Egg on my face

In the lab today I asked whether there were any really old culture plates in the incubator as this often happens when one of the lab is away for a while.
One of my colleagues replied "No, but there's a bacterial plate with your name on it that looks over a week old in the other incubator".

Serves me right.

Pint of Science - International

I mentioned a while ago that I'm involved in the Pint of Scientist festival this year. Handling the "Life sciences" section in Bristol (book your tickets now).
I know I have readers from other parts of the world and the website now has sections for USA, France, Australia and Switzerland. So if you live in any of those countries have a click and see what may be on in your area.

I'll try and do some more shameless promotion for the talks I'm involved in although I should probably concentrate on making sure they run smoothly first!

Name the Biologist

It's been a little while but here's a new "name the biologist". It's still techniques oriented, until it turns into something else, so the list of candidates should be shrinking

As for the last instalment that was none other than Paul Erhlich another Nobel Prize winner who among many other contributions popularised the "magic bullet" theory in which the magic bullet was a compound carrying a toxin that would selectively target and kill a disease-causing organism. This is partly seen in monoclonal antibodies. Erhlich also developed staining techniques for identifying different blood cell types leading to the characterisation of several blood diseases. He was also a pioneer in chemotherapy. A pretty spectacular career.

Rick and Morty - Inspirational Science Motivation Speech

Rick and Morty is an excellent new animated sci-fi comedy from the creator of "community". Think of it as this generations' "futurama" but possible even darker. Anyway the show is littered with funny quotes but I quite like this one as a reason for studying science.

Also wise words for any scientists suffering in a relationship :)

Break the cycle, rise up and focus on science!

Colour Co-Ordinated

Only realised half-way through the day that the purple in my black and purple striped shirt matches my gloves and tube rack. I don't even like purple that much so it's a weird co-incidence.
That said it shouldn't be noticeable as I "always" have a lab coat on when wearing gloves.


In other news - don't flame coverslips in 70% ethanol and accept that cloning never wants to work when you think it should be a slam dunk done-in-one. At this rate it's not going to be a done-in-a-dozen.

Name the Biologist

This guy was responsible for quite a few interesting discoveries and concepts. It's hard to dodge his influence.

With regards to the last installment they were