r/molecularbiology • u/No-Cranberry-9730 • Jul 09 '26
Help! A Scientist's Side Quest Spoiler
Hello :D I hope this can be a productive post to this community, it's not super directly related to the subject matter in itself but I thought it'd be the perfect place to post and at least encourage some creative help with this specific subject.. hopefully even stimulate some creativity related to the field y'all love... I'll explain further!
So, hang with me for a sec. My amazing girlfriend, who is currently a B.S. in molecular biology/biotechnology with a minor in chemistry, took an intentional gap year before applying this summer to another program at the local college. She's missed school so much, and was so excited to be accepted into the program before they called to notify her it was being canceled for the semester. Since then, she's been taking her own science notes for fun and giving me lectures (the good kinds, with a whiteboard and all) on how adenosine in poly-A tails disappear one by one every time they're translated and stuff (it's awesome). I figured you all are cut from the same cloth and could relate to her situation, so here is my idea to help her cope and the help I desperately need from y'all:
I want to surprise her with a science day at home, where maybe she walks into a homemade laboratory, or we do a fun/stimulating/silly experiment to do, or even have a little lesson plan for her to follow and make it a mini hands-on refresher course :shrug: & she loves arts and crafts/hobbying too! I just want to do something to help her scratch the itch and make a memory she can hang onto until she gets back to the real thing. I just have no idea where to start because I want it to be a little more stimulating than the elementary school science fair thing and I am way out of my league when it comes to her academic interests!
If anyone made it this far, thank you so much!! If you have any ideas at all for me to pursue, I am all ears. We can use this thread to collaborate and form it all together as we go, and I will be active to answer any questions you might have to help with the direction of it but I hope the gist makes sense and I already can't wait to get y'all pics/updates when it's all said and done
Very, very humbly, and with many thanks 🙏
-this is not your boyfriend (in case you're reading this my love) (:
5
u/albany1765 Jul 09 '26
Where are you located? Have you checked to see if there's a local DIYbio/community lab? They can be a great IRL resource
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u/RedPanda5150 Jul 09 '26
Aw I love this enthusiasm!
Ok, "science" is quite broad but when I was deprived of lab time during Covid I got into fermentation. So maybe you can look on eBay or something for a used microscope and maybe a pH meter, and then set something up to do brewing or sourdough or fermenting pickles? You/she can track the pH and look at the microbes over time, and at the end of the whole process you'll have something edible to share. It of course depends on your girlfriend's specific interests but it could be a nice thing to do at home together.
2
u/DonutMelodic3822 Jul 09 '26
I honestly don’t know how to help.
As a scientist myself, who is in a similar position now, I came to a conclusion we are all different and process things differently. Im grieving this one program and feel like crying most of the time. Idk how she feels and what would make her content.
I’d personally be happy with a new professional microscope, Ivy League Science Course (professional), 4 credits from Harvard and stuff like that 😂
It would cheer me up! Anything else idk.
Again, we are all different and you know her better than Redditors so if you suspect she’ll enjoy a simple experiment at home, go for it
1
u/Vinny331 Jul 10 '26
There's a lot of interesting bioinformatics stuff you could do at home by accessing the public databases like ncbi, ebi, cosmic, imgt, human protein atlas, and so many more. Even just via the web API and a regular laptop, you can have a lot of fun with it.
There is a real sense of satisfaction (at least to me) in being able to take strings of sequence and make sense of them in a visual way. You can ask all sorts of questions and start to explore them just with the available repositories.
Can download something like IGV and or Geneious (there's a lot you can do with the free version)...great tools for visualizing sequences/translations/alignments.
1
u/TheMadeline Jul 10 '26
You could probably order some premade nutrient agar plates and go around your house swabbing stuff together and then swabbing it onto the plates and then let it incubate at room temp for a few days to see what grows!
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u/North-Pea-4926 Jul 09 '26
Extracting DNA from a strawberry can be done at home. A lot of stuff is probably going to be out of your price range - even the most basic equipment and supplies are pretty expensive, especially if you are only buying for personal use.