I had always intended to use this blog as day-to-day record of what it’s like being a PhD student. Unfortunately this proved to be unsuccessful. I never even got round to giving it a sensible title. Most of the posts I found myself writing were about silly mistakes that I made in the laboratory. Sometimes these mistakes were pretty funny and I thought...

Having to yell “MY ECKSPERRYMENTS DIDN’T WERK AGAYNE” in despair at the end of each day.

When they swim they can’t be bothered to use their legs. They just let their limbs dangle casually as they propel themselves aalong with their tail. Got your tail trapped in the car door? No problem if you’re an iguana – they can just casually shed it and carry on with their day no problemo. In central and South America they’re called “chicken of the...

French pressing squashes cells under loads of pressure until they go POP. The press consists of a hydraulic pump and a piston in a hollow metal cylinder which contains the cells. It’s a bit like making coffee in a cafetiere but much, much, worse. The cells are pushed through a valve where the plasma membrane/cell wall just can’t take it any more and...

I am now officially, WILLINGLY, New England Biolabs‘ slave for life. They sent me a new researcher starter pack for freeee. It is so awesome that I just want to buy everything from them, whether I need it or not. I got: Floatee (for incubating my Eppendorf tubes in a water bath) Very snazzy 1GB data stick on a string, so I can wear it around my neck...

I was doing some centrifuging today, spinning my bacteria shizzle at 40,000 rpm (185677.44 g). “Wow that’s zoomy and spinny” I thought. It came up in conversation “how fast could you spin a human in a centrifuge?” According to my friend Sophie, a person can survive up to 9 g at constant rotation. The average width of a person is 22 inches, so a ‘rotor’...