Life of a Lab Rat

sillyDalton , n.

Unit of molecular mass. See mega, giga, zilli etc.

e.g. "How big is a ribosome? Oh I don't know, a few sillyDaltons maybe?"

Another interesting thing, but not really interesting. . .

Why cell cultures are like children

1. You get emotionally attached to them
   
2. When it's all going right, they are rewarding and fulfilling
   
3. When things go wrong it breaks your heart
   
4. Sometimes it's difficult to tell if the weird shit is normal
   
5. It helps to keep them clean
   
6. It's difficult to keep them clean
   
7. It's distressing when they're sick
   
8. You can't just throw them away when they're sick
   
9. It's difficult to trust anyone else to look after them
   
10. Looking after someone else's is more stressful than looking after your own
    
11. It's impossible to get them to clean their own room
    
12. You need to look after them at inconvenient times (weekends, holidays...)
    
13. They're devilishly expensive
    

I have an apology to make. I have offended someone through this medium, quite unfairly as it turns out and I am sorry for it. Perhaps the worst of it is that I accused the subject of my ire of doing exactly the thing that he seeks to prevent.

sarcomere , n.

Smart-alec myofibril. "Oooh, call yourself a muscle? I've seen better fibres on Kate Moss".

Student giving lab talk:

They're all different but kinda the same

Right, I promised to give a not-so-quick list of seminar do's and don'ts. The context for this is the Honours students giving their 'end of labwork' talks in a few weeks, and there's a few scribbles on a Post-It note I'd like to share.

The thing to remember through all this is the point of a talk (or lecture, or seminar, or whatever you want to call it). You are trying to convey a message, and most of the time that message is "Look how brilliant I am". Seriously. You are using your work to convince people in the audience to think "Hey! This cove deserves a degree!" or "Hey! I'd really like this person to work in my lab", or even "I'm glad I employed this person in the first place". Anything that distracts (or detracts) from your message is a bad thing.

That is why I've come down so heavily on the presentation aspect. It does matter, because people (being human) will focus on what they perceive to be wrong, and you do not want them thinking about the bad when they could (should) be focusing on your brilliance. Now, obviously you're not going to please everyone all the time, but you can certainly put your thumb on the scales.

All these points arise from sitting through various seminars. Unfortunately it's not just students who make basic errors; the pros do it too. A couple of weeks ago an email came round the 'academics' mailing list in the Cage, noting that our courses were getting a bad rap in the national press. We've all got something to learn.

The first point I'm going to make is so obvious I'm surprised it needs to be said. But if you get it wrong it's probably the one thing that will make people think "What a prat". It's so important that I'm going to put it on a separate line:

Spell check your slides.

Honestly, this is not difficult (and I'm not talking about technical terms, I'm referring to common words). On my computer at least, questionable words are automatically underlined, but the ability to check spelling in any document has been standard for essentially for ever in computing terms. And if a word looks all right to you but is flagged by your spell checker (Americanisms are a big gotcha, especially because the Americans themselves are deeply confused about -ise, -ize and -yse), then look it up. The OED is free to use from a USyd computer, so make use of it.

Related to this, if you're writing complete sentences rather than bullet points then check the grammar. This is slightly more difficult, but ask someone in the lab to check your slides for you. And if you're dyslexic you should do this anyway (spell checkers will not tell you if 'their' or 'there' is correct in context, for example).

Let's make that more formal. Even if you are an English geek, you should practise your talk in front of a friendly audience before you do it for real, so that they can spot any glaring errors that you have made. Proofreading shows respect for your intended audience. You can work out the implications of that for yourself.

Also remember that certain sad bastards (ahem) delight in looking for words in protein sequences. Find them yourself first; make a joke of it if you like.

Check that your slides are legible, from the back of the room in which you will give your talk. Easy to do, very few do it. Nigel makes a good point from the presentation point of view that serif fonts are generally bad when projected. Times New Roman is just one example of this.

