Life of a Lab Rat

There's an interesting phenomenon that occurs in labs.

In normal life we find it convenient to label things. It helps us organize our lives, recognize authority, and in some cases limit concepts and people so that we can deal with them; Takei is Japanese, Samantha is an arts graduate, Larvatus Prodeo is a whiny leftist blog. There are labels that, even with the best intentions, demean the very thing that is being labelled but in a way that constrains it sufficiently for us to understand, cope, deal with it.

And more prosaically we label the sugar and the salt so that our pavs lov.

In the lab, labels take on inordinate authority. The contents of a tube that has a coloured sticky label and neat writing and a date and a concentration are imbued with a power against which hasty scribble has no chance. I can prepare some DNA, measure its concentration, divide it equally between two tubes — one nicely labelled and the other quickly scrawled upon — and store next to each other in the fridge. A week later, I know which tube I am going to use, even though I made the damn' stuff.

This is why I try to label things neatly when sharing reagents with other labs (and I want to give a good impression, of course). And all this is before you get into the question of 'do I actually trust what is on the label', which can translate into 'do I believe the label?' which boils down to 'do I trust the person who made it?' If you mix up the salt and the sugar in the kitchen then things might taste a little funny, and it is easy enough to figure out which is which and hopefully not make the same mistake again. But in the lab, most of our reagents and compounds are clear, colourless liquids or white powders, not easy to tell apart, and getting the wrong one can ruin your whole life (original).

As an aside, anyone who thinks that dipping their fingers into white powders and then then licking them is a good way to identify anything in the lab is likely to say something along the lines of 'Ah yes, this is sodium azARGH THE SPIDERS ARE COMING THROUGH THE WALLS' — if they even live that long.

Additionally, you can impart authority to reagents by writing things like 'RNase free' or '50 mg ml^-1' on the tubes. As far as an experimentor is concerned, the label defines the contents. They are only going to start digging when things are obviously not behaving as expected. We had a situation like this in the Maze a couple of weeks ago, when I wanted a certain strain of competent cells. I was after 'DE3 RIL' and all I could find was 'DE3 RIG'. A subtle difference, but an important one; not least because I had no idea what 'RIG' could possibly mean. It was not in the catalogue, a Google search was not helpful, and no one seemed to know. I wondered if it was a mistake. I tried to use them and got the unexpected (read: Wrong) results, so ordered some more 'RIL' from the company that makes them. Then someone kindly told me what 'RIG's were, and I'm still wondering why the bloody hell we need them, sitting in the freezer next to the 'RIL's.

So you have a situation where good labelling becomes paramount. With that, good scientists rapidly get a reputation for making reliable reagents. Which means that you learn to trust labels from some people, and not others. This could make for an interesting experiment. If I wanted to sabotage someone's work it would be incredibly easy to mix up their trusted labels (label the 'RIG's as 'RIL's in the example above, say), even before I started spiking MOPS with NaOH (and I can not be the only one thinking of 'trust' in the context of PGP here, surely?).

I want to turn that around just now, and consider what happens when you are that person who is trusted, and your labels are good. Go on, what do you think?

That's right. All your reagents get filched by the thieving, sponging scumbagsother people you work with. Sometimes this is not really a problem, and it builds up a hierarchy of debt that must be similar to the bartering system that existed before money was invested:

"I'll swap you ten agar plates for six tubes of competent cells."
"Ten? Your father was a camel. Two dozen and that's cutting me own throat."
"Done. Do you want ketchup with that?"

But sometimes you go for a bottle of $PRECIOUS_REAGENT and find that some thieving, sponging scumbagother person you work with has taken it all — worse, has taken all but half the amount you need, and not replaced it or even told you. This happens.

It also happens that people will say,
"Er, BK, I've used the last of your MOPS. Shall I make some more for you?"
and I find that I have to be subtle about this,
"No, that's fine, I was going to make some more anyway. I'll do it" (because I don't trust you).

So a number of years and a couple of jobs back, I found that one particular reagent was always getting used up by thieving, sponging scumbagsother people I worked with. I got a tad fed up and started labelling this particular reagent 'Turtle Extract'. I know what it is, the Queen knows what it is, and there's a trusted trail of sometime cow-orkers who know what it is. And today, finally someone in this lab asked me what it was:

.

I said it was a secret, and that I randomly label my other reagents, too.

Sometimes.