Monday, December 12, 2011

You know you're ... part II

                                                                                                                                                 Foto: Mojca

... a biologist/biotech

Read Part I here.

§  When you ask your husband/wife to pull the food out of the minus 20 degrees.
§  When you place your Christmas gifts into tip boxes for easy wrapping.
§  When you think 12-well plates are great to make pralines.
§  When you misread praline for proline.
§  You spike your hot sauce with pure capsaicin from Sigma.
§  When Southern does not mean comfort and western is your world.
§  When you notice that DNA in a stupid cartoon is written in the wrong orientation and you even let everyone know this in comments:-).
§  When you use ubiquitous to describe general facts when talking with your family or friends.
§  When you have Giant Microbes covering every square inch of free shelf space in your office.
§  When you refer to people having phenotypes as if that is a normal description for people’s behaviors or characteristics.
§  When you say sucrose instead of sugar.
§  When you never consider that milk powder can be used in coffee.
§  When you use n of 1 or n of 2 in casual conversation.
§  When you print/say “H2O” ‘cause it’s faster.
§  When you say “protocol” instead of recipe.
§  When you disregard science toys for children ‘cause they aren’t difficult enough.
§  When you consider what 20% ethanol would taste like.
§  When you label things in your home fridge with the date you opened them using a sharpie.
§  When you wear latex gloves and a surgical gown so that you don’t contaminate the mice.
§  When you end your emails with “good luck with your research” instead of best regards.
§  When you stir your coffee with sterile (or nonsterile, depends on how hard core you are) pipet.
§  When you wish you had Parafilm for use in the kitchen (hmm, kitchen and lab obviously have a lot in common).
§  When you leave the soup ‘overnight’ to make it taste better.
§  When you put the cake in the oven to incubate for an hour.
§  When you get excited about sex life of yeast.
§  When you have had parties and used conical tubes to hold shots.
§  When you think the PCR song is kind of catchy.
§  When you’ve used kimwipes as tissues.
§  When you've used, "I'd like to get into your genes" as a pickup line.
§  When you say your back is aching because you have been in the hood all day.
§  When you begin to think in microliters instead of the normal, larger system.
§  When you've suppressed the urge to shoot pipette tips across the room.
§  It feels like Christmas when the department gets new equipment.
§  When you wear more latex than porn stars.
§  When you begin to think that L broth smells like chicken soup.
§  When you step back to admire your gels.
§  When you develop a preference for certain brands of pipettes.

Read Part I here.

Share your ideas in comments, maybe we can make part III of this post.

k

34 comments:

  1. while eating, your hands always smell ethanol

    when you regularly use the word contamination

    you always compare two....by impact factors

    your party time depends on status of your manuscript submitted

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  2. i really do wish I had Parafilm for my kitchen.. greatest stuff on earth

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  3. All the equipments in the lab especially your favourite PCR machine have been given their own names and you stroke them every now and then to make sure they are happy...

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  4. when you call your pippete: "my precious" (smeagle)

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  5. I call my cells "my precioussssss":-)

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  6. you wash your coffee cup with the bleach squirt bottle that you use to kill the bugs

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  7. You wish you had (or actually have) a spray bottle with methanol to disinfect your workplace at home.

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  8. When you check the gender of the hamster at the pet store before buying it, but aren't sure how to pick it up since there is no tail.

    When your children think playing with your organic chem molecule set is fun and normal.

    When you think of the recommended amount of thin set for tile as 1x, and then conduct a series of trials, using your postal scale to weigh mortar, to determine that the optimum amount is actually 0.6X.

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  9. When you start to use Erlenmeyer flasks as a vase for your wild flowers.

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  10. I work on fat and was told in no uncertain terms by my family that I should NEVER send photographs of my work again. Personally, I thought the pictures of fresh human adipose were very informative.

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  11. We used to routinely use weigh boats (clean, ?) as plates for cake at lab birthday parties

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  12. when you use ThermoFisher Scientific kit's boxes for gifts. :)

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  13. when you wish to have a magnetic stirrer in your kitchen

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  14. PCR song is catchy! haha

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  15. weighing flour for a cake with three decimals precision

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  16. when you use styrofoam boxes as ice container for beer/wine

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  17. when you are talking with your cultures of organisms and asking them how they are today

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  18. when your seven year old asks you to do some science experiments with her and you can't think of something simple enough

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  19. when baking with your child you teach her how to avoid parallax with the weighing scales

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  20. when you dont boil up the milk flasks for your baby, but autoclave them!

    when you search for bands in your jelly

    When you take anti-mous out of the fridge, and ask yourself what should be a problem with anti-christ.

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  21. When you change your spoon for a new (clean) one during the every step of cooking.

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  22. When you smell a bacterial culture and you say "Well yeah that's healthy"

    When you talk with your 3-year old son as if it's your labmate discussing about a project.

    When you're in a really bad mood because your manuscript has been rejected while that means nothing to the rest of the society.

    When you get to meet with your kids maybe for a few hours during the weekend. During the week you leave home before they get up and return when they are already at bed.

    When you try to convince your 3-year old kid about the importance of washing his hands you talk about bacteria, infections, inflamation and the immune system.

    When talking about a good diet you refer to specific metabolic pathways.

    When your car's plates give your favorite's molecule name and you are proud about that.

    When you ask your doctor to explain the specific biochemical pathway influenced by the prescribed drug and he's being caught in an unusual situation.

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  23. when you're invited somewhere for dinner, you don't want to take anything out of a half-empty, open glass of mustard/jam/etc. with spoon in it, because this looks contaminated or just so unhygienic...

    when you've got a bottle of hand disinfectant standing in your bathroom and make use of it every day.

    when you've made plans to (or really do) use a 70% ethanol spray can at home.

    when there's at least one scientific poster hanging on a wall at home.

    when you use coffee/tea cups in the lab that were given to you as a present by the lab of your stay abroad

    when fax is written with a c and s and more about cells than paper.

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  24. When you move, all your moving boxes say "hazardous" or "contains dry ice" on the side.

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  25. when you have a four-channel lab timer in your kitchen at home...

    when the miniblinds make a striped shadow on the wall and you critique the sharpness of the bands....

    when you have a paper cutout of Mickey Mouse pinned to your dissection board...

    when you calculate the molarity of a citric acid solution necessary to remove hard water deposits from your shower door...

    when you aliquot leftover food....

    when oversized weighboats substitute for dessert plates at lab parties....

    when you have an alter to the gods of the laboratory in you lab and you routinely make offerings....

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  26. when you appreciate the smell of a clostridial culture in the morning...

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  27. when you sing "fix you" to your to-be-perfused rat/mouse.

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  28. When friends avoid you in spring, because you can't help but have to identify every flower, tree, grass, bird, insect etc. using scientifical terms/language and let everyone know :)

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  29. When you leave your food to thaw overnight from the freezer :)

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  30. 1. I still think a kitchen stove with a magnetic stirring function would come in really handy

    2. I still miss the ice machine when preparing Caipirinhas

    3. I still wish I could have a PureStep mat as a door mat (I hate vacuuming!)

    Happy New Year to all of you!

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  31. when you think in having a plastic becker as a mug at home.

    when you talk to someone about what you do, and you hear a lot of "hmm!"

    I would like to have a parafilm in my kitchen...

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  32. When you wish you had a pipetteman at home to transfer liquids

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  33. when you start calling your (animal model) your pets

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