Similarly, the use of colour can make or break a presentation. I still prefer plain black on a plain white background for clarity, with maybe an institutional crest in a corner and a coloured bar (horizontal or vertical) for relief. Recall that 10% of your audience might be colour-blind. Time spent on designing a flashy theme is time better spent on experiments, writing or going to the pub. You are not trying to sell pharmaceuticals to impressionable physicians, you are trying to demonstrate how clever you are. Just because Powerpoint and Keynote have these flashy templates does not mean you have to use them. Remember, you do not want to distract people from your message.

Which leads nicely into the next point: Transitions. I loathe Powerpoint transitions. Most of us have seen them all before and they're boring and, again, distracting. I have to admit that Keynote has one or two nice ones, but they're likely to become just as clichéd in a couple of years' time.

At the opposite end of the spectrum from yellow on blue Comic Sans with whizzing transitions is Sir Paul Nurse. Sir Paul gave a talk a couple of years ago at my institute in Cambridge, and boggled us all by hand-drawing his slides on the fly, on the OHP. Unless you are a very good artist, I do not recommend you try this, at least not until you're as famous as he is.

Keep your slides simple. One message per slide. One, at the most two, graphs or figures and no more than five bullet points — but not on the same slide as your graph! Highlight key points. Do not write out what you are going to say (more on this further down). Try to make all your slides legible without needing to turn down the room lights. This is difficult and not always possible.

The trick is to imagine that Professor Sleepy has dozed off during your talk, and wakes suddenly during a crucial data slide. She should be able to look at your slide and at a glance understand your point. Consider whether you really need to show a sequence alignment. These are notorious to get right, and it's often better just to leave them out. Think about how you are going to show data: It's good to see raw data, but it's also good to see controls versus experimental in a clear, striking graph.

When you finally give the talk for real — and I hate practising talks; I can never get into the swing of it without an audience but as I say, it is essential to get others to proofread your slides and your verbals — there are more things to remember.

Your talk should be structured. There should be a clear introduction; start large and focus in on your speciality. Contextualize. Explain why you did what you did, and what you were trying to find out. Concentrate on the data, and never, ever merely read from the slide. We can see and read that for ourselves; the slides are there to show data and to remind you what to say, to expand upon the core message that you are showing us. Conclude with a clear message.

I don't think it's important whether you give your acknowledgments at the start or the end, or during the talk. When I've described work that a few people have done I like to start by naming and thanking, so that the audience knows who I'm talking about when I say "David suggested we do this". It's possibly better that students save it for the end, but it's not something I'm worked up about.

So you're standing, giving the talk of your life, and you're facing the screen. Wrong, wrong, wrong. When we used glass slides and projectors this was more excusable, but the chances are that you'll have a laptop between you and the audience. So look at the audience, and glance down at the laptop. Ideally you should not even need the slides to give your talk, so except for pointing out things of interest you should never have to look at the screen. Talk to us! If you find yourself unable to remember your slides, and without a screen in front of you, then stand slightly to the side so you can see the screen out of the corner of the eye. Remember you're trying to impress us, not the screen.

Do not rush. Do not whisper, but neither should you shout; project your voice. This takes practice. Use simple terms, not jargon, whenever possible. Pace yourself, and make sure people can understand you. Look directly at members of the audience to confirm that they are getting it (and don't get too depressed if people are asleep. It happens to all of us). Work on your delivery, on capturing and holding people's attention. Consider what you're wearing; again, give no one an opportunity to focus on you or your foibles rather than your message.

"Hold the bloody pointer still", it says here. Most distracting when the little red dot is jerking all over the place while you're talking. Don't fiddle with change in your pocket (my biggest fault!) but don't be afraid, within reason, to use your hands to describe or emphasize. Don't 'um' and 'er', and don't say 'kinda', 'like' or 'sorta'. You may say 'innit' for comic effect. Don't be afraid to use humour, but you had better make sure it really is funny. Don't forget the names of collaborators and colleagues.

