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Advice for Your Life in Science | BenchFly

Tearing It Up: Glycogen and Its Chemical and Biochemical Breakdown

Not long ago, I was tasked with assaying for levels of glycogen in animal tissue. In most labs nowadays, glycogen is assayed by enzymatically hydrolyzing glycogen down to its component glucose monomers, and then enzymatically oxidizing that glucose in turn, producing hydrogen peroxide which can then react with a number of chromogens to produce a colored product.

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How to Spot Sensational Headlines (Hint: They’re Everywhere…)

This month for “Sensational Science” I wanted to dig into some of the nuances of what makes a claim “sensational” and how you can start to tell right off the bat. On the internet, we often look at the source. For example, an article from ACS Nano (where scientists converted dog poop into graphene) carries more weight than a chain email. The sensationalism comes from intermediaries. For example, a blog linking to the ACS Nano paper that says: “Alchemy is real! Poop converted to valuable nano material!” That’s where some of the digging and investigation needs to start happening. To illustrate this point here are three posts from the same intermediary source- a technology blog Gizmodo.

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The Ethics of Mooching

Dear Dora: The ethics of moochingDear Dora,

I go to a lot of seminars around campus that I have no interest in, many of which are outside of my department, simply to get food. Even though I sit through the talks, is there any ethical or karmic reason to stop doing this?

Mooch, grad student

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On Wine, Sunburn, and the Tendency of Headlines to Mislead…

If you’ve been reading “Mind the Gap” for a while now, you are probably aware of the fact that I am a fair-skinned lass from England. You will therefore understand my excitement when I saw the headline “Wine consumption can help prevent sunburn”. Not only am I fond of a corked cocktail every now and then, but I burn in the sun like an over-achieving moth in a flame.

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Group Meeting: What’s the Point?

In last week’s poll nearly 70% of readers felt that giving group meeting more than quarterly is a waste of time.  While this certainly doesn’t sound like an extreme position to us, it’s clear that respondents’ answers were influenced by their definition of group meeting.  If the goal of group meeting is to get help with the problems we’re facing in lab, then maybe monthly or even weekly informal meetings would make sense.  Alternatively, if the purpose of group meeting is to practice giving formal seminars, then maybe giving two or three meetings a year is enough.  So this got us thinking – What the heck is the point of group meeting anyway?

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Should You Be at My Bench Right Now? (Probably Not)

Unlike traditional offices, our lab benches don’t come with a door to shut when we want privacy.  As a result, there’s no physical barrier to alert visitors to the fact that they’re now in our personal space.  Even in the event the approaching individual is courteous, without a door where are they to knock – on the bench, trash can, our head?  Although a couple of pieces of drywall and a door would dramatically cut down on the riff raff dropping by our bench, lab safety departments would likely stroke out at the first sight of our handiwork.  But there’s another way.

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Give Group Meeting Again? I Just Went!

In lab vernacular, few words can elicit a fiery range of emotions like “group meeting”.  Fear, panic, apathy, anger, frustration, embarrassment and nausea are not uncommon responses as a graduate student or postdoc reads the lab schedule and realizes they’re up next week.  While some will feel they haven’t had enough time to obtain new data, others will feel a tremendous amount of pressure since it’s their only talk of the year.  But who’s to say how many group meetings we should give in a year?… You.

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Lab Safety Inspections: Passing the Torch to an Irresponsible Labmate

Dear Dora: Lab safety inspectionsDear Dora,

Since she has been hired, my fellow research assistant has not showed up for or helped to prepare for a single lab safety inspection or audit.  She is especially sloppy, and always leaves an un-kosher mess which if I do not have time to clean up before inspections, the lab suffers for.  Her standard excuse is “I haven’t been feeling well” or “my memory has been bad lately”, and she has never responded to any of my requests or reminders.  While I do care about her and empathize with her medical struggles, I have my own and even when I am not well it falls on me to pick up her slack, or take the heat when I forget to.  I am leaving the lab in a few months to enter graduate school and am worried about who will pick up after her when I am gone so that my boss doesn’t have to take the heat.  I have spoken to my boss, but he has not done anything.  What more can I do to convince her to improve her habits?

–concerned technician

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Which Came First: The Opossum or The Snake?

The other day I was idly perusing the science and nature section on Netflix, trying to decide between people, animals, or dramatic landscapes. I settled on National Geographic’s Australia’s Deadly Dozen, and less than an hour later was utterly terrified of the continent. There are a gajillion venomous beasties there! Spiders, octopuses, fish, in the water, on land, in the wood shed, in your laundry, everywhere. And these things don’t mess around; their venoms usually kill within hours unless you get your bitten self to the ER in time to receive anti-venom (N.B. not available all colors or sizes).

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There’s Nothing Romantic About Watching the Sun Rise…From Lab

Sleep is rarely considered a reagent, but without it few experiments reach a successful conclusion.  In fact, researchers have demonstrated “sleep drunkenness“, where individuals deprived of sleep perform similarly to those who have been drinking.  So while PIs may think a lack of sleep is no big deal, when’s the last time they said “Experiments still not working – have you tried drinking a 6-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon before starting the assay?”

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