucose degradation.  If it’s good enough for our bodies, then it’s good enough for our site… what are we referring to?

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We’ve been getting a lot of questions about which cameras to buy for filming in the lab.  There are a dizzying array of camcorder types and functionalities available these days.  Sites such as cnet provide general information in addition to detailed reviews on specific makes and models.

Here we help sort through the information in order to focus on a limited number of functions relevant to filming in the lab.

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Like food, water and deodorant, the importance of the side project cannot be overstated.

The rationale behind voluntarily piling extra experiments on to our already busy schedules can best be explained in gambling terms: the more bets on the table, the greater our chance of winning one.

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The Problem:

You’ve been on the job market for nine months now and not a single bite from anyone… don’t they see the two Science papers?!  They do.  Unfortunately, they also see the 15 keg stands, the six mug shots and the four streaks across campus…

Yikes.

The Solution:

We’ve all made mistakes.  Not managing our online reputation would be another one.  A few simple steps can have us back in control in no time.

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I recently had a long conversation with a colleague of mine regarding life after a PhD. It is interesting to see how your classmates progress after finishing the grueling free-form haul of graduate school. At first pass, you could categorize the career choices of most of your colleagues as follows:

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Standing in the magazine section of Walgreen’s, I ran across a list of the “Top 10 ways to run a risky business”.  As I read it, it became clear that the principles were arguably more relevant to creating a successful scientist!  I’ve reworked the list and tailored it to the bench researcher and our experiments in the laboratory.

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I was driving home from lab one evening when my phone rang.  I normally don’t pick it up when driving, but I was expecting a call, so I answered:

Me: Hello?
Guy: This is Sergeant [Jones] of the SFPD, can I speak to Alan Marnett?
Me: (Quickly pulling car over and beginning to sweat) Speaking.
Sergeant: Mr. Marnett, SWAT just busted a house in south San Francisco.  On the kitchen table was a mound of cocaine and credit cards with your name on them – can you explain this?

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It was another late night in lab and we were looking to film a protocol that would demonstrate a common technique while using a minimal number of words.  We quickly came up with a pretty large list of candidates, but decided on the spreader because it’s just plain fun…

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Music plays an essential role in movies, theater and yes- even protocols! (See this week’s Technique of the Week)  However, unless you’ve got a rich uncle with connections in the music industry, you may want to forget about adding “Stairway to Heaven” to your “How to pH a solution” video…

The issue is the copyright.  It’s understandable why artists don’t want people using their videos without asking.  It would be like showing up to a conference and seeing someone presenting one of your old posters.  So are you left to bust out a kazoo and start making your own tracks?

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Out of how many?  That should always be the next question.  If your paycheck was deposited successfully into your bank account only once a year, I hope the conclusion would not be “Direct deposit works.  It just works one out of twelve times…”

Returning to the basics, it’s important to remember this definition, from the Merriam-Webster dictionary:
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