At the end of the talk, make it obvious you've finished. If someone asks a question and you can barely hear them, repeat the question (ask them to repeat it if necessary) so that the entire audience can hear. Address the questioner but talk to the rest of the audience as well (a difficult trick. I'm still working on it). If you don't understand the question, ask the questioner to rephrase or repeat, and then repeat your understanding back to them to check (this rephrasing the question in your own words is a useful trick. It lets the rest of the audience hear the question, confirms that you're answering the right question, and gives you time to think). Don't be afraid to stop and take a drink if you're dry; this also gives you more time to think.

I get a real blast out of giving talks, and one of the most important things to remember is to have fun. It's a crucial skill to learn if you're going to make a career out of this game, so you may as well enjoy it. Finally, realize that criticism of your talk is not aimed at you personally. Take criticism constructively, and learn from it.

Looking for pictures of certain cell types on Google this afternoon (aside: we have no whole cell biology texts in the lab. It's all molecular!) I came across a spectacular image of a big, angry macrophage.

Astrographics turns out to have a whole heap of 'science and astronomy' (isn't astronomy a science?) images and merchandise. Dennis Kunkel makes a living, it would appear, out of making and selling these pretty pictures. He's a very lucky man.

I have here, on a Post-It note from long ago, a message that reads who thought Times New Roman was a good idea for slides?.

I scribbled it in disgust on trying to read a student's slides during the 'pre-Honours' talks early this year. The thing about TNR is that it works, barely, on paper. On your computer monitor it's pretty dire; but when projected onto a screen it is simply horrible. It is far too spindly to be read easily, and some of the letters look as if they are in serious danger of disappearing altogether.

There are lots of nice fonts on my computer, and on yours, that are more appropriate for displaying information to an audience. My friendly word of advice is to always check your slides in the context you will be displaying them for real, and if the text looks crap then change the font. Experiment.

But remember what you are trying to do, for just under that memo, written in a more severe hand during the subsequent presentation, I find But not Comic Sans!.

I am convinced that Comic Sans is the work of Lucifer. It has its place, and that place might well be Microsoft Bob speech bubbles, but today it is over-used, hackneyed and so very, very unprofessional (if you actually are making a comic, check out http://bancomicsans.com/fonts.html.)

It certainly does not belong on slide presentations, posters, scientific journals, or on supplier quotes.

M'learned colleague (let's call him Blofeld) upstairs says

IF the Black Knight doesn't make a quip about this, it'll be a sad day!

I, of course, WOULD be the one to do it, but I'd like to keep my job

But why do these people keep insist on producing such good material .... can you imagine how frustrating it is to be given so many 'set ups' and 'cues' and NOT be able to deliver the punchline!!

He is referring to this email:

I never realized science was meant to be a blood sport

— Dr Chou

These two emails appeared in my inbox earlier. Disappointingly, they were not related to each other.

(you'll have to click on this thumbnail to see it. Sorry about that)

The store will be closed from 3pm Friday 8 June.

That's all very well, but when the message is not sent out until 3:15 and I went down to get something at 3:05, it's a bit bloody late.

Grumph.

Overheard (grad student to under-student):

That's a lot of microlitres!

A very subtle way of saying "You screwed up your dilutions, didn't you?".

I have been whining about Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia where you can write any old rubbish.

The major problem I have with the project is its assumed authority. It is treated as a reliable source by, I guess, most of the population. The problem is that if you're looking something up in an encyclopedia then the chances are you don't actually know much about the subject, and therefore can not tell if your source is correct.

Those of us who have some knowledge about some things are shocked to find that Wikipedia is often wrong about our speciality. And then we become very worried because we have no idea if this failing extends to things we know little, or nothing, about. But it is safe to assume that it does so extend. This is not just restricted to Wikipedia of course: I have read a few stories in newspapers (national and local) where I have had insider knowledge about the reported event. And approximately half of the statements of fact in those stories are just plain wrong.

This does not seem to concern the editors of Wikipedia. They are more worried about due process than truth. So if you are looking up something on Wikipedia, your assumption that the author of the article and the editors know anything about what they are talking about is false. All you know is that the article has been written and edited in accordance with some rather arbitrary principles. These arbitrary principles, rather than verifiable truths, are the authority upon which Wikipedia is based.

