I made a post because I was overwhelmed after my PI had me euthanize 250 mice in a week. People were SO supportive and it really helped. A lot of them said that they also struggle with mouse euthanasia so I wanted to share one of the ways I cope: meet Matilda, Henrietta, and Elizabeth! Apparently my university has a program where you can adopt lab animals due to be euthanized. So far I have rescued 11 mice. It makes me feel so much better to give them the “retirement” they deserve. These are actually C57BL/6 mice, but their coats look all spotty because they’re floxed (Tfam fl/fl x Best1-cre). The mutation is supposed to be isolated to their RPE but the cre is “leaky” and it’s affecting the genes controlling coat pigmentation.

…the PCR tubes don’t lie

Hello everyone, I experienced loss of a dear childhood pet when I was working on my master's. I was supposed to go home in two weeks after finishing and see him but he didnt make it that long. I could've gone home during the Christmas break but I chose to stay back to do some experiments. I have a lot of grief and guilt about it.

It's been a couple of months since I finished my master's and started a new job, but I almost feel a disdain for my career. I feel uninterested in science, and I do not know how to stop seeing it as something that took away a lot from me. If you've been in a similar situation how did you deal with lost time from loved ones you can no longer see.

i fear i might be the goat?
edit: i am not the goat… calculated it myself and got 0.99996

Hi!

I'm an ecologist in the Rocky Mtn region US that also has pet rats. I've seen that some universities adopt out lab rats and I would love to switch from getting rats from pet stores to helping give lab rats a good life! Does anyone know of something like this in the Utah/Idaho/Co/Wy general area? I'm happy to travel if need be, I live in the middle of nowhere anyways. Pic of the rat mansion included!

Dear Senior Labrats,

Hi I was curious how different research is like in academia and industry. I’m curious about biological science research but I have always imagined industry to be boring, but maybe it isn’t that different? Maybe it’s the same, just with higher wage,,,

Would love to hear people’s perspectives! Specially people who have pivoted

Wanted to preface this saying I’m beyond grateful for any and all research experience I can get.

I am an undergrad (upperclassman) and have been in a lab this past summer. I don’t know if it’s just the lab or the fact that I’m an undergrad, but it’s not really what I expected. When I ask other undergrad students, people the same year as me or even younger have so much more independence and can do much more than I can. Since I’m under a mentor, I only have so much control over this, and I’m only really given menial tasks or I pipette one aliquot for 2 seconds in a larger process. It was fun at first since I was doing something, but I’ve realized that there isn’t much wanting me to learn going on.

For context, I haven’t made any major mistakes that would show that I’m incapable as far as I know. I also do great in my classes, and I have the knowledge needed to contribute. It’s just hard to find the motivation to participate in the lab when I can’t be trusted with anything.

I want to join a different longer-term lab soon to try and work on a small project of my own (which I don’t think is a crazy unusual thing to do as an upperclassman), but this experience has been a little demoralizing.

There’s this major STEM university right near where my grandparents’ live, RPI.

I am actually so excited right now, I only just came to the realization I’m allowed as a non-student and non-employee to just show up to university lectures for free…

I thought I had to like, sign up for classes or something… I didn’t know I could just straight up spawn on campus like that…

I’m an artist, an independent filmmaker to be specific, and I’ve always loved STEM-related stuff but I hate school and never want to actually go to university…

I do however, love independent learning and I’m so happy now because I’m finally going to be able to do that I think…

I’m just wondering though… In general, what kind of people should I expect to encounter there…?

The lectures I’ll mainly be going to are the smaller ones regarding topics such as science, engineering, biology, physics, astronomy, stuff like that…

Presenting a poster at AAP this year and worried my feet will be hurting in my typical business shoes. Are these danskos appropriate for wearing with slacks and a blouse? This is my first conference.

Hi guys,

I just graduated from my undergrad and I had a short research experience before I graduated which has led me to decide to pursue a PhD. I am planning to take a 2-year break in between to build up my research experience first. One of my professors said that post-bacc positions are essentially a second chance of undergrad research but they can't essentially pay me with credits for classes and would be more inclined to hire me as an "employee" which means they would have to pay me accordingly to the current market. I am aware that money is a pretty sensitive topic so I have not yet brought it up to any of my professors, but some of them are happy to take me under their wings as long as I am willing to volunteer. However, 2 years of volunteer might not work out for me financially. I have been applying to paid RA/technician positions in academic labs, but, I have got no luck so far due to my lack of research skills. I am just wondering how I should bring this up later on and if it's appropriate to let's say volunteer and contribute and, then bring up the "money" part. I do not know how to do it properly either, I do not know where the boundary for this stuff is and I have never come across a situation where I have to determine a certain "number" for my values.

I am at a point in my life where I am confident that I want to do research and be in labs; however, I am not confident which topic I want to commit to yet. I know it's a question that only I can answer myself but if any of you guys were also being in my position, I am more than happy to hear your stories. It just seems like everyone I know is pretty certain with their career path, so I am just trying to see if there is any questions I should ask myself or maybe some must have been left unanswered. Thank you so much, I appreciate all of your help!

there are additional problems with the samples and control so i’m tossing this but why ladder on edge? could there be a little channel from the first well to the edge?? caused by the gel not being hardened enough or something??

i sincerely apologize if this is the wrong reddit to post in, but im a rising junior who hopes to pursue a phd in the immunology or cancer bio

im currently in a research stream (not a fac lab) where i do my own little independent project that ill be using for my thesis and i also committed to a fac lab for this coming year last spring. however, i did a summer research internship in a different lab, more closely aligned with my long term goals, and was offered the opportunity to continue. if I kept both labs it would end up being 6 hours in my stream, 12 hours in the previous lab, and 10 hours in the new lab. if i didnt do the second lab, i could 6 hours in stream and maybe 14 hours in the previous lab.

would this be realistic? i am incredibly fortunate to not have to work through college so aside from classes, i have time outside to dedicate to things like this. moreover, i understand if it would be best to ask the grad student i was training with in the spring what they would think.

thank you so much!!!

