One of the most challenging aspects of performing research is knowing when to pull the plug on a project. This is particularly true for postdocs, who have a limited amount of time to obtain the results that will act as a springboard for their career. After graduate school, many of us walk into our postdoc dreaming about the huge paper we’re going to publish and the flood of career opportunities and funding awards that will follow. No wonder it can be tough to wake up from that fantasy…
BenchLife
Being a scientist isn’t just about doing experiments, so neither are we. This is where we make breakthroughs beyond the bench for scientists.
Postdoc Risk-Reward: How Valuable is a Top-Tier Publication?
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3 Scientific Products that Would Change Your Life
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We know how hard research can be so we’ve been working hard in the BenchFly Labs to develop a few scientific products we think will significantly improve the lives of researchers in the lab. Excited about the prospects, we’ve leaked news of these products in our new newsletter we launched a few weeks ago. Due to the tough economy and limited resources, we can only scale-up production on one of these, so let us know which product you’d like to see on the shelves at your local store.
Become an Instant BBQ Master With Two Accessories
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Summer is synonymous with one thing: Body odor on the subway?… Yes, but no. Unfortunately large men sporting unfortunately small speedos?… Again, yes, but not what we’re looking for. BBQ?… Bingo. A BBQ is the quintessential summer activity. But unlike pouring gels or running flash columns, firing up the grill is not something we practice everyday. So the idea of a group of people standing around watching us freestyle on the grill can be stressful, even to those of us who love a BBQ. Here are two essential grill accessories that will transform us into an instant BBQ master and trick our friends into thinking we know what we’re doing…
Eating 3 Meals a Day Is Harder than Physical Chemistry
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Although we may feel like prisoners in lab sometimes, the clearest confirmation that this is not the case is that we’re not guaranteed three squares a day. That, and there’s a significantly lower chance of getting stabbed with a shank in lab. If it were up to a nutritionist, we’d eat three meals a day separated by healthy snacks like fruit or nuts to keep ravenous hunger at bay. But for most of us, life gets in the way of this practice and more often than we’d probably like, we end up skipping a meal.
Poverty Nutrition II: Beans & Rice (And Their Infinite Variety)
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Having spent several years as a fellow starving grad student alongside Dr. Barrilleaux, who wrote an excellent post on creating cheap and nutritious breakfasts using eggs, I was pleased to be asked to follow her in discussing affordable nutrition for graduate students. I think that the perfect food for lunch or dinner for a hungry student (or for anyone- this is what I eat for lunch on most weekdays) is a combination of beans, rice and vegetables.
Poverty Nutrition: A Fugue in Egg Minor
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As the recent recipient of a shiny new PhD, I’ve spent almost 20% of my life so far as a member of the impoverished and undernourished graduate student demographic. One of the things I wish I’d figured out earlier is how to eat well on a stipend—especially when it comes to breakfast, the neglected meal. For this guest post, I’ve compiled three breakfast options that cost less than $1 each, can be prepared in the time it takes to brew a pot of coffee, and contain only basic, cheap ingredients. I won’t bore you with the calculations, but I can certify that each breakfast comes in easily under a buck.
Longevity Genes: Do You Want to Know?
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If you test positive for the longevity genes, you may want to call Willard Scott and put your name on the waiting list for your 100th birthday announcement sooner than later. Last week Sebastiani et al., out of Boston University, published their findings titled “Genetic signatures of exceptional longevity in humans.” Given an individual’s DNA sequence, researchers can predict with 77% accuracy if a subject has the magic DNA to live to 100. It’s a remarkable finding that opens many doors – including some we may want to keep closed…
The Weekend Conversion Factor: Price per Drink
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At the end of a long day in lab, sometimes it’s nice to unwind with an old friend. And by old friend, we mean a drink. But the tough economy (and our tougher stipends) are seriously killing our wallet – and our buzz. So we figured it’s time to put those analytical skills we’ve been developing for years to good use and find out which drink is actually most affordable.
How Smart is Your Phone? iPhone, Droid or Other
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Last week, Apple released the iPhone 4 and Verizon executives started referring to this season as “The Summer of Droid.” It’s pretty clear that the Mac vs. PC battle we talked about last week won’t stop at computers.
Mac vs. PC: What Side are You On?
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Few things can polarize a room full of technology geeks like the question of computer allegiance. For decades, Apple was like Danny Bonaduce in that it appealed to a small sliver of the population. Very small. Compared to popular PC brands such as HP, Dell, Toshiba and others, Macs appealed to a niche market. But this May, something remarkable happened – Apple’s stock price completed a nearly 10-fold increase over the past five years and the company overtook Microsoft as the most valuable technology company in the world. But if you’re like most, that probably hasn’t changed your computer loyalty.