Now, this would not be a problem, except that increasingly, students and professional scientists are turning to Wikipedia for answers. And people are writing their own websites based on Wikipedia articles. It is a house built upon sand, and we, as publicly-funded scientists, are failing the public if we do nothing about it. Ian points out that it is not worthwhile to write or correct articles, because in some frenzied pomo notion of fairness and equality facts and evidence count for nothing, and the 'wikizombies' (thanks Ian!), with their 'citation needed's and 'balance' and due process 'liberate' (which my thesaurus has as an alternative for 'pillage') scholarship from antiquated notions of 'truth' and 'verifiability'.

Evil triumphs if good people do nothing. So what do we do?

The problem with, say , a 'professional' wiki-type encyclopedia is that the people who we would want to contribute are those who are probably the busiest in their field, doing experiments and writing papers and raising grants and teaching students (who contributes most to Wikipedia? Those with most time on their hands. Hmm). So what we need is some kind of payback to entice scholars to write scholarly articles. Scientists are attracted by the prospect of cold, hard cash, or publications they can put on their CV. The former would mean that any such project would have to cost money to use (let's not even think about advertising revenue), which defeats the purpose of a free resource. We do have something close to this, in HowStuffWorks.com, but again, where is the authority?

So what about a peer-reviewed WikiScipedia? Jenny suggested that contributors should have "a PhD from an accredited university and a current and credible scientific affiliation". That would be a nightmare to organize, and does not get around the quis custodiet ipsos custodes?[0] problem. Peer review works (mostly) for scientific journals, and is where textbooks (eventually) get their authority. Any scientist could contribute; all would be invited to write articles aimed at a reasonably educated (but pre-Bachelor's) adult, but all articles are reviewed by experts in the field. Articles could fall under 'Cutting edge' or 'Established dogma' categories. Maybe there should be two sections; a 'pending review' area where anyone could write/edit and an 'authoritative', peer-reviewed section. And while we're at it, let's at least have pseudonymous if not completely nonymous peer review, so that there is accountability and partisan conflicts can be avoided. And did I say it would be free access?

It would be invaluable to school children, and could also go a long way to increasing the level of scientific literacy in the general population (hey, if you're going to dream, aim high).

It would be hard work to get going, but no more so than any other learned journal. Contributors would be able to cite articles on their CVs, and funding agencies, who are increasingly waking up to the whole communicating with the public idea, should also be happy. We'd need a sponsor to get going, ideally a publishing house already committed to the principle of Open Access, with a competent editorial team that has marketing oomph and a sufficiently large and diverse scientific address book.

Oh, hullo Nature. Doing anything tonight?

Argh! I have never known a workplace so bad for static shocks. Every time I brush past the office or open the door, ZAP!

Going to have to start wearing gumboots. Or one of those stupid things you see hanging from the rear ends of certain cars.

Just over a month ago I wrote about Elsevier Reed funding arms fairs. On my return from the lab retreat (very nice, thank you for asking) I find an email saying

Reed Elsevier announced today that it is to exit the defence exhibitions sector. This portfolio of five shows is part of Reed Elsevier’s global Business division and represents around 0.5% of group annual turnover.

Sir Crispin Davis says

[I]t has become increasingly clear that growing numbers of important customers and authors have very real concerns about our involvement in [arms fairs. They] are no longer compatible with Reed Elsevier's position as a leading publisher of scientific, medical, legal and business content

Today, the Lab is 'retreat'ing to Hyam's Beach in Jervis Bay, home of the whitest sands in the world (an interesting claim, that can not be corroborated online. Has anyone got a recent Guinness I could have a shufti at?). We've booked three houses for two nights, and have planned a barbecue, and that's about it.

I'm taking my fishing rods, tackle and hipflask, and me and the Younger Pawn and Dr Chou En are going to try to catch something to throw on the barbie. Failing that, Chou En and myself will sit on the rocks under the full moon and pretend we're fishing. The Black Queen is packing the steaks and sausages and home-brew ginger beer, and one of the students is taking about three thousand board games. It should be fun.

Floppy bits are bad!

Well, it cracked up the Black Queen during the lab meeting.