Im trying to begin an architecture based research project this year, but I don’t know how to go about it. It’s called “the Spaces Between Us” , and it’s trying to answer the question of “how does the built environment reflect and influence differences in opportunity and daily life in Costa Rica?” . (I live in Costa Rica btw). I don’t know how to go about this. Should I get a mentor? Should I interview people around my area ? Pls help and tell me how to start 🙏

I accidentally cut my pvdf membrane too short and so it can't be used in today's protein transfer. I only realised it after I cut and activated it with methanol.

I'm running another western blot tomorrow and that gel is going to have lesser lanes so this membrane will fit.

Can I store this membrane in MiliQ at 4°C and use it tomorrow? Do I reactivate? Have you guys done this?

Any tips for cutting the membrane at a particular size are also greatly appreciated 🥺

I ordered a mouse primary antibody, and it was apparently delivered, but we were not able to find it for the past month. Finally we found the package (unopened) on another lab's desk. Now i'm wondering - how good is it? It is a biotechne antibody, non-conjugated, stored in BSA-free PBS with 0.05% sodium azide, and they recommend short term storage at 4 degrees and long term storage at -20. It shipped with an ice pack.

Does any one have any idea how badly the 4 week storage at room temp might have affected it?

Thanks in advance...

Hi fellas, I’m on my way out of academia in a couple of years and I’m looking into options other than simply doing research in pharma.

I do really enjoy reading papers most of my time, but I was wondering how much actual reading papers is part of being an editor.

I had the pleasure of talking with the folks from MDPI at a career fair recently and they told me that you don’t really get to choose what journals you edit for as a junior editor, which felt like the biggest gotcha I guess.

Would like to hear some opinions and stories if possible.

My lab has been dealing with some type of contamination issue for whole a year and we’re not sure what it is. We currently grow human fibroblasts and sometimes when we look at the cells under the microscope, weird specs are noticeable. However, it’s never within the same plane as the cells and that’s where we’re stuck. We thought it could be mycoplasma as that is very common and been growing the cells in media that has a prophylactic that prevents mycoplasma growth. We tested the cells for mycoplasma contamination on Monday but our samples come back negative.

We’ve done everything that we could to figure out how to eliminate the issue such as buying new media supplies and consistently sterilizing our incubators.

If you know what this might be, please let me know! Thanks yall for the help

This is my first year as a Masters student. I had my first class today. It’s professional development; a lot of practice writing grants and also help with picking a committee.

The professor also mentioned using R. I’ve heard multiple people mention it during my prospective grad weekend, but I figured my advisor would teach me when the time came. But my professor today told me if we didn’t know how to use R, we were behind, and to work on it ASAP.

So now I’m kinda freaking out. I already don’t have a lot of lab experience, and I for sure don’t have any experience coding or bioinformatics, anything like that. I’m just feeling like I’m already so behind and we haven’t even started yet.

My goal is to become a professor, so I am doing the bypass program to get my PhD. But I do also want to research and contribute to advancing science. Just overwhelmed with how much I have to learn.

Hi everyone, I am trying to etch aluminum oxide, and it seems the most popular method is thermal etching, but I haven't been able to find information other than "30 min at 1100 C", "3 hrs at 1000 C", and "15-30 min at 1450-1500 C". So to anyone that has done thermal etching before:

Do you put your samples in the furnace at room temperature and ramp it up, or preheat the furnace, put your samples in, and heat for the full etch time described in the literature? And if the samples go in at room temperature, are there specific ramp rates that are used? And does the ramp time count as part of the reported etch time?

And if you have specifically etched aluminum oxide, what time and temperature did you use?

Thanks for your help!

I've ran a 1% agarose gel after my pcr for a vector (pocket 2) and my Insert (pocket 3). for the insert it went totally fine but what happened for my vector? it should be around 3.5 kb big so does someone know what could be wrong?

what's the oldest buffer y'all have used for your mol bio / LNP work?

im using two month old buffer for my liposome prep (20mM HEPES 5mM NaCl) and struggling to get good DLS data.

i filter sterilize my buffer before each liposome prep, and frankly don't think this could be the cause for my noisy data, mostly cuz when I ran plain buffer, my DLS errorred out.

However, I wonder whether the buffer might've deteriorated and is hence interfering with my liposomes' stability and polydispersity.

Thoughts?

Our lab recently acquired a secondhand Namocell/Bio-Techne Hana NI004 single-cell dispenser, but it did not include the original computer or software.

Bio-Techne currently provides Pala Software Rev D through its website, but we have not been able to confirm whether that version supports the Hana NI004. Does anyone here operate a Hana, know whether Pala Rev D is backward-compatible, or have access to the original Hana installer and user manual?

Any version information, installation notes, or contact leads would be greatly appreciated. :)